Suchergebnisse

Current proposals for reform of the electoral college system are embodied in three plans which appear to be designed to enable the "conservatives" to elect a President of the United States. Since 1932, the present electoral college system has compelled both parties to nominate presidential candidates who advocate policies devised to win the votes of conscious ethnic, religious, and economic groups in metropolitan centers, where these minorities hold a balance of power in populous states controlling large blocs of electoral votes. Consequently, all recent presidential candidates have supported social security, collective bargaining, and civil rights legislation. An inspection of congressional roll calls discloses the rather obvious fact that a number of Republicans and southern Democrats hardly approve of these and other so-called Fair Deal measures.

There were no competitive elections until the very last years of Soviet rule. A choice of candidate, however, became possible after 1988, and in 1993 under Boris Yeltsin an entirely new Constitution provided for the election of a two-chamber assembly, half through a national party-list contest and half through a contest among candidates in single-member districts. The discussions that preceded the introduction of these arrangements, and that continued afterwards, ranged the supporters of majoritarianism (including the president and the regionally-based upper house) against the supporters of a mixed system that included party lists (favoured by most members of the Duma or lower house). For majoritarians, a system based on single-member constituencies would keep deputies closer to their constituents, and it would disadvantage their political opponents, particularly the Communists. For those who favoured a system that included national party lists, it would give coherence to the Duma and encourage deputies to address the needs of the country as a whole. These sharp divisions helped to ensure that there were no significant changes in the laws that regulated the 1995 and 1999 Duma elections.

There were no competitive elections until the very last years of Soviet rule. A choice of candidate, however, became possible after 1988, and in 1993 under Boris Yeltsin an entirely new Constitution provided for the election of a two-chamber assembly, half through a national party-list contest and half through a contest among candidates in single-member districts. The discussions that preceded the introduction of these arrangements, and that continued afterwards, ranged the supporters of majoritarianism (including the president and the regionally-based upper house) against the supporters of a mixed system that included party lists (favoured by most members of the Duma or lower house). For majoritarians, a system based on single-member constituencies would keep deputies closer to their constituents, and it would disadvantage their political opponents, particularly the Communists. For those who favoured a system that included national party lists, it would give coherence to the Duma and encourage deputies to address the needs of the country as a whole. These sharp divisions helped to ensure that there were no significant changes in the laws that regulated the 1995 and 1999 Duma elections.

Over the past decade, the mixed system became the fastest growing variety of electoral systems used in elections for national legislatures. Opinions about the reasons for the popularity of mixed systems in the research literature still vary. There are no cross-national studies in political science that would link the use of a mixed independent electoral system with the consolidation of an authoritarian order. Under authoritarianism, elections perform three functions: imitation, control and signaling. These functions set the structure of incentives for choosing an electoral formula. The purpose of my study is to determine the structure of incentives for the employment of mixed independent electoral systems under conditions of electoral authoritarianism. One of the main results of the study is that, in comparison with democracies, mixed independent electoral systems are more often used in authoritarian regimes. This is due to the fact that mixed independent electoral system provides an opportunity to effectively realize the imitation, control and signaling functions of elections under electoral authoritarianism.