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AbstractElectoral systems affect vote choice. While a vast literature studies this relationship by examining aggregate-level patterns and focussing on the interparty dimension of electoral rules, the convenience of analyzing this phenomenon by emphasizing the role played by the incentives to cultivate a personal vote generated by the system and matching voters with the party they vote for has been traditionally overlooked. In this article, we offer new evidence that documents the impact of the intraparty dimension of electoral systems on the levels of ideological voting registered in a democracy. Using spatial models of politics and employing data from the five waves of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, we find that ideological voting in proportional representation systems is higher when lists are either closed or flexible. Moreover, the results suggest that this effect is slightly amplified in the case of high numbers of district-level candidates.

Elements of an economic theory of political institutions are introduced. A variety of electoral systems are reviewed. Cox's threshold is shown to measure incentives for diversity and specialization of candidates' positions, when the number of serious candidates is given. Duverger's law and its generalizations are discussed, to predict the number of serious candidates. Duberger's law is interpreted as a statement about electoral barriers to entry, and this idea is linked to the question of the effectiveness of democratic competition as a deterrent to political corruption. The impact ofpost-electoral bargaining on the party structure in presidential and parliamentary systems is discussed.

An assembly & analysis of election returns & related data from several large cities; a general description of the pol'al system of these cities is given, & the effect of the systems on electoral competition is assessed. There seems to be no single or compound indicator of electoral competition equally meaningful for all O's & all electoral systems, but `closeness' & `incumbency', despite their limitations, seem the best for the purpose. Ceteris paribus, electoral systems have some effect on competition - as evidenced in Kansas City & Cincinnati; however, such factors as nat'l party preferences, the pattern of local interests & local pol'al traditions appear to outweight that effect. One can note that non-partisan elections & incumbency often foster pluralistic pot of immobilism; also that party preference is at least as important an influence on electoral competition as is party org, though variations in org appear to be of great importance for other characteristics of city gov. IPSA.

The concept of electoral deformation is conventional and its content is dependent on the given definition of representative democracy. Representative democracy's aim to achieve social volition is not fully achievable. The category of 'majority' is strictly an instrument of forming public authority and it cannot be equated with an expression of a given volition of the society's majority. All election systems deform, and the differences between them lie in the scale of that deformation. Electoral deformations are not only a consequence of the majority system, whether proportional or mixed. The author points in this regard to the deformations that stem from the legal ground-rules of election law in the form of a general, equal, secret, direct and free ballot. Further, he points to the relations between the size of an electorate and the size of the organs being elected, the stability of the election law, voter turnout rates, the role of public media and the power of public opinion polls. Election result research methods, such as voter behaviour gauges as well as gauges of the impact of an election system on a party system (indices of proportionality and disproportionality, effective numbers of parties, fragmentation and fractionalization of the party system, party aggregation and government relevance) should be applied in relation to a particular electoral system. Although these methods constitute very powerful research instruments, they do not set any methodological trends. This is because trends are derived from axiological and doctrinal priorities present in a singular electoral system.

The paper reviews the debate over the various dimensions of electoral systems. It presents the major options and the main empirical and normative arguments in support of each of them. The objective is to look at each option from the perspective of its proponents and to summarize their reasoning as accurately as possible. A good case can be made for each option. The paper also assesses the empirical arguments in the debate through a systematic review of the evidence. In most cases the evidence tends to substantiate the arguments, though often with nuances. Finally, the paper identifies the major values invoked in the debate. These values closely correspond to what the literature suggests as the basic functions of democratic representation.

A review essay on a book edited by M. Gallagher & P. Mitchell, The Politics of Electoral Systems (Oxford U Press, 2005).

Previous research has argued that representatives in mixed-member electoral systems adjust their behavior to the mode of their election, the so-called mandate divide. MPs elected in single-member districts focus on their district, whereas those elected through closed party lists focus on their party. Yet this ignores that candidates in mixed-member systems can run in a district and on their party's list concurrently. This paper presents a model of how the prospects of re-election in the district and through the party list affect the relationship between voters, candidates, and parties. It is shown that the dual candidacy option results in candidates focusing on their party in most instances. The model is applied to a novel data set on the allocation of federal road construction projects in Germany. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]

Mixed-member systems have been characterized as encouraging politicians to balance the activities that enhance their personal reputations and those of their parties. Another literature challenges that legislators from one tier are not likely to behave differently from those of the other. After summarizing this debate, data from Venezuela are used to look for evidence supporting either side in a series of behaviors that span the entire legislative process—from bill initiation to committee consideration to final vote. The author concludes that the "best of both worlds" versus "contamination" debate has led to a focus on mixed-member institutions, to the exclusion of other incentive structures confronting legislators and that we need to engage in more careful theorizing about when and where they should expect the electoral tier to have an impact on legislator behavior.

Examines the consequences of electoral systems for political parties/systems. Systemic characteristics are described for three distinctive types of party systems: two-party mechanics; moderate multipartyism; & polarized multipartyism. The decisive variable is systemic polarization, defined as "the distance between the most distant relevant parties." Several rules & hypotheses are offered based on the historical movement from majoritarian to proportional systems. It is contended that electoral systems shape party systems by constraining voters. Although effective systems tend to reduce the number of parties, plurality systems do not necessarily spawn two dominant parties. Plurality systems help to maintain existing two-party systems, but nationwide parties & "incoercible minorities" dispersed through the constituencies are needed to produce a two-party format. A party's relevance depends on its ability to affect other parties. Reasons for the successful shift toward a more majoritarian formula in France after 1959, but not in Italy after reforms of the mid-1990s, are discussed, along with "mixed" electoral systems, & factors related to electoral systems that affect the nature of parties. J. Lindroth

How party strategies vary by electoral system remains largely unexplored in election studies. Using qualitative and quantitative data from Spanish national and European elections, we test how party strategies diverge between districted electoral systems and systems using a single national district. We use the number of visits to districts by the party leaders to determine if targeted party strategies are driven by district magnitude, the share of the population entitled to vote in every district, the number of districts or the strength of parties' local organizations. Our results show that only the frequency of visits to districts by large parties are clearly affected by electoral systems and, more specifically, by the number of districts and district population.

The question how different electoral systems affect the representation of voters in parliaments has been a thorny issue for a considerable time. While some research suggests that first-past-the-posts systems should lead to a closer correspondence between the preferences of the electoral district's median voter and of its representative, other work concludes that in proportional representation (PR) systems, especially with open lists, candidates have an incentive to cultivate a strong personal vote. To study this question we take advantage of two peculiarities of the Swiss political system, namely that in the same chamber of the parliament some members are elected in PR and some in plurality elections and that direct democratic instruments play an important role. The second element, given that for a series of votes in parliament voters have to decide on the same issue, allows us to estimate the policy positions of members of parliament (MPs) and the median voter of each electoral district in the same policy space. We find that MPs elected in plurality elections are on average closer to their respective median voter. In PR districts MPs are much more widely spread around the median voters' preferences. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]