Suchergebnisse

The economic crisis in Spain since 2008 has translated in 2012 into crises of social and political representation, and a drop in the quality of democracy. The public policies designed by the government of Mariano Rajoy, during his first year in office and under European tutelage, have been characterized by austerity measures and budget cuts. These policies have increased unemployment, with the consequent social mobilizations and severe public criticism regarding the performance of the political system. This dissatisfaction also entailed a distancing by the citizenry from mainstream political parties and a questioning of the viability of the functioning of a decentralized model of State in autonomous communities. Adapted from the source document.

The Spanish electoral system is sufficiently heterogeneous in that inequality between relevant regions in the study yields political consequences. We propose the distinction of three subsystems election and find that they have different effects on the party system, in terms of fragmentation and proportionality. Moreover, inequality in the size of constituencies induces most differentiated awards, while inequality in the apportionment of seats also induces distinct overrepresentation awards. Both factors accumulate in the prize location of the votes which translates into a conservative partisan bias. Adapted from the source document.

Taken from an infinite set of divisors methods, the D'Hondt formula is the unique rule that maximizes the minimum number of seats for parties exceeding average size but not surpassing an absolute majority of the votes. This property is also shared, in the quota set of methods, by the Droop formula. At the same time, these two methods are those most commonly observed in practice. This paper relates the property stated to the observed facts. If parties try to maximize the minimum number of seats for a given share of votes, then the D'Hondt formula should be chosen. This choice is consistent with rational parties that make institutional choices in an uncertain environment. Adapted from the source document.