Suchergebnisse

Die Vertretung von Wählerpräferenzen ist eine zentrale Aufgabe von Parlamenten, deren Gesetzgebung alle Lebensbereiche der Bürger betreffen. Wie Vertretung verstanden und gemessen werden kann und letztlich die Frage, wie Institutionen die Beziehung zwischen Parlamentsmitgliedern und Bürgern formen, ist indes schwer zu beantworten. Diese Studie bietet einen innovativen Ansatz, die Vertretung von Wählerpräferenzen durch Parlamentsmitglieder zu konzeptualisieren. Anhand des Vergleichs von schweizerischen Parlamentsabstimmungen mit den Resultaten von Volksabstimmungen werden zahlreiche Determinanten und Konsequenzen einer höheren oder tieferen Kongruenz zwischen Politiker- und Wählerentscheidungen untersucht. Der Fokus der Analyse liegt auf dem Einfluss von Wahlsystemen, etwa den Unterschieden zwischen der Verhältnis- und Mehrheitswahl und der Wirkungsweise der Wahlkreisgröße. Weitere Analysen beleuchten, unter anderem, den Zusammenhang zwischen Repräsentation und Wiederwahlchancen. In englischer Sprache. Representation - the linkage between citizens and members of parliament - is of paramount interest as legislation affects all areas of citizens' lives. However, "representation" is an elusive concept. How should "representation" be measured? How do institutions shape the relationship between members of parliament and citizens? This study offers a novel approach and dataset to conceptualize and analyze the representation of citizen preferences by parliamentary members. Drawing on the fact that Swiss citizens regularly cast referenda on the same policy proposals that members of parliament vote on, various determinants and consequences of higher or lower congruence between citizen preferences and politicians' votes are analyzed. While the focus is on the design of electoral systems (e.g., majoritarian vs. proportional representation and district

Die Vertretung von Wählerpräferenzen ist eine zentrale Aufgabe von Parlamenten, deren Gesetzgebung alle Lebensbereiche der Bürger betreffen. Wie Vertretung verstanden und gemessen werden kann und letztlich die Frage, wie Institutionen die Beziehung zwischen Parlamentsmitgliedern und Bürgern formen, ist indes schwer zu beantworten.Diese Studie bietet einen innovativen Ansatz, die Vertretung von Wählerpräferenzen durch Parlamentsmitglieder zu konzeptualisieren. Anhand des Vergleichs von schweizerischen Parlamentsabstimmungen mit den Resultaten von Volksabstimmungen werden zahlreiche Determinanten und Konsequenzen einer höheren oder tieferen Kongruenz zwischen Politiker- und Wählerentscheidungen untersucht.Der Fokus der Analyse liegt auf dem Einfluss von Wahlsystemen, etwa den Unterschieden zwischen der Verhältnis- und Mehrheitswahl und der Wirkungsweise der Wahlkreisgröße. Weitere Analysen beleuchten, unter anderem, den Zusammenhang zwischen Repräsentation und Wiederwahlchancen.In englischer Sprache.

ObjectivesThis study quantifies the quality of the median voter model (MVM) and analyzes whether personal characteristics explain legislative shirking.MethodsWe employ a natural measure for divergence between politicians and voter preferences by matching final roll‐call votes of politicians with referendum results. The relevance of personal characteristics for legislative shirking is analyzed by means of logit regressions.ResultsThe MVM outperforms a random decision benchmark when predicting the behavior of politicians regarding the revealed preferences of their constituencies, but the model fails to account for a substantial part of its theoretical prediction. Personal characteristics of politicians do not explain overall legislative shirking.ConclusionsPolicy predictions based on the MVM should be carefully considered because of failing convergence. Majority elections tend to crowd out personal characteristics of politicians as potential explanations for legislative shirking.

We exploit a natural measure of congruence between politicians and their constituency' bnm bnnb fgvhjuis preferences to directly quantify the extent of legislative shirking and evaluate the mechanism of the median voter model. The median voter model explains the behavior of politicians with respect to revealed preferences of their constituency about 18.8 percentage points better than a random decision benchmark. However, it fails to account for a substantial part of its theoretical prediction of convergence. Nevertheless, competition for voters under majority rule crowds out individual charact eristics and party affiliations as potential factors which explain legislative shirking.

The role of electoral incentives vs. selection is ideally analyzed in a setting where the same legislators are selected to decide on policies under different electoral rules and where voter preferences on policies can be precisely measured. This is the first paper to look at such a situation. The institutional setting of Switzerland allows us to observe the behavior of legislators who change from a proportionally-elected chamber to a majority-elected chamber of parliament with their electorate being the same in both chambers. Voter preferences are revealed in a large number of referenda. We causally identify behavioral changes of legislators who are chamber-changers in comparison to other legislators due to the respective electoral rules along three dimensions, all measured at the level of individual legislators: representation of revealed voter preferences for policies, party loyalty, and interest group affiliations. The evidence suggests that electoral incentives explain the behavioral response of chamber-changers towards voter preferences to such an extent that there remains no role for selection. Chamber-changers become less loyal towards their party and adapt their lobby group affiliations towards more district-oriented interests after having changed from a proportionally-elected chamber to a majority-elected chamber.

Die wirtschaftlichen und gesellschaftlichen Erfolge der Schweiz werden oft auf zwei für sie typische politische Institutionen zurückgeführt: direkte Demokratie und Föderalismus. Wir vermuten, dass eine dritte, bisher weitgehend vernachlässigte Institution eine ähnlich wichti- ge Rolle spielt: ihr Wahlsystem. Die Schwei z hat eine einmalige Mischung von Proporzwah- len (Verhältniswahlen) für die Gemeinde- und Kantonsparlamente sowie den Nationalrat und Majorzwahlen (Mehrheitswahlen) für die besonders einflussreichen Politiker, die Regie- rungsmitglieder auf Gemeinde-, Kantons- und Bundesebene sowie die Ständeräte. Dabei finden die Majorzwahlen nicht wie international üblich in Einerwahlkreisen statt, sondern in Wahlkreisen mit mehreren Sitzen. Wir argum entieren, dass die Proporzwahlen eine grosse Vielfalt an Parteien und politischen Meinungen hervorbringt, zugleich aber die Majorzwahlen mit mehreren Sitzen die besonders fähigen und erfolgsorientierten Politiker kraftvoll in die Mitte des politischen Spektrums lenken, weshalb wir dieses Wahlverfahren als Superma- jorz bezeichnen möchten. Wir halten diese besondere Kombination aus Proporz und Majorz für eine wichtige Ursache der für die Schweiz typischen Konkordanz und hohen politischen Stabilität. Dieses fruchtbare Wahlsystem ist auf andere Länder und Gebietskörperschaften übertragbar.

Electoral systems determine the role that representatives' party affiliations play in political representation. According to conventional expectations, party affiliation drives the behavior of representatives when they are elected under a proportional system, while majoritarian systems mute the role of party affiliation by forcing politicians to converge to the median position of their constituency. This study directly tests these predictions within a common party system by matching referenda decisions of constituents with voting behavior of their representatives who are elected either under a majoritarian or proportional system.

Abstract:
While most observers feel that interest groups influence parliamentary decisions, direct evidence on this topic is scarce. Matching parliamentary votes with referendum results helps to bridge this gap. Existing research for politicians of the Swiss Lower House of Parliament suggests that the number of sectional and cause interest groups affect the quality of political representation. We extend this analysis to majority-elected politicians of the Upper House and by more than 50 referendum decisions for the Lower House. Our results show that the pure number of sectional or cause groups does not affect defection of politicians from their constituents which suggests that the generalizability of the results may be limited.

Electoral systems determine the role party affiliations play in political representation. According to conventional expectations, politicians' party affiliations should influence political representation when they are elected under a proportional system. In contrast, majoritarian systems force politicians to converge to the median position of their constituency, thus, muting the role of party affiliations to some extent. Using unique data, we test these predictions within a common party system by matching referenda decisions of constituents with voting behavior of their representatives, who are elected either by a majoritarian or proportional system.

We analyze political representation of preferences of different income groups by matching referendum outcomes for low, middle, and high-income voters with individual legislators decisions on identical policy proposals. Results indicate that legislators more closely represent preferences of rich voters than preferences of middle-income and poor voters, and legislators are more responsive towards the rich. Preferences of low, middle, and high-income voters are, however, correlated. Representation of income groups varies according to legislators party affiliations.

Combining referendum results with parliamentary votes of proportionally-elected politicians of the Swiss Lower House of Parliament, Giger and Klüver (American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming) find that sectional and cause interest groups affect the quality of political representation. We extend their analysis to a new dataset of majority-elected politicians of the Upper House. Our results show that sectional and cause groups do not affect defection of politicians from their constituents. This suggests that the electoral system moderates the influence of interest groups on political representation.