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District magnitude is regarded by many as the principal dimension that spans the classification of electoral systems. It is believed that larger parties prefer smaller district magnitudes & vice versa. Problems arise when one tries to be exact: how large must a party be for the single-member district system to be its most favorable choice? Will any party find a particular magnitude most preferable? This article extends existing theories of effective thresholds & proposes a seat-vote equation different from the cube law. With reasonable assumptions, I demonstrate that a certain district magnitude maximizes the expected seat share of a particular median-sized party in elections using the d'Hondt PR or SNTV formulae. The validity of this threshold model is verified by an empirical study on recent elections in Finland & Taiwan. 2 Tables, 2 Figures, 1 Appendix, 19 References. Adapted from the source document.

An influential literature predicts that incentives to provide local public goods are conditioned by how electoral systems expose a legislator to the need to seek a personal vote. Carey and Shugart theorize that district magnitude and ballot type interact affecting the legislators' personal vote-seeking behavior. Another literature challenges the idea that electoral systems affect the behavior of legislators, particularly in highly clientelist settings, usually associated with high poverty. I empirically evaluate these arguments on an original data set of local goods bills presented by legislators of the National Congress of Honduras between 1990 and 2009. Honduras changed its electoral system from closed-list to open-list in 2004 while keeping its district magnitude constant. The results suggest that the Ballot Type × District Magnitude interaction does not affect the behavior of legislators in small magnitude constituencies, where poverty is more significant. However, support for the hypotheses is found in the largest, more developed constituency where M is equal to twenty-three seats.

En este trabajo argumentamos que el efecto global de la magnitud de distrito sobre la representación femenina es ambiguo, dado que la magnitud de distrito puede aumentar tanto (a) la magnitud partidaria—lo que promueve la elección de mujeres—como (b) el número de listas que obtienen escaños—que la dificulta, ya que las listas marginales suelen estar encabezadas por hombres. Para identificar el efecto de interés, explotamos el hecho de que la Cámara de Diputados argentina y la legislatura de la provincia de Buenos Aires eligen la mitad de sus miembros cada dos años, lo que hace que algunos distritos tengan magnitudes distintas en elecciones concurrentes y de medio término. Los resultados reflejan un efecto positivo pero débil de la magnitud de distrito sobre la representación femenina, que puede descomponerse en un efecto positivo impulsado por la magnitud de partido y uno negativo explicado por el número de listas que obtienen escaños. Un análisis adicional de siete países latinoamericanos arroja resultados similares.