Suchergebnisse

We illustrate the power of "logical models" (Taagepera, 2007) by offering a three-parameter model of the relationship between the effective number of parties and electoral turnout that makes use of the constraints on what parameter values are internally coherent given boundary conditions to specify functional form, and seeks not optimal curve fitting but rather a direct model testing. In our model, one parameter reflects an effect that generally acts to increase turnout as the effective number of parties increases, another an effect that generally acts to decrease turnout as the effective number of parties increases, while a third parameter allows for baseline variation in turnout across countries (or within countries across elections). We fit this model to district-level data from 237 elections held in 17 countries, representing a wide range of electoral system types generating multi-party contests, with over 20,000 district-election observations. The basic intuition, that turnout rises to a peak as the effective number of parties increases and then falls slowly, fits our data pretty well. © 2013 © 2013 Elections, Public Opinion & Parties.

"Predicting Party Systems from Electoral Systems" published on by Oxford University Press.

This Research Note offers an alternative explanation for the variation over time in the number of parties in India's national party system. It is argued that the actual number of parties has changed in direct response to the incentives provided by the official rules and regulations on party recognition. In turn, the raw number of parties has shaped the effective number of parties positively: the more parties enter the electoral race the weaker the reductive impact of the plurality electoral system, which leads to an increase in the effective number of parties.

The mechanical effect of electoral systems, identified by Maurice Duverger, can be estimated by means of a quantitative model. The model predicts the range within which the effective number of parties in a district should fall for a given magnitude (number of seats) of the district. At the national level, a related model predicts the effective number of parties based on the effective magnitude and the number of seats in the national assembly. The institutional variables considered—magnitude and assembly size—define a great portion of the structural constraints within which a given country's politics must take place. The model developed provides a good fit to data in spite of its having been developed from outrageously simple starting assumptions. © 1993, American Political Science Association. All rights reserved.

В статье рассматривается процесс становления многопартийной системы на примере выборов в Государственную Думу Российской Федерации с 1993 по 2007 гг. Применение данных электоральной статистики и методики вычисления эффективного числа партий показывает, что для России в современных условиях наиболее приемлемой является двухпартийная система. ; In the article the process of formation of a multi-party system on an example of elections in the State Duma of the Russian Federation since 1993 till 2007 is considered. Application of the data of electoral statistics and technique of calculation of effective number of parties shows that the most comprehensible for Russia in modern conditions is the two-party system.

Themechanical effectof electoral systems, identified by Maurice Duverger, can be estimated by means of a quantitative model. The model predicts the range within which theeffective numberof parties in a district should fall for a given magnitude (number of seats) of the district. At the national level, a related model predicts the effective number of parties based on the effective magnitude and the number of seats in the national assembly. The institutional variables considered—magnitude and assembly size—define a great portion of the structural constraints within which a given country's politics must take place. The model developed provides a good fit to data in spite of its having been developed from outrageously simple starting assumptions.

This article explores how the party-defined dimensionality of political competition relates to the number of parties competing in legislative elections. It demonstrates that a mathematical relationship between the number of electoral parties and the literature's concept of dimensionality follows from the variables' definitions; conversely, it argues that exploring the relationship between the number of electoral parties and a different concept of dimensionality conveys new information. Hence, it first argues that how we conceptualize dimensionality matters. Redirecting attention to the latter relationship, it then hypothesizes that party system fragmentation will go hand-in-hand with the appearance of new conflicts on the political agenda when the electoral system is permissive. Using a time-series cross-sectional dataset that includes at its core a new measure of dimensionality, it finds reasonable support for the hypotheses; however, at the elite level, new parties are found to play less of a role in politicizing new conflicts than expected. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]

This article explores how the party-defined dimensionality of political competition relates to the number of parties competing in legislative elections. It demonstrates that a mathematical relationship between the number of electoral parties and the literature's concept of dimensionality follows from the variables' definitions; conversely, it argues that exploring the relationship between the number of electoral parties and a different concept of dimensionality conveys new information. Hence, it first argues that how we conceptualize dimensionality matters. Redirecting attention to the latter relationship, it then hypothesizes that party system fragmentation will go hand-in-hand with the appearance of new conflicts on the political agenda when the electoral system is permissive. Using a time-series cross-sectional dataset that includes at its core a new measure of dimensionality, it finds reasonable support for the hypotheses; however, at the elite level, new parties are found to play less of a role in politicizing new conflicts than expected.

This article presents the results of an experiment that looks at the relationship between electoral systems, strategic voting and the effective number of electoral parties. The study is based on experiments conducted with groups of 21 participants. The experiments consisted of a series of elections involving four parties. Two main treatments were applied. First, four different voter distributions were created. Second, there were two kinds of electoral systems under which the subjects voted. The analysis indicates that voters do not coordinate on the same parties under different electoral rules. Importantly, we find that the classic type of strategic voting identified by Duverger (1954) is reinforced by a different type of strategic voting identified by Cox (1997), namely 'strategic amplifying voting'. The results show that classic strategic voting reduces the effective number of electoral parties while strategic amplifying voting increases the latter. Overall, we show that voters' strategic behaviors mediate the impact of the electoral system on the effective number of electoral parties. Adapted from the source document.

This paper proposes a model of a legislature, formed by several parties, which has to vote for or against a certain bill in the presence of a lobbyist interested in a certain vote outcome. We show that the ease with which the lobbyist can manipulate a legislature decision increases with the number of elected parties, and, consequently, decreases with an electoral threshold. On the other hand, a lower electoral threshold increases the representativeness of a legislature. We combine these two effects in a notion of fairness. We show the existence of an electoral threshold that optimizes the fairness of a political system, which is close to 1–5%. Namely, the optimal threshold (in our sense) is close to thresholds that exist in most parliamentary democracies.