Suchergebnisse

Unexplored stylized facts on OECD countries suggest that plurality electoral systems are associated with higher openness to immigration. We propose an explanation based on a retrospective voting model where immigration hurts voters but benefits a rent-seeking policymaker who appropriates part of the income generated by immigrants. To be reappointed, the policymaker must distribute the compensation. With respect to proportional systems, plurality systems make it possible to compensate only a few decisive districts and leave after-compensation rents higher, therefore producing higher immigration. In our model, non-decisive districts receive no compensation at all under both electoral systems, providing a rationale for widespread anti-immigration attitudes. Notably, our results also help to explain why governments often seem more pro-immigration than do voters. Finally, our model predicts that opposition to immigration is more geographically dispersed in plurality systems. Basic evidence supports this prediction.

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

"This introduction considers the long-lasting research interest of the Heidelberg research groups in electoral studies: elections and electoral systems. It underlines the fact that besides gathering electoral data and establishing time series of electoral results, the empirical work has always been concerned with the conceptual discourse that is based on national historical experiences and drawn up in a systemic manner. Our main methodological approach to electoral science is "to draw distinctions" (Spencer-Brown 1969), first with regard to concepts, and second with regard to contexts." (excerpt)

AbstractIn the absence of ideality, communities—and indeed Congress and the Justice Department—have taken action to enhance the "representativeness" of local policy‐making bodies. In spite of widespread preference for the single‐member district over the at‐large system where inequitable representation can be demonstrated historically, electoral reformers have other options with proven track records. This article reviews the various electoral systems with which communities have experimented during this century and offers some alternatives to "winner takes all".

It is obvious today that the democratic political regime cannot be considered reality without taking into account political parties; it is as obvious as the phenomenon of partidocracy, expressed through the quasi-total domination of parties in politics. Such judgements prompted the title of the book Stasiology and Electoral Systems. The book itself revives the term stasiology, introduced by M. Duverger in 1951, which defines the science of political parties but has not been used very much over the last decades. Its approach is explanatory and perspective alike, emphasizing the myriad of correl