Electoral systems and political context : how the effects of rules vary across new and established democracies / Robert G. Moser, University of Texas, Austin, Ethan Scheiner, University of California, Davis.

"This book highlights how new and established democracies differ from one another in the effects of their electoral rules"-- Provided by publisher

"Why Don't Electoral Rules Have the Same Effects in ALL Countries? In the early 1990s, Japan and Russia each adopted a very similar version of a "mixed-member" electoral system. In the form used in Japan and Russia, in elections to a single house of the legislature each voter cast two ballots: one for a candidate in a single-member district (SMD) and one for a party under proportional representation (PR). In the SMD races, both countries used first-past-the-post (FPTP) rules, meaning that the candidate winning the largest number of votes in the district wins the race, even if tallying under a majority of all the SMD ballots cast. In PR, parties win shares of seats roughly in proportion to their share of the party vote. In both Japan and Russia, the PR systems used closed-list rules, meaning that prior to each election central party leaders put together a rank-ordered list of candidates to determine which individuals would win seats if the party won representation in PR. In PR in both countries, voters were only given the chance to choose a single pre-set party list. Both countries used mixed-member-majoritarian (MMM) electoral systems, meaning that the SMD and PR components of the system were "unlinked"--Seats won by parties in one tier (e.g., SMDs) did not affect the number of seats allocated to the party in the other tier (e.g., PR). In short, both Russia and Japan adopted very similar forms of mixed-member electoral systems. In both countries, it was widely expected that the different rules would promote particular outcomes:"-- Provided by publisher

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Print version record.

Cover; Electoral Systems and Political Context: How the Effects of Rules Vary Across New and Established Democracies; Title; Copyright; Dedication; Contents; Tables and Figures; Abbreviations; Glossary of Key Terms; Acknowledgments and Note on the Online Appendix; Introduction: Why Don't Electoral Rules Have the Same Effects in All Countries?; STUDYING MIXED-MEMBER SYSTEMS TO UNDERSTAND THE EFFECTS OF ELECTORAL RULES; Types of Electoral Rules; The Types of Rules We Examine in this Book; How Mixed-Member Systems Are Useful to Analysts:Controlled Comparison.

How Mixed-Member Systems Are Useful to Analysts:Controlled ComparisonHow Mixed-Member Systems Are Useful to Analysts:Controlled Comparison; THE ARGUMENT IN BRIEF; Specific Examples; NOTE TO THE READER ON HOW WE PRESENT THE ANALYSIS; PLAN FOR THE BOOK; IMPLICATIONS; 1 When Do the Effects of Electoral Systems Divergefrom Our Expectations?; WHY STUDY ELECTORAL SYSTEMS?; SOCIAL SCIENCE AND THE USE OF ASSUMPTIONS; DIFFERENCES AMONG AND WITHIN DEMOCRACIES; Established versus New Democracies; Differences in Party System Institutionalization; THE CONDITIONALITY OF ELECTORAL SYSTEM EFFECTS.

ASSUMPTIONS AND ELECTORAL RULESELECTORAL SYSTEM THEORIES AND THEIR ASSUMPTIONS; ELECTORAL SYSTEMS, STRATEGIC VOTING, AND THE NUMBER OF PARTIES; Information Is Assumed to Be Widespread; Less Information, Less Strategic Defection, Less Duverger; THE INTERACTION BETWEEN ELECTORAL SYSTEMS AND SOCIAL DIVERSITY; Not Everyone Votes Strategically; Another Possible Pattern; ELECTORAL SYSTEMS AND THE ELECTION OF WOMEN; Not All Parties Perceive an Advantage to Nominating Women; SMDs Do Not Always Require a Large Percentage of the Vote; Differences between New and Established Democracies.

THE USEFULNESS OF WIDE VARIATIONTHE CONTAMINATION CRITIQUE AND ITS SHORTCOMINGS; The Contamination Critique; Shortcomings in Analysis of Contamination; Countervailing Evidence; Contamination Bias and the Controlled Comparison Approach; DEFINING AND CLASSIFYING MIXED-MEMBER ELECTORAL SYSTEMS; Linked Tiers; Electoral Formula; PR District Magnitude and Legal Threshold; SMD/PR Ratio; CONCLUSIONS; APPENDIX 2. CROSS-NATIONAL ANALYSIS OF THE NUMBER OF PARTIES AT THE SMD LEVEL: SMDS IN MIXED-MEMBER SYSTEMS DO NOT HAVE MORE CANDIDATES THAN SMDS IN PURE SYSTEMS.

English.

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