This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Miller, N.R. (2015), Election Inversions under Proportional Representation. Scandinavian Political Studies, 38: 4-25. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9477.12038, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9477.12038. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. Access to this work was provided by the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) ScholarWorks@UMBC digital repository on the Maryland Shared Open Access (MD-SOAR) platform. Please provide feedback Please support the ScholarWorks@UMBC repository by emailing
[email protected] and telling us what having access to this work means to you and why it’s important to you. Thank you. ELECTION INVERSIONS UNDER PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION Nicholas R. Miller Department of Political Science University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) Baltimore, Maryland 21250 USA
[email protected] June 2012 Revised January 2013 Second revision February 2013 Third revision August 2013 Fourth revision December 2013 Fifth revision April 2014 Sixth revision June 2014 Abstract Kurrild-Klitgaard (2013) has shown that proportional representation can produce ‘election inversions’ such that a coalition of parties collectively supported by a majority of voters fails to win a majority of parliamentary seats, and he identifies several empirical examples under the Danish electoral system. However, Kurrild-Klitgaard’s examples result from imperfections in its proportional representation system introduced to serve goals other than proportionality. Here I carry Kurrild- Klitgaard’s analysis a step further by showing that election inversions can occur even under the purest type of proportional representation — namely, one with (i) a single national constituency, (ii) no explicit seat threshold, and (iii) a highly proportional electoral formula.