Proportionality Or Majoritarianism? in Search of Electoral Equity1
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Low-Magnitude Proportional Electoral Systems
The Electoral Sweet Spot: Low-Magnitude Proportional Electoral Systems John M. Carey Dartmouth College Simon Hix London School of Economics and Political Science Can electoral rules be designed to achieve political ideals such as accurate representation of voter preferences and accountable governments? The academic literature commonly divides electoral systems into two types, majoritarian and proportional, and implies a straightforward trade-off by which having more of an ideal that a majoritarian system provides means giving up an equal measure of what proportional representation (PR) delivers. We posit that these trade-offs are better characterized as nonlinear and that one can gain most of the advantages attributed to PR, while sacrificing less of those attributed to majoritarian elections, by maintaining district magnitudes in the low to moderate range. We test this intuition against data from 609 elections in 81 countries between 1945 and 2006. Electoral systems that use low-magnitude multimember districts produce disproportionality indices almost on par with those of pure PR systems while limiting party system fragmentation and producing simpler government coalitions. An Ideal Electoral System? seek to soften the representation-accountability trade-off and achieve both objectives. For example, some electoral t is widely argued by social scientists of electoral sys- systems have small multimember districts, others have tems that there is no such thing as the ideal electoral high legal thresholds below which parties cannot win system. Although many scholars harbor strong pref- seats, while others have “parallel” mixed-member sys- I tems, where the PR seats do not compensate for dispro- erences for one type of system over another, in published work and in the teaching of electoral systems it is standard portional outcomes in the single-member seats. -
Proxy Voting Guidelines Benchmark Policy Recommendations TITLE
UNITED STATES Proxy Voting Guidelines Benchmark Policy Recommendations TITLE Effective for Meetings on or after February 1, 2021 Published November 19, 2020 ISS GOVERNANCE .COM © 2020 | Institutional Shareholder Services and/or its affiliates UNITED STATES PROXY VOTING GUIDELINES TABLE OF CONTENTS Coverage ................................................................................................................................................................ 7 1. Board of Directors ......................................................................................................................................... 8 Voting on Director Nominees in Uncontested Elections ........................................................................................... 8 Independence ....................................................................................................................................................... 8 ISS Classification of Directors – U.S. ................................................................................................................. 9 Composition ........................................................................................................................................................ 11 Responsiveness ................................................................................................................................................... 12 Accountability .................................................................................................................................................... -
The Tyranny of the Super-Majority: How Majority Rule Protects Minorities
UC Irvine CSD Working Papers Title The Tyranny of the Super-Majority: How Majority Rule Protects Minorities Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/18b448r6 Author McGann, Anthony J. Publication Date 2002-10-01 eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California CSD Center for the Study of Democracy An Organized Research Unit University of California, Irvine www.demo.uci.edu This paper demonstrates that majority rule is the decision rule that provides most protection for the worst-off minority. Dahl (1956, 1988) argues that the values of popular sovereignty and political equality dictate the use of majority rule. However, there are other values that we need to take into account besides popular sovereignty and political equality, notably the protection of minority rights and stability. Thus it is commonly argued that there is a trade- off between political equality (maximized by majority rule) and minority protection (better provided by systems with external checks and balances, which require more than a simple majority to enact legislation). This paper argues that this trade-off does not exist and that actually majority rule provides most protection to minorities. Furthermore it does so precisely because of the instability inherent in majority rule. Majority rule is the only decision rule that completely satisfies political equality. May (1952) shows that majority rule is the only positively responsive voting rule that satisfies anonymity (all voters are treated equally) and neutrality (all alternatives are treated equally). If we use a system other than majority rule, then we lose either anonymity or neutrality. That is to say, either some voters must be privileged over others, or some alternative must be privileged over others. -
Croatia: Three Elections and a Funeral
Conflict Studies Research Centre G83 REPUBLIC OF CROATIA Three Elections and a Funeral The Dawn of Democracy at the Millennial Turn? Dr Trevor Waters Introduction 2 President Tudjman Laid To Rest 2 Parliamentary Elections 2/3 January 2000 5 • Background & Legislative Framework • Political Parties & the Political Climate • Media, Campaign, Public Opinion Polls and NGOs • Parliamentary Election Results & International Reaction Presidential Elections - 24 January & 7 February 2000 12 Post Tudjman Croatia - A New Course 15 Annex A: House of Representatives Election Results October 1995 Annex B: House of Counties Election Results April 1997 Annex C: Presidential Election Results June 1997 Annex D: House of Representatives Election Results January 2000 Annex E: Presidential Election Results January/February 2000 1 G83 REPUBLIC OF CROATIA Three Elections and a Funeral The Dawn of Democracy at the Millennial Turn? Dr Trevor Waters Introduction Croatia's passage into the new millennium was marked by the death, on 10 December 1999, of the self-proclaimed "Father of the Nation", President Dr Franjo Tudjman; by make or break Parliamentary Elections, held on 3 January 2000, which secured the crushing defeat of the former president's ruling Croatian Democratic Union, yielded victory for an alliance of the six mainstream opposition parties, and ushered in a new coalition government strong enough to implement far-reaching reform; and by two rounds, on 24 January and 7 February, of Presidential Elections which resulted in a surprising and spectacular victory for the charismatic Stipe Mesić, Yugoslavia's last president, nonetheless considered by many Croats at the start of the campaign as an outsider, a man from the past. -
The Majoritarian Difficulty and Theories of Constitutional Decision Making
THE MAJORITARIAN DIFFICULTY AND THEORIES OF CONSTITUTIONAL DECISION MAKING Michael C. Dorf* Recent scholarship in political science and law challenges the view that judicial review in the United States poses what Alexander Bickel famously called the “counter-majoritarian difficulty.” Although courts do regularly invalidate state and federal action on constitutional grounds, they rarely depart substantially from the median of public opinion. When they do so depart, if public opinion does not eventually come in line with the judicial view, constitutional amendment, changes in judicial personnel, and/or changes in judicial doctrine typically bring judicial understandings closer to public opinion. But if the modesty of courts dissolves Bickel’s worry, it raises a distinct one: Are courts that roughly follow public opinion capable of protecting minority rights against majoritarian excesses? Do American courts, in other words, have a “majoritarian difficulty?” This Article examines that question from an interpretive perspective. It asks whether there is a normatively attractive account of the practice of judicial review that takes account of the Court’s inability to act in a strongly counter-majoritarian fashion. After highlighting difficulties with three of the leading approaches to constitutional interpretation— representation-reinforcement, originalism, and living constitutionalism—the Essay concludes that accounts of the Court as a kind of third legislative chamber fit best with its majoritarian bias. However, such third-legislative-chamber accounts rest on libertarian premises that lack universal appeal. They also lack prescriptive force, although this may be a strength: Subordinating an interpretive theory—such as representation-reinforcement, originalism, or living constitutionalism—to a view of judicial review as a form of third-legislative-chamber veto can ease the otherwise unrealistic demands for counter-majoritarianism that interpretive theories face. -
Majoritarian Politics in Sri Lanka: the ROOTS of PLURALISM BREAKDOWN
Majoritarian Politics in Sri Lanka: THE ROOTS OF PLURALISM BREAKDOWN Neil DeVotta | Wake Forest University April 2017 I. INTRODUCTION when seeking power; and the sectarian violence that congealed and hardened attitudes over time Sri Lanka represents a classic case of a country all contributed to majoritarianism. Multiple degenerating on the ethnic and political fronts issues including colonialism, a sense of Sinhalese when pluralism is deliberately eschewed. At Buddhist entitlement rooted in mytho-history, independence in 1948, Sinhalese elites fully economic grievances, politics, nationalism and understood that marginalizing the Tamil minority communal violence all interacting with and was bound to cause this territorialized community stemming from each other, pushed the island to eventually hit back, but they succumbed to towards majoritarianism. This, in turn, then led to ethnocentrism and majoritarianism anyway.1 ethnic riots, a civil war accompanied by terrorism What were the factors that motivated them to do that ultimately killed over 100,000 people, so? There is no single explanation for why Sri democratic regression, accusations of war crimes Lanka failed to embrace pluralism: a Buddhist and authoritarianism. revival in reaction to colonialism that allowed Sinhalese Buddhist nationalists to combine their The new government led by President community’s socio-economic grievances with Maithripala Sirisena, which came to power in ethnic and religious identities; the absence of January 2015, has managed to extricate itself minority guarantees in the Constitution, based from this authoritarianism and is now trying to on the Soulbury Commission the British set up revive democratic institutions promoting good prior to granting the island independence; political governance and a degree of pluralism. -
Who Gains from Apparentments Under D'hondt?
CIS Working Paper No 48, 2009 Published by the Center for Comparative and International Studies (ETH Zurich and University of Zurich) Who gains from apparentments under D’Hondt? Dr. Daniel Bochsler University of Zurich Universität Zürich Who gains from apparentments under D’Hondt? Daniel Bochsler post-doctoral research fellow Center for Comparative and International Studies Universität Zürich Seilergraben 53 CH-8001 Zürich Switzerland Centre for the Study of Imperfections in Democracies Central European University Nador utca 9 H-1051 Budapest Hungary [email protected] phone: +41 44 634 50 28 http://www.bochsler.eu Acknowledgements I am in dept to Sebastian Maier, Friedrich Pukelsheim, Peter Leutgäb, Hanspeter Kriesi, and Alex Fischer, who provided very insightful comments on earlier versions of this paper. Manuscript Who gains from apparentments under D’Hondt? Apparentments – or coalitions of several electoral lists – are a widely neglected aspect of the study of proportional electoral systems. This paper proposes a formal model that explains the benefits political parties derive from apparentments, based on their alliance strategies and relative size. In doing so, it reveals that apparentments are most beneficial for highly fractionalised political blocs. However, it also emerges that large parties stand to gain much more from apparentments than small parties do. Because of this, small parties are likely to join in apparentments with other small parties, excluding large parties where possible. These arguments are tested empirically, using a new dataset from the Swiss national parliamentary elections covering a period from 1995 to 2007. Keywords: Electoral systems; apparentments; mechanical effect; PR; D’Hondt. Apparentments, a neglected feature of electoral systems Seat allocation rules in proportional representation (PR) systems have been subject to widespread political debate, and one particularly under-analysed subject in this area is list apparentments. -
From Participatory Democracy to Digital Democracy
Fast Capitalism ISSN 1930-014X Volume 1 • Issue 2 • 2005 doi:10.32855/fcapital.200502.003 From Participatory Democracy to Digital Democracy Mark Kann Tom Hayden posted on his website, http://www.tomhayden.com, an article he coauthored with Dick Flacks to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the Port Huron Statement. The two SDS founders concluded, “Perhaps the most important legacy of the Port Huron Statement is the fact that it introduced the concept of participatory democracy to popular discourse and practice.” The concept of participatory democracy encompassed values such as equality, decentralization, and consensus decision-making. It provided direction for “all those trying to create a world where each person has a voice in the decisions affecting his or her life.” [1] In this article, I suggest that Port Huron’s concept of participatory democracy included some ideas that were potentially antithetical to democracy and that potential, unfortunately, is being fulfilled in contemporary theories of digital democracy. The Port Huron Statement Revisited The Port Huron Statement contained two underlying themes that potentially subverted democratic equality. One was the notion that the American people were fundamentally flawed, most apparently, by their apathy. The other was that the best means to eliminate this flaw was to follow the lead of rational, deliberative activists. Both themes could be (and would be) used to justify political inequalities. Port Huron’s student-authors expressed a dim view of American citizens. The American people had closed minds. They exhibited a foolish confidence that the nation could muddle through its problems. They harbored a false sense of contentment, “a glaze above deeply felt anxieties,” arising out of loneliness, isolation, and estrangement. -
Mapping and Responding to the Rising Culture and Politics of Fear in the European Union…”
“ Mapping and responding to the rising culture and politics of fear in the European Union…” NOTHING TO FEAR BUT FEAR ITSELF? Demos is Britain’s leading cross-party think tank. We produce original research, publish innovative thinkers and host thought-provoking events. We have spent over 20 years at the centre of the policy debate, with an overarching mission to bring politics closer to people. Demos has always been interested in power: how it works, and how to distribute it more equally throughout society. We believe in trusting people with decisions about their own lives and solving problems from the bottom-up. We pride ourselves on working together with the people who are the focus of our research. Alongside quantitative research, Demos pioneers new forms of deliberative work, from citizens’ juries and ethnography to ground-breaking social media analysis. Demos is an independent, educational charity, registered in England and Wales (Charity Registration no. 1042046). Find out more at www.demos.co.uk First published in 2017 © Demos. Some rights reserved Unit 1, Lloyds Wharf, 2–3 Mill Street London, SE1 2BD, UK ISBN 978–1–911192–07–7 Series design by Modern Activity Typeset by Soapbox Set in Gotham Rounded and Baskerville 10 NOTHING TO FEAR BUT FEAR ITSELF? Open access. Some rights reserved. As the publisher of this work, Demos wants to encourage the circulation of our work as widely as possible while retaining the copyright. We therefore have an open access policy which enables anyone to access our content online without charge. Anyone can download, save, perform or distribute this work in any format, including translation, without written permission. -
Toward Muslim Democracies Saad Eddin Ibrahim
Toward Muslim Democracies Saad Eddin Ibrahim Journal of Democracy, Volume 18, Number 2, April 2007, pp. 5-13 (Article) Published by Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2007.0025 For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/214438 Access provided by your local institution (27 Feb 2017 15:55 GMT) TOWARD MUSLIM DEMOCRACIES Saad Eddin Ibrahim Saad Eddin Ibrahim, founder and chairman of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies and professor of political sociology at the American University in Cairo, delivered the 2006 Seymour Martin Lipset Lecture on Democracy in the World (see box on p. 6). Dr. Ibrahim has been one of the Arab world’s most prominent spokesmen on behalf of democracy and human rights. His 2000 arrest and subsequent seven- year sentence for accepting foreign funds without permission and “tar- nishing” Egypt’s image sparked a loud outcry from the international community. In 2003, Egypt’s High Court of Cassation declared his trial improper and cleared him of all charges. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of more than thirty-five books in Arabic and English, including Egypt, Islam, and Democracy: Critical Essays (2002). The late Seymour Martin Lipset was one of the greatest men I have known in my life as an academic and as an activist. He was the first person I was introduced to—through his seminal 1960 book Political Man1—during my first year of graduate school at UCLA, in 1963. As a matter of fact, I had thought that I was going to be his student before I learned, much to my disappointment, that he was teaching at another campus of the University of California. -
The Many Faces of Strategic Voting
Revised Pages The Many Faces of Strategic Voting Strategic voting is classically defined as voting for one’s second pre- ferred option to prevent one’s least preferred option from winning when one’s first preference has no chance. Voters want their votes to be effective, and casting a ballot that will have no influence on an election is undesirable. Thus, some voters cast strategic ballots when they decide that doing so is useful. This edited volume includes case studies of strategic voting behavior in Israel, Germany, Japan, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, Canada, and the United Kingdom, providing a conceptual framework for understanding strategic voting behavior in all types of electoral systems. The classic definition explicitly considers strategic voting in a single race with at least three candidates and a single winner. This situation is more com- mon in electoral systems that have single- member districts that employ plurality or majoritarian electoral rules and have multiparty systems. Indeed, much of the literature on strategic voting to date has considered elections in Canada and the United Kingdom. This book contributes to a more general understanding of strategic voting behavior by tak- ing into account a wide variety of institutional contexts, such as single transferable vote rules, proportional representation, two- round elec- tions, and mixed electoral systems. Laura B. Stephenson is Professor of Political Science at the University of Western Ontario. John Aldrich is Pfizer- Pratt University Professor of Political Science at Duke University. André Blais is Professor of Political Science at the Université de Montréal. Revised Pages Revised Pages THE MANY FACES OF STRATEGIC VOTING Tactical Behavior in Electoral Systems Around the World Edited by Laura B. -
Simple-Majority Rule and the Size of the Bundestag
Gutenberg School of Management and Economics & Research Unit “Interdisciplinary Public Policy” Discussion Paper Series Simple-majority rule and the size of the Bundestag Salvatore Barbaro (Corresponding author) Anna Specht May 03, 2021 Discussion paper number 2105 Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz Gutenberg School of Management and Economics Jakob-Welder-Weg 9 55128 Mainz Germany https://wiwi.uni-mainz.de/ Contact Details: Salvatore Barbaro Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz Department of Law and Economics 55099 Mainz, Germany [email protected] Anna Specht Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz Department of Law and Economics 55099 Mainz, Germany All discussion papers can be downloaded from http://wiwi.uni-mainz.de/DP Simple-majority rule and the size of the Bundestag Salvatore Barbaro∗ Anna Specht Johannes-Gutenberg University Institute for Policy Evaluation May 3, 2021 ∗Corresponding author · B Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Department of Law and Eco- nomics, 55099 Mainz, Germany k [email protected] 1 Abstract How should an excessively large parliament be effectively reduced in size without violating constitutional principles? This is a question that the Ger- man Bundestag discussed since introducing the 2013 electoral reform until today. Facing a Bundestag consisting of 709 members and facing some public dissatisfaction, a reform to decrease the parliament’s size was adopted in 2020. With the 2017 elections taking place under the new electoral rule, the size would have been 686 instead of 709. However, the opposition filed a lawsuit against the new electoral law with the German Federal Constitutional Court. Aside from legal considerations, the adherence to plurality rule has to be criticised from a social-choice perspective.