Redistricting in Comparative Perspective

COMPARATIVE POLITICS Redistricting in Comparative Perspective COMPARATIVE POLITICS Comparative Politics is a series for students, teachers, and researchers of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit www.essex.ac.uk/ecpr The Comparative Politics series is edited by Professor David Farrell, University of Manchester and Professor Alfio Mastropaolo, University of Turin. OTHER TITLES IN THIS SERIES Democratic Representation in Europe Diversity, Change, and Convergence Edited by Maurizio Cotta and Heinrich Best Party Politics in New Democracies Edited by Paul Webb and Stephen White Democratic Challenges, Democratic Choices Russell J. Dalton Democracy Transformed? Edited by Bruce E. Cain, Russell J. Dalton, and Susan E. Scarrow Environmental Protest in Western Europe Edited by Christopher Rootes Social Movements and Networks Edited by Mario Diani and Doug McAdam Delegation and Accountability in Parliamentary Democracies Edited by Kaare Strøm, Wolfgang C. Müller, and Torbjörn Bergman The Presidentialization of Politics Edited by Thomas Paguntke and Paul Webb Losers’ Consent Christopher J. Anderson, André Blais, Shaun Bowler, Todd Donovan, and Ola Listhaug Elections, Parties, Democracy Michael D. McDonald and Ian Budge Extreme Right Parties in Western Europe Piero Ignazi The Performance of Democracies Edeltraud Roller Political Parties in the New Europe Edited by Kurt Richard Luther and Ferdinand Müller-Rommel The European Voter Edited by Jacques Thomassen Redistricting in Comparative Perspective Edited by LISA HANDLEY and BERNIE GROFMAN 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © The Several Contributors 2008 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd., King’s Lynn, Norfolk ISBN 978–0–19–922740–2 13579108642 Acknowledgments Redistricting is our vote for the most neglected topic in electoral and insti- tutional design in terms of comparative research. Despite the fact that how electoral boundaries are drawn can fundamentally affect the nature of political representation—who gets what, when—remarkably little has been written on the subject of redistricting practices apart from the large US-specific literature dealing primarily with jurisprudential issues. In particular, with the notable exceptions of a few encyclopedic books such as that by John Courtney on Canada and D. J. Rossiter, R. J. Johnson and C. J. Pattie on the UK, there are few country- specific studies of redistricting apart from the United States. When it comes to comparative work the picture is even bleaker. While there are a number of purely mathematical and statistical essays (such as the excellent cross-national analysis of levels of malapportionment by Samuels and Snyder), there is very little in the way of studies that offer multicountry comparisons of redistricting practices and principles. Thus, we believe this set of essays, all of which are works specifically commissioned for this volume, fill an important niche. Almost all of the essays in this book were initially presented at a conference entitled “Redistricting in Comparative Perspective,” held at the University of Cal- ifornia, Irvine, December 7–9, 2001. We would like to acknowledge the invaluable help of Clover Behrend-Gethard and of the accounting staff of the School of Social Sciences in handling conference logistics. Versions of two of the papers presented at the conference subsequently appeared in journals: “United States Redistricting: A Comparative Look at the 50 States,” by Michael McDonald, was published in State Politics and Policy Quarterly (4(4) 2004: 371–96) as “A Comparative Analysis of U.S. State Redis- tricting Institutions”; and “Reserved Seats in National Legislatures: A Compara- tive Approach,” by Andrew Reynolds, appeared in Legislative Studies Quarterly (30(2): 2005: 301–10) as “Reserved Seats in National Legislatures: A Research Note.” We offer updated iterations of the original conference papers and the published articles in this volume. Excerpts from the two published articles are reprinted with the permission of the authors. In addition, earlier versions of the two papers written by Lisa Handley were prepared for the Center for Transitional and Post-Conflict Governance, at IFES, under the direction of Jeff Fischer. The comparative redistricting conference was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Center for the Study of Democracy at the University of California, Irvine, with supplementary funding from the UCI Academic Senate Committee on Research. This book is part of a broader study of “Representation, Electoral Rules, and Civic Inclusion” that is one of the signature projects of vi Acknowledgments the Center for the Study of Democracy at the University of California, Irvine (http://www.democ.uci.edu). This will be the sixth book in a series on this topic, all resulting from conferences at UCI held over the past 15 years. The five previous books in the series are Bernard Grofman (ed.), Legislative Term Limits: Public Choice Perspectives, Boston, MA: Kluwer, 1996; Bernard Grofman, Sung-Chull Lee, Edwin Winckler, and Brian Woodall (eds.), Elections in Japan, Korea and Taiwan under the Single Non-Transferable Vote: The Comparative Study of an Embedded Institution, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1999; Shaun Bowler and Bernard Grofman (eds.), Elections in Australia, Ireland and Malta under the Single Transferable Vote, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2000; Matthew Shugart and Martin Wattenberg (eds.), Mixed Member Electoral Systems: The Best of Both Worlds, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001; and Bernard Grofman and Arend Lijphart (eds.), The Evolution of Electoral and Party Systems in the Nordic Countries, New York: Agathon Press, 2002. This volume also reflects a natural continuation of previous work of the editors on representation, redistricting, and comparative electoral systems, for example, Bernard Grofman, Lisa Handley, and Richard Niemi (eds.), Minority Representation and the Quest for Voting Equality, Cambridge University Press, 1992; Bernard Grof- man (ed.), Political Gerrymandering, Agathon, 1990; and Bernard Grofman (ed.), Race and Redistricting, Agathon, 1998. Contents List of Figures x List of Tables xi Notes on Contributors xiii I. Introduction Introduction: Redistricting in Comparative Perspective 3 Bernard Grofman and Lisa Handley II. Structuring the Process: The Boundary Authority 1. From Gerrymanders to Independence: District Boundary Readjustments in Canada 11 John C. Courtney 2. An Independent Commission with Political Input: New Zealand’s Electoral Redistribution Practices 27 Alan McRobie 3. From Politics to Technicalities: Mexican Redistricting in Historical Perspective 43 Alonso Lujambio and Horacio Vives 4. United States Redistricting: A Comparative Look at the 50 States 55 Michael P.McDonald III. Setting the Rules: One Person, One Vote and Other Principles 5. Delimitation in India 75 Alistair McMillan 6. Redistribution in Australia: The Importance of One Vote, One Value 97 Rod Medew viii Contents 7. The Politics of Redistricting in Japan: A Contradiction between Equal Population and Respect for Local Government Boundaries 107 Toshimasha Moriwaki IV. Making Provisions for Minority Representation 8. Reserved Seats in National Legislatures: A Comparative Approach 115 Andrew Reynolds 9. The Design of Ethnically Mixed Constituencies in Fiji, 1970–2006 123 Jon Fraenkel 10. Race and Redistricting in the United States: An Overview 141 David Lublin V. Taking Account of the Broader Context: Electoral Rules and Systems 11. Electoral Redistricting in Ireland 155 John Coakley 12. Redistricting in France under Changing Electoral Rules 173 Michel Balinski 13. Delimiting Electoral

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