There Are Three Main Ways of Measuring
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THE SINGLE-MEMBER PLURALITY and MIXED-MEMBER PROPORTIONAL ELECTORAL SYSTEMS : Different Concepts of an Election
THE SINGLE-MEMBER PLURALITY AND MIXED-MEMBER PROPORTIONAL ELECTORAL SYSTEMS : Different Concepts of an Election by James C. Anderson A thesis presented to the University of Waterloo in fulfillment of the thesis requirement for the degree of Master of Arts in Political Science Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2006 © James C. Anderson 2006 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Library and Bibliotheque et Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-23700-7 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-23700-7 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce,Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve,sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet,distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans loan, distribute and sell theses le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non sur support microforme, papier, electronique commercial purposes, in microform,et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. -
Getting It in Proportion?
Getting it in Proportion? Trade unions and electoral reform Contents Foreword 4 1 Introduction and background 6 2 Is there a case for change? 9 3 Different electoral systems 17 4 The practicalities of change 23 5 Conclusion 25 6 Voices on electoral reform 27 References 29 2 TOUCHSTONE EXTRAS Getting it in Proportion? This report has been prepared by the TUC as a discussion paper for the trade union movement. Getting it in Proportion? This Touchstone Extra pamphlet sets out the arguments for and against changing Britain’s electoral system. It puts the debate in context by summarising the political and historical background against which our democracy has developed, examines how well the existing system works and looks at possible reasons for change. It describes the various alternative electoral systems, discusses the practicalities of change and concludes with a useful comparison of different systems and their advantages and disadvantages. It is not intended to draw any final conclusion about whether or not electoral reform is needed, but rather to be used as a starting point for further debate. Touchstone Extra These new online pamphlets are designed to complement the TUC’s influential Touchstone Pamphlets by looking in more detail at specific areas of policy debate raised in the series. Touchstone Extra publications are not statements of TUC policy but instead are designed, like the wider Touchstone Pamphlets series, to inform and stimulate debate. The full series can be downloaded at www.tuc.org.uk/touchstonepamphlets TOUCHSTONE EXTRAS Getting it in Proportion? 3 Foreword Brendan Barber At our 2009 Congress, delegates voted in support of a motion calling on the TUC to stimulate debate about electoral reform for Westminster elections. -
The Politico's Guide to Electoral Reform in Britain
Patrick Dunleavy, Helen Margetts and Stuart Weir The Politico's guide to electoral reform in Britain Book section Original citation: Originally published in Dunleavy, Patrick, Margetts, Helen and Weir, Stuart (1998) The Politico's guide to electoral reform in Britain. Politico's Publishing, London, UK. ISBN 190230120X © Democratic Audit This version available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/62253/ Available in LSE Research Online: June 2015 LSE has developed LSE Research Online so that users may access research output of the School. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article(s) in LSE Research Online to facilitate their private study or for non-commercial research. You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute the URL (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk) of the LSE Research Online website. the Guide to ELECTORAL REFORM in Britain Patrick Dunleavy, Helen Margetts and Stuart Weir First published in Great Britain 1998 by Politico’s Publishing 8 Artillery Row London SW1P 1RZ England Telephone 0171 931 0090 Email [email protected] Website http://www.politicos.co.uk Copyright Patrick Dunleavy, Helen Margetts and Stuart Weir 1998 The right of Patrick Dunleavy, Helen Margetts and Stuart Weir to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British library ISBN 190230120X Printed and bound in Great Britain by Colourworks Typesetting and cover design by Tony Garrett All rights reserved. -
Coalition Government and Constitutional Reform in the United Kingdom
This is a repository copy of Inaction and Reaction – Coalition Government and Constitutional Reform in the United Kingdom. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/87072/ Version: Accepted Version Article: Matthews, F. (2015) Inaction and Reaction – Coalition Government and Constitutional Reform in the United Kingdom. British Politics. ISSN 1746-9198 https://doi.org/10.1057/bp.2015.34 “This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in British Politics. The definitive publisher-authenticated version Matthews, F. (2015) Inaction and Reaction – Coalition Government and Constitutional Reform in the United Kingdom. British Politics is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/bp.2015.34 Reuse Unless indicated otherwise, fulltext items are protected by copyright with all rights reserved. The copyright exception in section 29 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 allows the making of a single copy solely for the purpose of non-commercial research or private study within the limits of fair dealing. The publisher or other rights-holder may allow further reproduction and re-use of this version - refer to the White Rose Research Online record for this item. Where records identify the publisher as the copyright holder, users can verify any specific terms of use on the publisher’s website. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing [email protected] including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. [email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ Inaction and Reaction – Coalition Government and Constitutional Reform in the United Kingdom Felicity Matthews Department of Politics University of Sheffield Sheffield, S10 2TU [email protected] Abstract Constitutional reform in the United Kingdom is a story frequently framed around the narratives of missed opportunities, executive intransigence and institutional stickiness. -
The British General Election of 2010 and the Advent of Coalition Government
Patrick Dunleavy The British general election of 2010 and the advent of coalition government Book section (accepted version) Original citation: Originally published in Baldini, G. and Hopkin, J., (eds.) Coalition Britain: the UK Election of 2010. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012). ISBN 9780719083693 © 2012 Manchester University Press This version available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/49607/ Available in LSE Research Online: February 2014 LSE has developed LSE Research Online so that users may access research output of the School. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article(s) in LSE Research Online to facilitate their private study or for non-commercial research. You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute the URL (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk) of the LSE Research Online website. This document is the author’s submitted version of the book section. There may be differences between this version and the published version. You are advised to consult the publisher’s version if you wish to cite from it. The British general election of 2010 and the advent of coalition government * Patrick Dunleavy In many respects the May 2010 general election in Britain seems to be one of those cases where an election is lost, yet without any clear winner emerging. Yet it was also a contest that led to a historic outcome, a further decline in support for the top two parties and the advent of the first peacetime coalition government in the UK since the 1920s. -
Debating Electoral Reform in Canada Discussion Paper
Renewing Democracy: Debating Electoral Reform in Canada Discussion Paper LAW COMMISSION OF CANADA COMMISSION DU DROIT DU CANADA Law Commission of Canada www.lcc.gc.ca Catalogue Number: JL2-20/2002 ISBN: 0-662-66769-7 © Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, 2002 Preface Canada prides itself on being a healthy and vibrant democracy. But we cannot be complacent: democracy requires constant tending. As society changes, Canadians must reflect on the quality of their democratic institutions and ask whether they continue to serve them well. Do we live in the democracy we want? Does it reflect our contemporary needs and values? Can we improve upon the practices of our democratic institutions? An important barometer of the health of governance relationships is the nature and quality of citizens’ participation in their democratic institutions. Several commentators have noted a decrease in voter turnout and a general disengagement of the citizenry from traditional political institutions. This has led some Canadians to raise questions about the electoral system. Does the act of voting continue to have the same significance for Canadians? Is it possible to remedy the democratic malaise that has come to characterize the Canadian political landscape? Should we take a critical look at some of our traditional democratic institutions? Does our voting system continue to respond to our needs and our values? The Law Commission of Canada is an independent, federal agency whose mandate is to systematically study law and legal institutions and to propose changes. This discussion paper on Electoral Reform is part of a project on Reform of Democratic Institutions, under the Law Commission’s larger program aimed at examining Governance Relationships. -
Voting Systems: the Jenkins Report
RESEARCH PAPER 98/112 Voting Systems: The 10 DECEMBER 1998 Jenkins Report Following its manifesto commitment to hold a referendum on an alternative to the current First Past the Post voting system, the Labour Government is now studying the recommendations of the Indepednent Commission on the Voting System (The Jenkins Commission). Jenkins has recommended a mixed system of Alternative Vote, combined with Top-up seats. This Paper examines the background, and looks at the arguments for and against electoral reform, as well as describing the main voting systems in use around the world. This replaces Research Paper 97/26. Oonagh Gay HOME AFFAIRS SECTION HOUSE OF COMMONS LIBRARY Recent Library Research Papers include: List of 15 most recent RPs 98/97 Unemployment by Constituency - October 1998 11.11.98 98/98 Lottery awards: regional and constituency analysis (to October 1998) 12.11.98 98/99 Fairness at Work Cm 3968 17.11.98 99/100 Widows' Benefits (revised edition) 23.11.98 98/101 Economic Indicators 01.12.98 98/102 The European Parliamentary Elections Bill [Bill No 4 of 1998-9] 01.12.98 98/103 Lords Reform: The Legislative Role of the House of Lords 01.12.98 98/104 Lords Reform: background statistics (forthcoming) 98/105 Lords Reform: Recent Developments 07.12.98 98/106 Local Government Finance in England 01.12.98 98/107 Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ME 01.12.98 98/108 The Road Traffic (NHS Charges) Bill Bill 3 1998-9 03.12.98 98/109 Protocol 11 and the New European Court of Human Rights 03.12.98 98/110 Water Industry Bill Bill 1 [1998/99] 03.12.98 98/111 Employment and Training Programmes for the Unemployed 07.12.98 Research Papers are available as PDF files: • to members of the general public on the Parliamentary web site, URL: http://www.parliament.uk • within Parliament to users of the Parliamentary Intranet, URL: http://hcl1.hclibrary.parliament.uk Library Research Papers are compiled for the benefit of Members of Parliament and their personal staff. -
The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill [Bill No 63 of 2010-11] RESEARCH PAPER 10/55 01 September 2010
The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill [Bill No 63 of 2010-11] RESEARCH PAPER 10/55 01 September 2010 This Bill seeks to enable the next general election to be fought under the Alternative Vote, provided this change is endorsed in a referendum on 5 May 2011 and boundary changes have been made to reduce the size of the House of Commons to 600. New Rules for the Redistribution of Seats are designed to give primacy to numerical equality in constituencies and regular redistributions would take place every five years. The Bill is due for Second Reading on 6 September 2010; this Paper has been prepared to give background to that debate. Oonagh Gay Isobel White Recent Research Papers 10/45 The ‘AfPak policy’ and the Pashtuns 22.06.10 10/46 Economic Indicators, July 2010 06.07.10 10/47 Unemployment by Constituency, July 2010 14.07.10 10/48 Academies Bill [HL] [Bill 57 of 2010-11] 15.07.10 10/49 Economic Indicators, August 2010 03.08.10 10/50 By-elections 2005–2010 04.08.10 10/51 Unemployment by Constituency, August 2010 12.08.10 10/52 Identity Documents Bill: Committee Stage Report 18.08.10 10/53 Equitable Life (Payments) Bill [Bill 62 of 2010-11] 18.08.10 10/54 Fixed-term Parliaments Bill [Bill 64 of 2010-11] 26.08.10 Research Paper 10/55 Contributing Authors: Oonagh Gay, Referendums and Alternative Vote Isobel White, Parliamentary boundaries and electoral registration Feargal McGuinness, Statistics This information is provided to Members of Parliament in support of their parliamentary duties and is not intended to address the specific circumstances of any particular individual. -
The Effects of Electoral Mechanics: the Purview of Preferential Voting for Democratic Regeneration in Puerto Rico
THE EFFECTS OF ELECTORAL MECHANICS: THE PURVIEW OF PREFERENTIAL VOTING FOR DEMOCRATIC REGENERATION IN PUERTO RICO ARTICLE AMAURY A. BOSCIO* Introduction ........................................................................................................... 897 I. Electoral Systems: When Form Equals Substance ............................................ 898 II. Major Electoral Systems .................................................................................... 903 A. The Majoritarian System ............................................................................ 903 B. Proportional Representation ...................................................................... 906 C. Preferential Voting...................................................................................... 908 i. The Promise of a More Democratic Majoritarian Model.................... 908 ii. Preferential Vote is More Effective than the Two-Round and Plurality Systems ............................................................................. 911 III. Puerto Rico ........................................................................................................ 914 A. The Two-Party System Conundrum ........................................................... 914 B. Are New Political Options Electorally Viable? ........................................... 917 C. The Plurality Vote Regime .......................................................................... 919 D. Preferential Vote as the Key to Viable Reform ......................................... -
THE POLITICS of ELECTORAL SYSTEMS This Page Intentionally Left Blank the Politics of Electoral Systems
THE POLITICS OF ELECTORAL SYSTEMS This page intentionally left blank The Politics of Electoral Systems Edited by MICHAEL GALLAGHER and PAUL MITCHELL 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox26dp 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 ß The Several Contributors 2005 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2005 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 -
Prepared for the Canadian Political Science Association 2013 Annual Conference 4-6 June 2013, Victoria, BC Nicholas J. Caruana
WHAT HAVE CITIZENS’ ASSEMBLIES DONE FOR ME LATELY? EVALUATING WHETHER DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY IS VALUE-ADDED Nicholas J. Caruana, The University of Western Ontario What added value do Citizens' Assemblies bring to the process of electoral reform? Governments may consider creating such assemblies because they are frequently praised for the transparency and remarkable citizen participation they bring to an electoral reform process. Little is known, however, about whether those qualities—typically absent in élite-driven reforms—actually have independent effects on the quality of democracy and the democratic deficit after the reform process is complete and regardless of its success. Given that many reform attempts have been unsuccessful in recent years, this could be an important consideration in deciding whether to keep using this format. If the democratic legitimacy of citizen-driven reforms helps to reduce distrust in democratic institutions independently of implementation, then such processes have a distinct benefit that élite-driven reforms do not. In this paper, I develop a theoretical framework for evaluating whether an unsuccessful electoral reform process can still have an effect on the quality of democracy, and go on to compare élite-centric and citizen-centric reform processes to determine whether the latter in fact has a democratic advantage over the former. Italy's electoral reforms in 1993, Britain's attempts at reform within the last decade, and British Columbia's 2003 Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform will all be examined -
A Theoretical Account of Electoral Reform in the UK
A Theoretical Account of Electoral Reform in the UK A Theoretical Account of Electoral Reform in the UK Natalie Peelish Abstract The United Kingdom, a nation that utilizes the plurality electoral system of First Past the Post (FPTP), has proposed electoral reform twice over the past twenty years, in 1997 and 2011 respectively, under two different governments. Despite reaching a referendum in 2011, electoral reform was an utter failure on both occasions and FPTP prevails in the UK today. This article utilizes salient theories of electoral reform to provide an in-depth analysis of both occasions of reform proposition. The article ultimately concludes that given the complex circumstances under which reform initiation has occurred in the UK, electoral reform theories accounting for both the institutional conditions and the interests of relevant political actors are necessary in explaining why parties proposed electoral reform in both 1997 and 2011. Introduction First Past the Post (FPTP), the electoral system utilized by four of the eight largest democracies, has come under scrutiny in recent decades. FPTP was one the earliest mechanisms for electing legislative representatives and uses relatively straightforward logic (the first person to a plurality wins); nonetheless, academic specialists in electoral systems rate it as one of the least desirable electoral systems and many voters have come to agree. Of the many new democracies that emerged during the “Third Wave of Democracy1,” virtually none of them adopted FPTP as their electoral system. Furthermore, in the small wave of electoral system reform movements over the past quarter-century, none have moved to a FPTP system, instead either transitioning from FPTP to a PR system or from a PR system to a Mixed-Member System.