Electoral Reform and Party System Development in Japan and Taiwan: A Comparative Study

This article explores changes in party competition and coalition-building patterns in the Czech Republic that underpinned its twin transition to democracy and a market economy in the 1990s and early 2000s. It charts the domestic political landscape that underlined the Czech Republic's evolution from a communist state to a modernising political economy under relatively benign global and regional conditions. A key objective is to map the new internal political space that led to the deepening of the Czech Republic's integration into the global economy as well as to explain the ways in which internationalisation has transformed that political space over time. Internationalisation relates to the expansion of global markets, institutions and norms, a process that gradually reduces the purely domestic aspects of politics. Although progressively more aspects of domestic life become responsive to external processes, internationalisation does not necessarily imply global convergence (a term closer to 'globalisation'), at least in the short to medium terms, when domestic responses tend to vary across political sectors, institutions and time. We refer to Europeanisation as a process of domestication of European Union (EU) policy directives, recommendations and standards by states acceding to the EU. Our interest is to evaluate the particular response of the Czech Republic, and the sources of that response. In particular, we seek to: (1) identify changes in patterns of party competition; (2) outline the implications of coalitional patterns for policies and outcomes regarding internationalisation more generally, and Europeanisation in particular; and (3) assess the challenges that Czech leaders face in the changed global political and economic environment of the early twenty-first century.

The topic of electoral volatility was not at the center of academic work in Latin America until Scott Mainwaring and Timothy R. Scully’s seminal 1995 work Building Democratic Institutions: Party Systems in Latin America (cited in Electoral Volatility as an Expression of Party System Equilibrium). Preceding analyses primarily focused on explaining the breakdown of democratic politics in the region during the 1960s and 1970s. Conventional wisdom that departed from the classic work of Sartori in Parties and Party Systems (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976), maintained that stable party systems are crucial for the durability of democracies, focusing his attention on aspects such as party system polarization and fragmentation. Mainwaring and Scully shift the discussion, arguing that previous literature on the region neglected and inadequately conceptualized an equally important property of party systems: their level of their institutionalization. According to Mainwaring and Scully, party system institutionalization (PSI) is formed by four different dimensions. The first is stability in the patterns of party competition. Thus, institutionalized party systems are those in which actors develop expectations, orientations, and behavior based on the premise that practices and organizations will prevail into the foreseeable future. Mainwaring’s 2018 work, Party Systems in Latin America (cited in Electoral Volatility as an Expression of Party System Equilibrium), argues that this is the only relevant dimension in PSI, while considering that the other three are just underpinnings that facilitate it. So according to this work, an institutionalized party system is the one in which a stable set of parties interacts regularly in stable ways. This stability of interparty competition is traditionally measured with the Pedersen volatility index, a comprehensive measure of the net systematic shift in levels of electoral support for parties across elections. As volatility is negatively correlated with this important dimension of party system institutionalization, conventional wisdom holds that political representation deteriorates when there is persistent high volatility. To this debate, the well-cited 2006 article by Mainwaring and Torcal, “Party System Institutionalization and Party System Theory after the Third Wave of Democratization” (cited in Electoral Volatility as an Expression of Party System Equilibrium), adds the idea that this lack of stability in the patterns of competition in party systems, measured by electoral volatility, is a typical characteristic of new and developing democracies. According to that study, the most important defining characteristic of party systems in less developed countries is captured by their lack of institutionalization, in other words, the amount of electoral volatility in their party systems. Since the publication of these three contributions, the debate on party system dynamics in the region has focused on cross-national levels of electoral volatility, their relationship with other indicators of party system stability, and their consequences for democratic quality and performance, while also broadening the analysis to Europe.

Acknowledgments Introduction Democracy and Party Competition Part I. Theory, Party Systems and the Procedural Quality of Post-Communist Democracy: 1. Historical legacies and strategies of democratization: pathways toward post-communist polities 2. The quality of post-communist democracy: patterns of party competition, interest representation and governance Part II. Setting and Research Strategy: 3. From communist rule to democracy: four central and East European countries 4. Empirical research strategy Part III. The Structuring of Party Competition: 5. Programmatic citizen-elite linkage strategies across post-communist polities 6. Linkage strategies within party systems: diversity among parties Part IV. Political Alignments and Dimensions of Competition: 7. Political divides and alignments: the politicians 8. Electoral constituency alignments: emerging political cleavages? Part V. Political Representation and the Quality of Democratic Governance: 9. Political representation 10. The governability of post-communist democracies: collation politics between passions and policy interests Part VI. Conclusion: 11. The diversity of post-communist democratic governance Appendices Bibliography.

This Special Issue aims to (1) theorise party strategies in multi-dimensional policy spaces; and (2) apply the theory to party competition in multinational democracies characterised by a salient territorial dimension alongside a more established economic dimension. The introductory article brings together recent contributions treating spatial and salience theories as compatible and policy spaces as two-dimensional to propose four party strategies that can be ranked from one- to two-dimensional competitive behaviour: uni-dimensionality, blurring, subsuming, and two- dimensionality. The remaining contributions operationalise these strategies and draw on a variety of data sources ranging from manifestos to parliamentary bill proposals and expert surveys to describe when and explore why parties use these strategies in competition, focusing on patterns of party competition in multinational democracies, selected as typical cases of multi-dimensional competition.

To what extent are the social bases of political divisions in former communist societies consistent with those observed in Western democracies? This review critically examines theoretical and empirical work on social cleavages in East European, post-communist societies. It considers the initial wave of hypotheses concerning the structuring of party support in the region and examines empirical evidence on the patterning of the social bases of political preferences that have accrued subsequently, as well as the somewhat sparser attempts at explaining the processes through which these patterns emerge and change. It points to the omissions and weaknesses of the analyses so far conducted and concludes that the post-communist era has seen the emergence of social bases to politics that are like those in the West and that help shape variations in patterns of party competition in these societies.

Since 2020, the world has been officially battling a COVID-19 pandemic. Even countries with established crisis management plans and years of experience in handling political and economic crises, have been shaken. In the midst of the pandemic’s rampant effects, how politicians handle the crisis is of crucial importance to the preservation, development, and protection of nations in the future. Who is in power determines not only the stability, but the political course of countries. Hence, what happens to the party system as a result of an exogenous shock is a question we need to answer. Importantly, we have little evidence on how the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic affected party competition. Building on the party systems literature, we examine the effect of the pandemic on electoral volatility, party system size, and the number of new party contestants. We hypothesise that, in countries where the incumbent government handles the crisis less effectively, electoral volatility tends to be higher, party system size tends to be larger, and more new parties tend to enter the electoral race. Drawing on evidence from national parliamentary elections held by electoral democracies from March 2020 to April 2022, the empirical results support our hypothesis.

Duverger’s Law expects two-party competition in single member districts (SMDs), but evidence from mixed member systems is less consistent with these theoretical expectations. Rather than simply focusing on whether Japan’s most recent House of Representatives election converges toward Duvergerian equilibrium, this article focuses on three factors within Japan. In particular, how do the roles of major party nominations, incumbency, and dual-listing shape district competition vis-à-vis Duverger? Empirical results find that the lack of a Democratic Party of Japan candidate decreases the effective number of candidates, while the lack of a Liberal Democratic Party candidate, multiple incumbents, and dual-listing correlates with an increased number of candidates. The results suggest that often ignored underlying effects of Japan’s mixed system influences its consistency with theoretical expectations.

This study investigates the impact of electoral system reforms on political representation and accountability in Indonesia’s legislative elections from 1999 to 2024. Following democratization after the fall of the New Order regime, Indonesia implemented major institutional changes, including the shift from a closed-list to an open-list proportional representation system, the introduction of electoral thresholds, and the enforcement of a 30 percent gender quota. Using a mixed-methods approach that combines longitudinal electoral data with qualitative evidence from interviews and document analysis, the study examines three dimensions: proportionality and party system dynamics, gender representation, and legislative accountability. The findings indicate that electoral reforms have improved vote–seat proportionality and reduced excessive party fragmentation, contributing to greater electoral stability. Women’s representation in parliament has increased over time, although persistent structural and cultural barriers continue to constrain substantive gender equality. In addition, indicators of accountability such as legislative attendance, constituency engagement, and public trust show moderate improvement, suggesting that open-list competition encourages more responsive behavior among legislators. However, accountability remains largely personalized rather than institutionalized, relying on individual visibility instead of collective performance. Overall, Indonesia’s electoral reforms have supported gradual democratic consolidation, while remaining constrained by clientelism and weak institutional accountability.

ABSTRACTThis article identifies the limits and possibilities of the federal comparison for the European Union party system. Can the literatures on parties and party systems in multi-level systems deliver more insights to the analysis of the developing life of parties and party competition in the European Union? What are the most productive dialogs between scholars of federal and multilevel parties and scholars of European Union parties? It argues that the study of representation in the EU involves two key multi-level challenges: vote choice in a multi-level setting and party system development through upward aggregation. Drawing more closely from the comparative federalism literature can provide analytical leverage for both issues.

India’s freedom signalled the end of European imperialism and new start of rule of people in India through democratic principles, values and norms. Democracy, equality and fundamental rights became the core value of India’s constitution. Indian constitution accepted parliamentary democracy because freedom struggle has given experience of democratic value to Indians. Democracy believes in the people and their political rights. Parliamentary democracy has taken steps to protect the democratic principles, trust and values from structural flaws. In this regard, electoral process and electoral politics is the life and soul for consolidation of parliamentary democratic system in India. The free and fair elections are fundamental basis for success of democracy. Political stability can secure through people’s political participation. Electoral system is necessary and important instrument to make parliamentary democracy work. Under the constitutional values and guidelines of election commission free and fair elections are held at regular intervals in India. To make them from free of flaws it is essential to reform the electoral system from time to time. This paper evaluates need, issues and challenges for electoral reforms in India. Keywords: Parliamentary Democracy, Democratic principles, Political Participation, Election, Political Stability, Electoral Reform DOI: 10.7176/PPAR/10-9-03 Publication date: September 30 th 2020

This article is part of the special cluster titled Parties and Democratic Linkage in Post-Communist Europe, guest edited by Lori Thorlakson, and will be published in the August 2018 issue of EEPS This article introduces a special section on parties and democratic linkage in post-communist Europe. It sets out the main objectives and research questions that guide the four articles in this special section, presenting these in the context of the comparative politics literature on party and party system change and democratic development. It introduces the key arguments of the articles in the section, arguing that the contributions identify regionally distinctive patterns of party and party system behaviour in Central and Eastern Europe. These patterns have fuelled a quest for more suitable conceptual and measurement tools and call for diversity in comparative analysis, combining intra and inter regional comparison.

An informed policy debate about electoral reform in Canada must acknowledge the likely impact of any potential new system. Recent attention at the provincial level and from the Law Commission to a mixed electoral system warrants an examination of how such a system might alter Canadian politics. Although advocates of reform argue that proportional representation will increase proportionality, help smaller parties, increase the number of female representatives, increase turnout and improve attitudes toward politics, there is inconsistent evidence that a change in the electoral system alone would produce such changes. Although a mixed system would likely increase the proportionality of results, and would help smaller parties gain representation in any legislature, it may bring some unexpected findings as well. The following article identifies the claims of advocates we might expect to be true and those about which we should be more cautious.

This study presents the trajectory of changes in land ownership and land use and of the differences observed since the mid-1990s in the average amount of annual disposable income (and of wealth) within and between farming and non-farming landowning households in Turkey. The study makes use of the data sets of the Household Budget Surveys conducted by the Turkish Institute of Statistics (TUIK) in 1994, 2002, 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2017. The data sets have been analysed in connection with four main themes: (i) the patterns of structural change in landownership and land use, (ii) the patterns of structural change in the locations of farming and non-farming landowners in the occupational and social class orders, (iii) the patterns of changes and the persistence of differences in the average amounts of annual disposable incomes and wealth within and between the social classes of farming and non-farming landowners and (iv) the effect of family type on the differences of income and wealth. The results indicate that Turkish agrarian structures have undergone significant structural changes in the last quarter of a century, and there are persisting and significant differences of income (and of wealth) at the national level as well as among farming and non-farming landowning households. However, the same kind of differences do not hold true for differences in the average amount of farm land owned. On the contrary, these differences have strong associations with family type among farming as well as non-farming households.

Most accounts of electoral reforms focus on successfully implemented reforms to explain how electoral context shapes the incentives of political parties, paying scant attention to the cases where governments fail to implement their preferred system. This article takes a step back in the electoral reform process and examines when and why governing parties initiate electoral reforms. In doing so, it focuses on how the electoral context can affect the electoral bases of the incumbents and their main competitor. This novel account expects that governments initiate electoral reforms depending on whether small or new parties draw votes from their own vote base or from that of their main competitor. Using an original dataset of electoral reform attempts from 32 parliamentary democracies between 1945 and 2015, this article shows that ruling parties are more likely to initiate a restrictive reform when small parties draw votes from their electoral base, but a permissive one when small parties draw more votes from their main competitor.

In this article, I explore the nature of party systems that have emerged in Africa in the wake of the adoption of democratic political systems after 1990. Although political parties help shape core democratic processes and institutions, parties and party systems have received relatively scant attention in the scholarly literature on democratization in Africa. I argue that party systems in most African countries are built on quite a different foundation from the one that undergirds both advanced industrial democracies and the theories about party systems generated by their experiences. I assess the strengths and limitations of the comparative literature on party system development in the light of African experiences, and argue for a more critical examination of concepts from that literature that have been widely used to assess the prospects and progress of party system institutionalization, including pluralism, system fragmentation and volatility.