Electoral Systems, District Magnitude and Corruption

What causes corruption? Most literature on corruption take into account the role of culture and socio-economic development though few studies have not even begun to look for another explanation such as institutions in explaining this corruption menace. Within institutionalist literature, there are generally two strands which center upon two different concepts in explaining corruption - accountability and personal vote. Yet, the theoretical framework in this study will rely exclusively on the concept of personal voting since it would be more compatible with the nature of research used in this study - within country analysis. By exploring Thailand's three general elections for the lower house (1992, 1995, 2007) with the same type of electoral rules- block vote, the study aims to examine the impact of district magnitude (elements of electoral rules: ballot structure, district magnitude, electoral formulas) as a key determinant of the level of corruption. The effect of district magnitude on corruption will be analyzed against the backdrop of the block vote system controlling for year and region. Based upon the personal vote argument, the study contends that in the context of block vote, large district magnitude would put more pressure on a candidate to distinguish himself/ herself from his/her party’s teammates as well as candidates from different parties, which in turn provide the likelihood for the use of corruption as one of their electoral strategies. The findings from this study show that the levels of corruption at a nationwide level for all three years are relatively the same. More importantly, the study found that district magnitude is related with corruption, that is, a large district magnitude is associated with a greater degree of corruption. Finally, the study shows that region is strongly associated with the level of corruption - highest in the Northeast and lowest in the South and in Bangkok. Keywords: Thailand; electoral corruption; personal vote; candidate-centered electoral rules; block vote; district magnitude DOI: 10.3860/apssr.v10i2.1901 Asia-Pacific Social Science Review 10:2 (2010), pp. 43-58

This paper shows how an uneven electoral system in Japan shapes political parties' mobilization strategies by utilizing a majoritarian electoral system with heterogeneous district magnitudes, which in turn contributes to the gap in turnout across districts. Scholars have long debated the relationship between electoral systems and turnout; it is known that countries with proportional representation electoral systems – those with larger district magnitude – tend to have higher turnout rates than countries with majoritarian electoral systems, especially single-member district (SMD) systems. The current discussion on turnout and district magnitude of an electoral system assumes a monotonic relationship between these factors: the larger the district magnitude of the electoral system, the more (or less) participatory the electorate, due to competitiveness and mobilization efforts by political parties and other relevant groups. In contrast, this paper shows a mixed relationship between district magnitude of the electoral system and party mobilization and subsequent turnout, investigating a majoritarian electoral system with uneven district magnitude in the Japanese Upper House. During the survey period, the party system in Japan consisted of two major parties and a few smaller parties; consequently, the two major parties focused their efforts on SMDs in order to maximize their seat share, while smaller parties focused their resource on districts electing more than two members (where they have some chance to elect their party's candidates). In combination, these party strategies have resulted in the lowest mobilization and turnout rates in districts with two members.

Choosing between Representing Women or Representing Ethnic Groups in Europe? Adding and Subtracting Plurality, Representation, and Democracy

Various studies demonstrate that candidates at the top of the party list have a strong advantage in preferential voting systems, particularly under open-list PR. Such ballot position effects can be explained by voters’ tendency to rely on easily available information shortcuts when selecting a candidate. In this paper, we argue that the strength of ballot position effects depends on the context of how voters cast their vote. Specifically, we argue that postal voters are less likely to rely on the ballot position cue compared to voters who vote on election day for two reasons. First, postal voters might be more politically interested. Second, postal voters have more time to assess additional information about the candidates. The hypothesis is tested by analyzing newly collected data from two open-list PR elections in the German federal state of Hamburg. The results confirm the theoretical expectations: Ballot position effects are substantively weaker among postal voters. Additional analyses suggest that differences in the political interest between postal voters and election day voters are unlikely to fully explain these results. These findings advance our understanding of ballot position effects and voters’ use of information shortcuts more generally.

Electoral systems do not simply reflect voter preferences, social cleavages, or the political party configuration of a given society. All electoral systems shape and reshape these features. The choice of one electoral system or another involves a decision about what goals decision-makers wish to foster. The present article enumerates six possible goals of electoral systems and then explains how various systems foster or derogate from these goals. In all cases of electoral-system choice, there are tradeoffs. A system may fulfill one objective but make it difficult to attain another. Clarity of objective and attention to the details of system choice are, therefore, necessary.

The seminal work of Arend Lijphart, Electoral Systems and Party Systems (1994), limits the definition of electoral reforms to those affecting electoral formulas, district magnitudes, assembly size, or electoral thresholds. Following this definition, studies on electoral reform have put political parties and their motivations at centre stage. Expanding the definition of electoral reform, however, requires a move beyond parties to explore the multiple possible sources of change. This article examines the most common reforms ofrecent years, electoral gender quota policies, and points to at least four explanations for the adoption of gender quota laws. Based on extensive data from gender quota campaigns, the article suggests that the literature on this topic would benefit from efforts to broaden the analytical focus to include the role of agency, group interests, anddiscursive struggles, and to call attention to the possibility of causal diversity by revealing different routes to electoral reform.

Comparisons among electoral systems: Distinguishing between localism and candidate-centered politics

JON FRAENKEL At first sight, the Pacific Islands seem like a graveyard for institutional determinist theories regarding the impact of electoral systems on party polarisation. Maurice Duverger’s well-known ‘sociological law’ was that first-past-the-post electoral rules tend to deliver two-party systems. Proportional representation (PR) systems were more loosely associated with multi-party settings.2 Yet in the Pacific, first-past-the-post using countries, such as the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea (1975-2002), have developed multipleparty systems. The PR using territories of New Caledonia, French Polynesia and Vanuatu have, at times, veered towards a two-camp polarisation around the issue of independence. Some firstpast-the-post-using democracies, such as Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia, have not witnessed the emergence of any party-based system at all. Neighbouring Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu have similar styles of loose and fluctuating parliamentary alliances but no election-oriented political parties, despite the first using a two round electoral system, the second a unique simultaneously tallied preferential voting system, and the third a block voting system in two-member constituencies. Electoral laws would appear to exert negligible sway over Pacific party systems. On closer examination, Duverger’s theory does shed some light on the direction of electoral incentives in some of the Pacific countries, once hedged with the necessary qualifications and confined to appropriate settings. Negative cases, where electoral laws do not bring about the anticipated party structures are not confined to Oceania. India and Canada, for example, have numerous political parties, but use first-past-thepost electoral systems. Guyana uses a list PR system but has a two-party centred system, as did Austria during 1945-1990. Much of the literature has consequently been aimed at heavily revising Duverger’s theories about the impact of electoral laws on party systems, either by emphasising that the critical association is in fact between district magnitude and the number of parties or by specifying the role of intervening variables, such as ethnic heterogeneity or the number of competing ‘issue dimensions’ to the political process.3 It is in situations where a single salient political cleavage (such as Labour/Conservative, or Catholic/Protestant) dominates the political order that distinct electoral laws may work in different directions, encouraging or limiting multi-partyism. In Fiji and New Caledonia, those varying electoral pressures on party systems exerted considerable influence over the success or failure of compacts aimed at mitigating ethnic conflict. In most South Pacific nations, the decolonisation issue did not prove an enduring The contribution of AusAID to this series is acknowledged with appreciation. Discussion Paper 2005/8 State, Society and Governance in Melanesia THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

Show Your Flag or Be Everyone's Friend?: The Effects of District Magnitude on Vote-Securing Strategies

Policies as diverse as tariffs, exchange rates, and unemployment insurance vary across democratic countries. In an attempt to explain this cross-national variation, scholars have turned to the institutions that govern countries’ elections. The institutions that regulate elections, also known as an electoral system, vary significantly across democracies. Can these varied electoral institutions explain the diversity of policies observed? This question remains unanswered. Despite a growing body of research, little consensus exists as to precisely how electoral institutions affect policy. Why is it so difficult to untangle the effects of electoral institutions on economic policy? One reason for the confusion may be the imprecise manner in which electoral institutions are often measured. Better measures of electoral systems may improve our understanding of their policy effects. Improved theories that clarify the causal mechanism(s) linking electoral systems to policy outcomes will also help to clarify the relationship between electoral systems and policies. To better understand the policy effects of electoral institutions, both theoretical and empirical work must take seriously contextual factors, such as geography, which likely mediate the effects of electoral institutions. Finally, different types of empirical evidence are needed to shed new light on the policy effects of electoral institutions. It is difficult to identify the effects of electoral systems in cross-national studies because of the many other factors that vary across countries. Examining within-country variations, such as changes in district magnitude, may provide useful new insights regarding the effects of electoral institutions on policy.

This paper investigates how electoral laws affect the position-taking incentives of parties and candidates. It seeks to extend the finding presented in the classical median voter theorem to a wide class of electoral systems-or to show the limits of such extension. The factors examined are the district magnitude, the electoral formula, the number of votes each voter is allowed to cast, whether voters can cumulate their votes, and whether voters can partially abstain. I suggest a crude division of electoral systems into those producing predominantly centripetal incentives and those producing predominantly centrifugal incentives. Among the factors found to produce centripetal incentives, at least in noncumulative systems, are the following: increases in the number of votes per voter; outlawry of partial abstention; and decreases in the district magnitude. In systems allowing the cumulation of votes, matters are a bit different.

How party strategies vary by electoral system remains largely unexplored in election studies. Using qualitative and quantitative data from Spanish national and European elections, we test how party strategies diverge between districted electoral systems and systems using a single national district. We use the number of visits to districts by the party leaders to determine if targeted party strategies are driven by district magnitude, the share of the population entitled to vote in every district, the number of districts or the strength of parties’ local organizations. Our results show that only the frequency of visits to districts by large parties are clearly affected by electoral systems and, more specifically, by the number of districts and district population.

Coordination failure and the politics of tribes: Jordanian elections under SNTV

This article considers the impact of ethnic dynamics and electoral systems in the December 2023 elections in the Iraqi province of Kirkuk, where long-standing tensions between Kurdish, Arab, and Turkmen populations were the main influences in the political landscape. The adoption of an ‘open list’ electoral system and the rise of independent candidates from various ethnic groups marked a key turning point. The effects of these changes both increased voter participation and resulted in a fragmented outcome that required coalition-building. The study suggests that reforms in institutions and civic education have facilitated inter-ethnic cooperation and created more effective governance in Kirkuk. The article concludes by suggesting that the historic power struggle between different groups in Kirkuk could gradually develop into a more effective political process that encourages collaboration.

The Finnish electoral system combines open-list proportional representation (OLPR) and mandatory preferential voting. OLPR provides the Finnish electoral system with a high degree of intra- and interparty competition. The inherent duality of the system has a multitude of effects on how elections are played out at different levels. The chapter provides a thorough presentation of the basic features of the electoral system and discusses its consequences, with a specific focus on how the two levels of competition influence the internal logic of Finnish politics in terms of nomination of candidates, how campaigns are fought, elections won, and the behavior and attitudes of voters, politicians, and parties.