Core Issues in Comparative Politics (PO233) Module Director: Dr. Renske Doorenspleet Associate Professor in Comparative Politics director Centre for Studies in Democratization Department of Politics and International Studies University of Warwick, UK

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Core Issues in Comparative Politics(PO233)Modul
e Director Dr. Renske DoorenspleetAssociate
Professor in Comparative Politicsdirector Centre
for Studies in DemocratizationDepartment of
Politics and International StudiesUniversity of
Warwick, UK

• www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/staff/doorenspleet
  /
• www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/csd/
• e-mail renske.doorenspleet_at_warwick.ac.uk

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Types of Democracies

• Consensus versus Majoritarian Systems
• (Lijphart 1999, see also week 11)
• Executive-parties dimension (how easy is it for
  one party to take control of the government?)
• concentration of executive power (week 14)
• dominance of executive (week 14)
• two-party vs. multiparty system (week 12)
• majoritarian electoral rules vs. PR (week 13)
• types of interest groups
• Federal-unitary dimension

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Content Lecture week 13

• Electoral Systems
• Types of Electoral Systems (read Gallagher 2008
  Hague and Harrop 2007, Ch. 10!)
• Link Electoral and Party Systems
• C. Back to Lijphart (read literature week 11)
• D. Contents of seminar week 14

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A. Types of Electoral Systems
Elections and referendums the two main voting
opportunities in democracies Elections peoples
participation, link between people and their
representatives, legitimation Referendums see
Gallagher 2008 250-259! Focus in this lecture
elections ? electoral systems
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A. Types of Electoral Systems

• dimensions of electoral regulations
• Extent of franchise (see also week 3, 4, 5)
• Voluntary or compulsory voting
• (see Hague and Harrop 2007 202 Gallagher
  2008 243)
• Terms Presidential versus Parliamentarian
  Systems
• (see also week 14)

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A. Types of Electoral Systems

• electoral system the set of rules governing the
  conversion of votes
• into seats
• ? impact on a countrys party-system,
  government-coalition, representation etc.
• Electoral systems can be categorized along the
  magnitude of the
• constituencies
• Multi-member constituencies (PR-systems)
• ? proportionality is key!
• Single-member constituencies (Majoritarian- or
  non PR-systems)
• ? winner takes all is key!

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A. Types of Electoral Systems

• Three main categories of PR-systems
• List systems The party presents a list of
  candidates.
• Voter votes for party (sometimes for candidates
  on party list)
• Methods to award seats in list PR-systems
• Perfect proportionality means () of votes
  () of seats

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A. Types of Electoral Systems
List systems in 70 countries including
Brazil, Israel and the Netherlands
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A. Types of Electoral Systems

• Three main categories of PR-systems
• Mixed systems Voter has two votes, one for a
  candidate and another for the party-list. But in
  the end PR!

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A. Types of Electoral Systems
Mixed systems in nine countries, including
Germany and New Zealand
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A. Types of Electoral Systems

• Three main categories of PR-systems
• Single transferable vote Application of
  alternative vote to PR-systems. Extremely
  complicated! Used in Malta and Ireland

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A. Types of Electoral Systems
Three main categories of non PR-systems
(majoritarian and plurality systems) 1.
Single-member plurality (First past the post)
The candidate with the most votes is elected,
majority not needed, within single-member
districts.
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A. Types of Electoral Systems
Single-member plurality in 47 countries,
including Canada, India, UK and USA
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A. Types of Electoral Systems
Three main categories of non PR-systems
(majoritarian and plurality systems) 2.
Alternative vote Rank order of candidates. The
lowest placed candidate is eliminated and his
votes are redistributed to second preference. The
process is repeated until one candidate gets the
majority.
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A. Types of Electoral Systems
Alternative vote in Australia, Fiji, Papua New
Guinea
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A. Types of Electoral Systems

• Three main categories of non PR-systems
  (majoritarian and plurality systems)
• 3. Two-round systems
• If no candidate reaches the majority in the
  first round, the least successful candidates are
  eliminated and a second round takes place
• Used in 22 countries, including Egypt, Mali and
  Vietnam

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A. Types of Electoral Systems
Electoral systems vary in the following
dimensions (1) District magnitude From
single-member constituencies to whole-country
constituencies The bigger the constituency the
more proportional
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A. Types of Electoral Systems
Electoral systems vary in the following
dimensions (continued) (2) Intra-party choice
How much intra-party choice is there among
candidates? Single-member constituencies No
choice PR-systems Closed lists Party
determines order of candidates Preferential
lists Voters can express their preference
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A. Types of Electoral Systems
Electoral systems vary in the following
dimensions (continued) (3) Thresholds Electoral
systems often contain some institutions to
prevent very small parties from winning
seats Preventing fragmentation Facilitating
stable government Thresholds are normally
between 3-5 (Netherlands 0.67, Russia 7).
Thresholds usually exist at national level,
rarely at constituency level.
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B. Link Electoral and Party Systems
Link Electoral and Party Systems 1. Duverger
(1954) electoral system ? party
system versus 2. Rokkan (1970) social
cleavages ? party system ? electoral system And
Jasiewicz (2003) political fragmentation ?
adoption PR (not other way around, cf
post-communist Europe) And Miller (2005) cracks
in two-party system BEFORE adoption of PR (based
on New Zealands introduction of PR in 1996)
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C. Back to Lijphart
Lijpharts executive-parties dimension (how easy
is it for one party to take control of the
government?) Fourth element types of electoral
systems According to Lijphart, most important
indicator of different types of political
systems, to distinguish consensus and
majoritarian systems Problem of dichotomy,
again! Strong link with types of party systems
(week 12)
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D. Contents of Seminar week 14

• Homework seminar week 14
• Read the required literature of week 13
• 2) Choose one country and describe the
  following
• Types of electoral system over time
• Why has the system been changed?
• Advantages and disadvantages of the change/
  different systems
• See www.electionworld.org/ and www.ipu.org/ and
  https//www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world
  -factbook/ and links in module outline
• Prepare a presentation (around 5 minutes)