Mind the gap: Do proportional electoral systems foster a more equal representation of women and men, poor and rich?

Female gender and low income are two markers for groups that have been historically disadvantaged within most societies. The study explores two research questions related to their political representation: (1) ‘Are parties biased towards the ideological preferences of male and rich citizens?’; and (2) ‘Does the proportionality of the electoral system moderate the degree of under-representation of women and poor citizens in the party system?’ A multilevel analysis of survey data from 24 parliamentary democracies indicates that there is some bias against those with low income and, at a much smaller rate, women. This has systemic consequences for the quality of representation, as the preferences of the complementary groups differ. The proportionality of the electoral system influences the degree of under-representation: specifically, larger district magnitudes help in closing the considerable gap between rich and poor.

Social Inequality in Political Participation: The Dark Sides of Individualisation

Has the participatory gap between social groups widened over the past decades? And if so, how can it be explained? Based on a re-analysis of 94 electoral surveys in eight Western European countries between 1956 and 2009, this article shows that the difference in national election turnout between the half of the population with the lowest level of education and the half with the highest has increased. It shows that individualisation – the decline of social integration and social control – is a major cause of this trend. In their electoral choices, citizens with fewer resources – in terms of education – rely more heavily on cues and social control of the social groups to which they belong. Once the ties to these groups loosen, these cues and mobilising norms are no longer as strong as they once were, resulting in an increasing abstention of the lower classes on Election Day. In contrast, citizens with abundant resources rely much less on cues and social control, and the process of individualisation impacts on their participatory behaviour to a much lesser extent. The article demonstrates this effect based on a re-analysis of five cumulative waves of the European Social Survey.

New Patterns of Democracy in the Countries of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems

The chapter introduces a new database on political-institutional patterns of democracy used in the contributions to the book. It provides an update and extension of Lijphart’s (1999, 2012) measurement of consensus and majoritarian democracy for the countries of the second wave of the CSES during the period 1997–2006, using 11 partly improved indicators. The chapter explores patterns of democracy by the means of factor analysis, construct additive indices, and present the resulting country scores of consensus and majoritarian democracy graphically. Two variants are presented, one featuring Lijphart’s (1999) classic ‘executives–parties’ and ‘federal–unitary’ dimensions, and another incorporating direct democracy into the framework, yielding an additional ‘cabinets–direct democracy’ dimension

What Type of Resources? Household Effects and Female Electoral Participation

Mechanisms behind partner effects are contingent on women's individual resource endowment. While low and medium educated women most strongly profit from higher educational partner resources, i.e. from a compensatory mechanism, the resource “time” seems to particularly confine political involvement of women with both high professional status or no employment.

Loyal to the Game? Strategic Policy Representation in Mixed Electoral Systems

In Germany's compensatory mixed electoral system, alternative electoral routes lead into parliament. We study the relationship between candidates' electoral situations across both tiers and policy representation, fully accounting for candidate, party and district preferences in a multi-actor constellation and the exact electoral incentives for candidates to represent either the party or the district. The results (2009 Bundestag election data) yield evidence of an interactive effect of closeness of the district race and list safety on candidates' positioning between their party and constituency.

Strategic Incentives in Unconventional Electoral Systems: Introduction to the Special Issue

The study of strategic behaviour and the impact of institutions on elections has mainly focused on simple and conventional electoral systems: list-proportional electoral systems (PR) and the plurality vote. Less conventional systems are not on the agenda of comparative studies, even though no less than 30% of countries use unconventional electoral systems for their national parliamentary elections, such as the Single Transferable Vote, PR with majority bonuses, or mixed electoral systems. Often, they provide for unusual combinations of different institutional incentives, and hence to particular actor strategies.

Electoral and Financial Bookkeeping: A Comparison of Pre-Electoral Pledges on Public Spending and the Outcome of Post-Electoral Budget Debates

In the wake of the financial crisis, budgetary discipline has taken centre stage in politics. More than ever a country's budget mirrors the true policy preferences of the legislative majority beyond all political discourse and cheap talk. The paper sheds light on mandate fulfilment in the field of public spending and fiscal policy in general. Based on previous work on pledge fulfilment in Switzerland the paper compares publicised pre-electoral statements of MPs on public spending and the development of the public finances with their post-electoral legislative behaviour during budget debates and votes. The findings of the paper confirm the results of the aforementioned earlier studies and point to the potential of budgetary statements for future mandate fulfilment research.

Political Education and First-Time Voting in Switzerland

The proposed paper investigates the effect of political education on first-time voting in Switzerland. Theoretically, the paper takes up assumptions of recent research that political education is positively related to political interest, and hence to political participation. Thereby, the paper adds to the literature in two aspects: First, in Switzerland, education is a cantonal matter presenting a unique opportunity to investigate the impact of political education on voting on individual as well as cantonal level. Second, political education is not only measured by political knowledge, but also by civic skills and attitudes acquired in school. Conceptually, the study adopts a multilevel approach permitting a simultaneous testing of the influence of individual and contextual determinants on electoral participation. This paper corresponds closely to the panel topic by examining the important question of how political education affects the voting behaviour of first-time voters not only on individual, but also on contextual level.

An Ever Closer Union? The Nationalisation of Political Parties in Switzerland, 1991–2015

The contribution of this research note is a systematic description of levels of party nationalisation in Switzerland, using results from the elections to the Swiss National Council between 1991 and 2015. Party nationalisation is understood as the territorial homogeneity of a party's electoral performance and measured using the inverted and standardised Gini index. Our results indicate a trend towards more nationalisation in the Swiss party system over the time period covered, and distinct patterns for single parties. The SVP and the GLP have made big leaps towards stronger nationalisation, with the former closing in on the levels of the SP and the FDP, while the CVP remains a weakly nationalised party, considering its size.

Participación electoral de los argentinos residentes en el exterior

Históricamente la Argentina ha sido caracterizada como un país de recepción de migrantes de todo el mundo. No obstante, en las últimas décadas, los cambios políticos y económicos en el interior del país y las facilidades para la movilidad internacional, han hecho de la emigración una alternativa cierta en búsqueda del mejoramiento de las condiciones de vida y desarrollo profesional para la población argentina. En dicho marco, el presente trabajo aborda la problemática de la ciudadanía transnacional, centrándose en la participación electoral de los argentinos residiendo en el exterior y prestando especial atención a los factores que la dificultan. Los principales ejes de análisis son: a- el estudio de los datos cuantitativos referidos a la participación electoral, b- el posicionamiento de las instituciones del Estado encargadas de ejecutar el voto en el exterior y la clase política, respecto al tema y c- el papel desempeñado por las asociaciones de argentinos residentes en el exterior

Participación electoral de los argentinos residentes en el exterior

Históricamente la Argentina ha sido caracterizada como un país de recepción de migrantes de todo el mundo. No obstante, en las últimas décadas, los cambios políticos y económicos en el interior del país y las facilidades para la movilidad internacional, han hecho de la emigración una alternativa cierta en búsqueda del mejoramiento de las condiciones de vida y desarrollo profesional para la población argentina. En dicho marco, el presente trabajo aborda la problemática de la ciudadanía transnacional, centrándose en la participación electoral de los argentinos residiendo en el exterior y prestando especial atención a los factores que la dificultan. Los principales ejes de análisis son: a- el estudio de los datos cuantitativos referidos a la participación electoral, b- el posicionamiento de las instituciones del Estado encargadas de ejecutar el voto en el exterior y la clase política, respecto al tema y c- el papel desempeñado por las asociaciones de argentinos residentes en el exterior

El proceso electoral de 1917 en la provincia de Buenos Aires y el triunfo de la U.C.R.

El 24 de abril de 1917 se dictó el decreto de intervención federal a la provincia de Buenos Aires. Producido este hecho, las diversas fuerzas políticas se prepararon para participar en las elecciones de gobernador y legisladores que habrían de realizarse en marzo de 1918, pero fue en el radicalismo donde el proceso habría de ser realmente complicado. Arribada la UCR al poder a través de la intervención y con claras perspectivas de llegar al gobierno, rápidamente se pudo contemplar que, dentro de la misma y sin llegar a la ruptura, se formaron dos líneas claramente contrapuestas que se denominaron provincialistas, origen en parte del antipersonalismo provincial, y los metropolitanos. Luego de un arduo proceso, con activa participación de Yrigoyen, se llegó a dar consenso a la fórmula Crotto-Monteverde, que habría de imponerse sobre los conservadores y socialistas, pero que dejó abierto el camino para las fuertes luchas intrapartidarias del radicalismo

Participación electoral de los argentinos residentes en el exterior

Históricamente la Argentina ha sido caracterizada como un país de recepción de migrantes de todo el mundo. No obstante, en las últimas décadas, los cambios políticos y económicos en el interior del país y las facilidades para la movilidad internacional, han hecho de la emigración una alternativa cierta en búsqueda del mejoramiento de las condiciones de vida y desarrollo profesional para la población argentina. En dicho marco, el presente trabajo aborda la problemática de la ciudadanía transnacional, centrándose en la participación electoral de los argentinos residiendo en el exterior y prestando especial atención a los factores que la dificultan. Los principales ejes de análisis son: a- el estudio de los datos cuantitativos referidos a la participación electoral, b- el posicionamiento de las instituciones del Estado encargadas de ejecutar el voto en el exterior y la clase política, respecto al tema y c- el papel desempeñado por las asociaciones de argentinos residentes en el exterior

El proceso electoral de 1917 en la provincia de Buenos Aires y el triunfo de la U.C.R.

El 24 de abril de 1917 se dictó el decreto de intervención federal a la provincia de Buenos Aires. Producido este hecho, las diversas fuerzas políticas se prepararon para participar en las elecciones de gobernador y legisladores que habrían de realizarse en marzo de 1918, pero fue en el radicalismo donde el proceso habría de ser realmente complicado. Arribada la UCR al poder a través de la intervención y con claras perspectivas de llegar al gobierno, rápidamente se pudo contemplar que, dentro de la misma y sin llegar a la ruptura, se formaron dos líneas claramente contrapuestas que se denominaron provincialistas, origen en parte del antipersonalismo provincial, y los metropolitanos. Luego de un arduo proceso, con activa participación de Yrigoyen, se llegó a dar consenso a la fórmula Crotto-Monteverde, que habría de imponerse sobre los conservadores y socialistas, pero que dejó abierto el camino para las fuertes luchas intrapartidarias del radicalismo