Search Results

To allocate seats to candidates or parties, even a simple electoral system must specify at least the following: the total number of seats in the assembly (assembly size); the number of seats allocated in each electoral district (district magnitude); how these seats are allocated (seat allocation formula); and how a voter can express her/his preferences (ballot structure). The simplest seat allocation formulas are d'Hondt and Sainte-Laguë divisors, and Hare quota plus largest remainders. For single-seat districts, these proportional representation formulas are reduced to First-Past-The-Post, where the candidate with the most votes wins. Complex electoral systems may offer advantages, but the ability to predict the number of parties and the average proportionality of seats to votes is lost.

The first introductory section discusses the evolution of the current party system in New Zealand, from a system dominated by the two parties around which it had aligned in the 1930s, to the consequences for party composition and representation of the change from the first past the post (FPTP) or single‐member plurality (SMP) electoral system, to the new mixed‐member proportional (MMP) system under which the 1996 and 1999 elections were fought. The second introductory section discusses theoretical issues associated with party system dealignment that has resulted. The next three sections cover the same topics as those in the other country case studies in the book, and examine party legitimacy, party organizational strength (party finance, staffing, membership activity, and media), and systemic functionality (governance, interest articulation and aggregation, political recruitment, and political communication and education).

Starting with the characteristics of the electoral systems, the ‘Duvergerian agenda’ aims at predicting the average seat and vote share distributions of parties, the effective number of parties, and deviation from proportional representation. In the case of simple electoral systems, prediction of seat shares of parties and cabinet duration has become possible. Simple electoral systems are those that use a usual proportional representation formula or First-Past-The-Post, so that assembly size and district magnitude tell most of the story.

The politics of electoral reform under New Labour provides a critical case of marginalization and strategic manoeuvring in order to avoid shifting to a more proportional electoral system. And yet devolution was founded on variants of more proportional system which leaves the national system in an anomalous position.

This chapter answers the key question of why the Conservatives lost their majority at the 2017 general election but remained in power under Theresa May. If first describes the election outcome before explaining why a leftwards moving ‘policy mood’ and the government’s record made the Tories more vulnerable than their initial poll lead suggested. It further explains how, in the context of a two-horse race, Labour’s positive campaign contrasted especially favourably with the Conservatives’ own lacklustre efforts. Finally, the electoral system channelled the distribution of votes into a hung parliament in which the Tories fell just short of an overall majority.

This chapter continues the book’s examination of the politics of electoral system personalization since 1989. It focuses on reform debates and processes in countries using electoral systems that score either low or high in terms of personalization: closed-list, open-list, mixed, and non-list systems. It finds, in line with expectations, that countries that already use highly personalized systems have seen almost no pressure for depersonalization. Indeed, they have generally seen little pressure for reform affecting personalization at all: voters appear generally to be content with the forms of personal voting that they are used to. Where there was initially low personalization, by contrast, there has been widespread pressure to change that, though the barriers to the enactment of such reform have been high. The chapter also sums up the conclusions reached through both quantitative and qualitative research in relation to the hypotheses set out in Chapter 4.

This chapter explains how electoral reform can happen in America. Nobody doubts American politics is broken. Poll after poll confirms a deeply discontented electorate. However, there is less agreement around a solution. Americans seem to agree they want more parties. However, few Americans understand the institutional reasons why more parties do not emerge: The first-past-the-post electoral system. Absent this understanding, Americans are unlikely to demand electoral reform. Instead, they will keep blaming politicians for responding to the incentives the political system demands, and continue to be disappointed. As such, it is urgent that people make the connection between electoral reform and more parties. The encouraging news is that Americans may now be unusually open to institutional reforms. Politicians may also be open to reform; they do not like the system either. Ultimately, America must end the winner-take-all system of elections that is powering the two-party doom loop. The future of American democracy depends on it.

The core argument of the UK chapter is that internal party politics mobilized by party women explains decisions to increase the position of women in elected office. The critical actors were and are mainly women leaders in different parts of party organizations who have taken advantage of opportunities provided by processes of party modernization to make their claim. Party crises and subsequent reforms are an important part of the story, as are changes in gender roles whereby wholesale shifts in attitudes made women’s votes available to parties and made voters responsive to women candidates. However, progress was not, and is not, straightforward. Moreover, such progress as there has been is neither uniform across parties nor fully established in parliament and other legislatures. At Westminster, the crucial barriers are the electoral system and the continued male domination of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. The chapter analyses the history of women’s entry into British politics separately for the two major parties, Labour and Conservatives, as well as for the Liberal Democratic Party.