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C O M P A R A T I V E
P O L I T I C A L P A R T I E S &
L E G I S L A T I V E O R G A N I Z A T
I O N |
The third
stage of the project discussed on the
Political Parties and
Legislative Organization in Japan
page broadens the scope of the
research to incorporate comparisons with legislatures and
parties in other states. This began when I was awarded an
Abe Fellowship (2005-2006) to pursue comparisons of
Japan with
Italy and New Zealand. Now, along with
Matthew Søberg Shugart and Ellis Krauss (both UCSD), I am currently in
the midst of an ambitious comparative project funded
by the National Science Foundation.
Ellis Krauss, Matt
Shugart, and Robert Pekkanen
T
The project is entitled "Electoral Systems and Party
Personnel: The Consequences of Reform and Non-Reform" and is
funded (2008-2012) by the National Science
Foundation through its Political Science Program. The generous funding of
well over $500,000 allows us
conduct a study that we hope will make important theoretical
and empirical contributions. The Principal Investigators (PIs) are Ellis
Krauss, Robert Pekkanen and Matthew Shugart. Our aim is to
examine how electoral systems affect what we call "party
personnel strategies" (encompassing both party
nomination and ranking strategies as well as party and
legislative organization). To do this, we employ analysis of eight
countries--four of which experienced electoral system change
(the other four are control or "steady-state" cases for us):
Bolivia, Germany, Portugal, Japan, New Zealand, Ukraine,
Lithuania and the United Kingdom. Because of the vast scope
of the project, a number of excellent collaborators will
play a vital role in the project. In addition, we have
been able to also add data on Israel already. More recently,
funding from the Italian government to Prof. Luciano Bardi
will allow us to add the Italy case.
Electoral-system types and country cases
|
Electoral System |
Steady-state cases |
Countries changing from this system |
New system for change cases |
|
Nominal (SSD) |
UK |
New Zealand |
MMP |
|
List (PR) |
Portugal |
Bolivia |
MMP |
|
MMM |
Lithuania |
Ukraine |
List (PR) |
|
MMP |
Germany |
-- |
-- |
|
SNTV |
-- |
Japan |
MMM |
SSD= Single
Seat District. PR= Proportional Representation. MMP= Mixed Member Proportional. MMM= Mixed Member
Majoritarian. SNTV= Single Non-Transferable Vote.
I also coauthored a piece on
legislative organization under New Zealand's mixed-member
proportional electoral system.
"Legislative organization in MMP: The case of New Zealand."
Kuniaki Nemoto, Robert Pekkanen, Ellis S. Krauss, and Nigel
S. Roberts. Party Politics. Forthcoming, but
available online on the party politics website now.
abstract
How do electoral systems affect legislative organization?
The change in electoral systems from Single Member District
plurality (SMD) to Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) in New
Zealand can illuminate how electoral incentives affect the
distribution of cabinet positions. Because in SMD the
outcome of individual local districts determines the number
of seats a party wins collectively, New Zealand parties
deploy cabinet posts in order to shore up the electoral
fortunes of individual members. In MMP, the total number of
seats a party receives is determined by the votes in the
proportional representation (PR) portion for the party,
which eliminates the incentives to reward electorally unsafe
members with cabinet positions. We show that strong cabinet
members, measured through experience as prior terms in the
cabinet position, are still likely to be retained.
And another piece on mixed member systems is scheduled for
publication in Comparative Political Studies in 2012
(volume 45, issue 6). "Reverse Contamination: Burning and
Building Bridges in Mixed-Member Systems." Coauthored with
Kuniaki Nemoto and Ellis S. Krauss.
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