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Majority, proportionality, governability and factions

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  • Migheli, Matteo
  • Ortona, Guido

Abstract

Commonsense wisdom claims that majoritarian parliaments produce more efficient governments than proportional ones, because there are less decisors involved. Empirical evidence gives poor support to this claim. A possible explanation is that the real decisors may be not the parties, but the factions within them. We (a) assumed as factions of parties in system i the parties that provide the same government coalition in pure proportionality, (b) considered some stylized real cases, i.e. Germany, The Netherlands and Italy and (c) looked through simulation for a weight of factions such that governability is lower in FPTP than in threshold proportionality. In one case (The Netherlands) this can occur only under peculiar circumstances; in another one (Italy) it occurs for a high role of the factions, and in the last one it occurs also for a low role of the factions. Overall, our results provide support for the suggested hypothesis.

Suggested Citation

  • Migheli, Matteo & Ortona, Guido, 2009. "Majority, proportionality, governability and factions," POLIS Working Papers 122, Institute of Public Policy and Public Choice - POLIS.
    • Handle: RePEc:uca:ucapdv:122
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    Cited by:

    1. Matteo Migheli & Guido Ortona & Ferruccio Ponzano, 2014. "Competition among parties and power: an empirical analysis," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 215(1), pages 201-214, April.
    2. Matteo Migheli, 2016. "Measuring Representativeness in Different Electoral Systems, Using Italian and Dutch Data," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 25(4), pages 723-748, July.
    3. Bondonio, Daniele, 2009. "Impact identification strategies for evaluating business incentive programs," POLIS Working Papers 129, Institute of Public Policy and Public Choice - POLIS.
    4. Orso, Cristina Elisa, 2009. "Formal and informal sectors: Interactions between moneylenders and traditional banks in the rural Indian credit market," POLIS Working Papers 135, Institute of Public Policy and Public Choice - POLIS.
    5. Giuranno, Michele, 2009. "The logic of party coalitions with political activism and public financing," POLIS Working Papers 134, Institute of Public Policy and Public Choice - POLIS.
    6. Migheli, Matteo, 2009. "The two sides of a ghost: Twenty years without the wall," POLIS Working Papers 125, Institute of Public Policy and Public Choice - POLIS.
    7. Migheli, Matteo & Scacciati, Francesco, 2009. "How does labor supply react to different tax rates? A field inquiry," POLIS Working Papers 124, Institute of Public Policy and Public Choice - POLIS.
    8. Marchese Carla & Ramello Giovanni B., 2011. "In the Beginning Was the Word. Now is the Copyright," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 271-289, October.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    simulation; electoral systems; threshold proportionality; governability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A12 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines
    • C15 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Statistical Simulation Methods: General
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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