IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jothpo/v35y2023i2p100-125.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Electoral inequity

Author

Listed:
  • Nicolas Boccard

Abstract

Ideally, a representative democracy awards a genuine vote to each adult. We study this issue in competitive democracies with an election model combining district apportionment and proportional representation. Four classic seat allocation rules, including d’Hondt, are reframed as Dutch auctions, allowing important properties to be easily derived. The pros and cons of these methods are stated in terms of economic inequality; Sainte Laguë’s is shown to best carry the genuine vote ideal, both for elections and for apportionment. We next expound the interplay between these two components in generating an inequitable treatment of voters and develop the scale-free index of inequity best fitted to their concern. We apply it to 40 countries for the apportionment of electoral districts. Lastly, we compute the same inequity index for recent parliamentary elections in 80 countries, finding that the majority system mistreats electors, thus putting a ‘price’ on government stability.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicolas Boccard, 2023. "Electoral inequity," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 35(2), pages 100-125, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:35:y:2023:i:2:p:100-125
    DOI: 10.1177/09516298231162047
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09516298231162047
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/09516298231162047?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wada, Junichiro, 2012. "A divisor apportionment method based on the Kolm–Atkinson social welfare function and generalized entropy," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 243-247.
    2. Laslier, Jean-François, 2012. "Why not proportional?," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 90-93.
    3. Boix, Carles, 2010. "Electoral Markets, Party Strategies, and Proportional Representation," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 104(2), pages 404-413, May.
    4. Samuels, David & Snyder, Richard, 2001. "The Value of a Vote: Malapportionment in Comparative Perspective," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 31(4), pages 651-671, October.
    5. Loosemore, John & Hanby, Victor J., 1971. "The Theoretical Limits of Maximum Distortion: Some Analytic Expressions for Electoral Systems," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(4), pages 467-477, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wada, Junichiro & Kamahara, Yuta, 2018. "Studying malapportionment using α-divergence," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 77-89.
    2. Imai, Masami, 2022. "Local economic impacts of legislative malapportionment," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    3. Jonathan Cervas & Bernard Grofman, 2020. "Legal, Political Science, and Economics Approaches to Measuring Malapportionment: The U.S. House, Senate, and Electoral College 1790–2010," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2238-2256, October.
    4. Patrick Francois & Francesco Trebbi & Kairong Xiao, 2023. "Factions in Nondemocracies: Theory and Evidence From the Chinese Communist Party," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 91(2), pages 565-603, March.
    5. Eduardo Álvarez-Miranda & Camilo Campos-Valdés & Maurcio Morales Quiroga & Matías Moreno-Faguett & Jordi Pereira, 2020. "A Multi-Criteria Pen for Drawing Fair Districts: When Democratic and Demographic Fairness Matter," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(9), pages 1-26, August.
    6. Ardanaz, Martín & Leiras, Marcelo & Tommasi, Mariano, 2012. "The Politics of Federalism in Argentina: Implications for Governance and Accountability," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 3977, Inter-American Development Bank.
    7. Markus Brill & Jean-François Laslier & Piotr Skowron, 2018. "Multiwinner approval rules as apportionment methods," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 30(3), pages 358-382, July.
    8. Matthew Gould & Matthew D. Rablen, 2013. "Equitable Representation in the Councils of the United Nations: Theory and Application," CEDI Discussion Paper Series 13-07, Centre for Economic Development and Institutions(CEDI), Brunel University.
    9. Diloá Athias & Rodrigo Schneider, 2021. "The impact of political representation on the provision of public goods and services," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(2), pages 367-381, June.
    10. Stroh, Alexander & Elischer, Sebastian & Erdmann, Gero, 2012. "Origins and Outcomes of Electoral Institutions in African Hybrid Regimes: A Comparative Perspective," GIGA Working Papers 197, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    11. Casella, Alessandra & Laslier, Jean-François & Macé, Antonin, 2017. "Democracy for Polarized Committees: The Tale of Blotto's Lieutenants," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 239-259.
    12. Tiberiu Dragu & Jonathan Rodden, 2010. "Representation and regional redistribution in federations," Working Papers 2010/16, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    13. Yukio Koriyama & Jean-François Laslier & Antonin Macé & Rafael Treibich, 2013. "Optimal Apportionment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 121(3), pages 584-608.
    14. Carol Mershon, 2020. "Challenging the wisdom on preferential proportional representation," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 32(1), pages 168-182, January.
    15. Libman Alexander & Feld Lars P., 2013. "Strategic Tax Collection and Fiscal Decentralization: The Case of Russia," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 14(4), pages 449-482, December.
    16. Antonin Macé & Rafael Treibich, 2021. "Inducing Cooperation through Weighted Voting and Veto Power," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 70-111, August.
    17. Le Breton, Michel & Lepelley, Dominique & Macé, Antonin & Merlin, Vincent, 2017. "Le mécanisme optimal de vote au sein du conseil des représentants d’un système fédéral," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 93(1-2), pages 203-248, Mars-Juin.
    18. Wada, Junichiro, 2012. "A divisor apportionment method based on the Kolm–Atkinson social welfare function and generalized entropy," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 63(3), pages 243-247.
    19. Ocaña, Francisco & Oñate, Pablo, 2011. "IndElec: A Software for Analyzing Party Systems and Electoral Systems," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 42(i06).
    20. Albert Solé Ollé, 2010. "The Determinants of the Regional Allocation of Infrastructure Investment in Spain," Chapters, in: Núria Bosch & Marta Espasa & Albert Solé Ollé (ed.), The Political Economy of Inter-Regional Fiscal Flows, chapter 12, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:35:y:2023:i:2:p:100-125. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.