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The Electoral Sweet Spot: Low‐Magnitude Proportional Electoral Systems

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  • John M Carey
  • Simon Hix

Abstract

Can electoral rules be designed to achieve political ideals such as accurate representation of voter preferences and accountable governments? The academic literature commonly divides electoral systems into two types, majoritarian and proportional, and implies a straightforward trade‐off by which having more of an ideal that a majoritarian system provides means giving up an equal measure of what proportional representation (PR) delivers. We posit that these trade‐offs are better characterized as nonlinear and that one can gain most of the advantages attributed to PR, while sacrificing less of those attributed to majoritarian elections, by maintaining district magnitudes in the low to moderate range. We test this intuition against data from 609 elections in 81 countries between 1945 and 2006. Electoral systems that use low‐magnitude multimember districts produce disproportionality indices almost on par with those of pure PR systems while limiting party system fragmentation and producing simpler government coalitions.

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  • John M Carey & Simon Hix, 2011. "The Electoral Sweet Spot: Low‐Magnitude Proportional Electoral Systems," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(2), pages 383-397, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:55:y:2011:i:2:p:383-397
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2010.00495.x
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    Cited by:

    1. Maria Rosaria Alfano & Anna Laura Baraldi & Erasmo Papagni, 2016. "Effect of the proportionality degree of electoral systems on corruption," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 34(8), pages 1895-1916, December.
    2. Frank, Marco & Stadelmann, David, 2021. "More federal legislators lead to more resources for their constituencies: Evidence from exogenous differences in seat allocations," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 230-243.
    3. Bol, Damien & Blais, André & Coulombe, Maxime & Laslier, Jean-François & Pilet, Jean-Benoit, 2023. "Choosing an electoral rule: Values and self-interest in the lab," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    4. Dario Debowicz & Alejandro Saporiti & Yizhi Wang, 2021. "Redistribution, power sharing and inequality concern," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 57(2), pages 197-228, August.
    5. Stadelmann, David & Torrens, Gustavo & Portmann, Marco, 2020. "Mapping the theory of political representation to the empirics: An investigation for proportional and majoritarian rules," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 548-560.
    6. Camille Bedock, 2017. "When Electoral Competition Determines Disproportionality Majority Bonus and Regional Elections in France and Italy," CEVIPOL Working Papers n°1 / 2017, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    7. Crutzen, Benoît S Y & Flamand, Sabine & Sahuguet, Nicolas, 2020. "A model of a team contest, with an application to incentives under list proportional representation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    8. Bol, Damien & Blais, André & Coulombe, Maxime & Laslier, Jean-François & Pilet, Jean-Benoit, 2020. "Choosing an Electoral Rule," SocArXiv rm2tq, Center for Open Science.
    9. Steffen Ganghof, 2019. "Designing Democratic Constitutions: The Search for Optimality," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(4), pages 243-253.
    10. Jon H. Fiva & Simon Hix, 2018. "Electoral Reform and Voter Coordination," CESifo Working Paper Series 7289, CESifo.
    11. Mario Daniele Amore & Margherita Corina, 2021. "Political elections and corporate investment: International evidence," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 52(9), pages 1775-1796, December.
    12. De Santo, Alessia & Le Maux, Benoît, 2023. "On the optimal size of legislatures: An illustrated literature review," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    13. Timothy Yu-Cheong Yeung & Izaskun Zuazu, 2020. "The impact of electoral rules on manufacturing industries: evidence of disaggregated data of 61 industries of 55 countries," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 31(4), pages 458-488, December.

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