IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pab/wpaper/24.02.html

From people's preferences to political representation. The case of the Spanish regional elections

Author

Listed:
  • Pedro Albarrán

    (University o Alicante)

  • Carmen Herrero

    (University o Alicante & Ivie)

  • Antonio Villar

    (Universidad Pablo de Olavide & ISEAK)

Abstract

In this paper, we conduct an empirical analysis of the transition from voters' preferences to electoral outcomes, a process significantly influenced by the electoral system. We introduce a measure called 'support' that summarizes voters’ preferences. Then, we examine how these preferences are compressed under the plurality voting mechanism, which forces to select just one option. This choice is captured by the 'affinity', which singles out the preferred party for each voter. The final decision, though, is affected by strategic considerations and several other factors. Using survey data from three Spanish regions (Andalusia, Madrid, and the Valencian Community) prior to their respective Regional Elections, our findings indicate that political representation in all three Regional Parliaments would be more diverse if based on voters’ complete preferences (i.e., support). In all instances, smaller parties lose ground, a trend that emerges even before strategic considerations. These results suggest that the electoral system may exacerbate political polarization, diverging from social preferences.

Suggested Citation

  • Pedro Albarrán & Carmen Herrero & Antonio Villar, 2024. "From people's preferences to political representation. The case of the Spanish regional elections," Working Papers 24.02, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:pab:wpaper:24.02
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.upo.es/serv/bib/wps/econ2402.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Antonio Villar, 2023. "Correction: The precedence function: a numerical evaluation method for multicriteria ranking problems," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 11(2), pages 221-221, October.
    2. Herrero, Carmen & Villar, Antonio, 2021. "Group decisions from individual rankings: The Borda–Condorcet rule," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 291(2), pages 757-765.
    3. Partha Dasgupta & Eric Maskin, 2008. "On The Robustness of Majority Rule," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(5), pages 949-973, September.
    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. Antonio Villar, 2025. "Old rockers: Borda and Condorcet revisited," Economic Theory Bulletin, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 13(1), pages 45-53, April.
    2. Antonio Villar, 2023. "Old rockers," Working Papers 23.10, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Economics.
    3. Miller, Alan D. & Rachmilevitch, Shiran, "undated". "A Behavioral Arrow Theorem," Working Papers WP2012/7, University of Haifa, Department of Economics.
    4. Carmen Herrero & Antonio Villar, 2022. "Sports competitions and the Break-Even rule," Working Papers 22.13, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Economics.
    5. Barbaro, Salvatore, 2025. "Election methods and political polarization," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    6. Alcantud, José Carlos R., 2019. "Yet another characterization of the majority rule," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 52-55.
    7. Willem Karel M. Brauers & Romualdas Ginevičius, 2009. "Robustness in regional development studies. The case of Lithuania," Journal of Business Economics and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(2), pages 121-140, February.
    8. Moldovanu, Benny & Rosar, Frank, 2021. "Brexit: A comparison of dynamic voting games with irreversible options," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 85-108.
    9. Cato, Susumu, 2011. "Maskin monotonicity and infinite individuals," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 110(1), pages 56-59, January.
    10. Josep Freixas & Dani Samaniego, 2024. "Some characterizations of resolute majority rules," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 336(3), pages 2111-2124, May.
    11. Ozkes, Ali Ihsan & Sanver, M. Remzi, 2017. "Absolute qualified majoritarianism: How does the threshold matter?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 20-22.
    12. M. Sanver, 2009. "Characterizations of majoritarianism: a unified approach," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 33(1), pages 159-171, June.
    13. Ollár, Mariann, 2010. "Monotonicity and robustness of majority rule," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 107(2), pages 288-290, May.
    14. Salvatore Barbaro & Anna Specht, 2021. "Simple-majority rule and the size of the Bundestag," Working Papers 2105, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.
    15. Pongou, Roland & Tchantcho, Bertrand, 2021. "Round-robin political tournaments: Abstention, truthful equilibria, and effective power," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 331-351.
    16. Amartya Sen, 2020. "Majority decision and Condorcet winners," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 54(2), pages 211-217, March.
    17. DECERF, Benoit & VAN DER LINDEN, Martin, 2016. "A criterion to compare mechanisms when solutions are not unique, with applications to constrained school choice," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2016033, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    18. Stergios Athanasoglou & Somouaoga Bonkoungou & Lars Ehlers, 2023. "Strategy-proof preference aggregation and the anonymity-neutrality tradeoff," Working Papers 519, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Apr 2025.
    19. Andrew Samuel & Ajit Mishra, 2022. "Does it matter who extorts? Extortion by competent and incompetent enforcers," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 69(3), pages 328-344, July.
    20. Akello-Egwel, Dolica & Leedham-Green, Charles & Litterick, Alastair & Markström, Klas & Riis, Søren, 2025. "Condorcet domains on at most seven alternatives," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 23-33.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • N36 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Latin America; Caribbean
    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:pab:wpaper:24.02. 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: Publicación Digital - UPO (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deupoes.html .

    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.