IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/kitwps/320437.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Analysis of the 2025 Bundestag elections. Part 1 of 4: Imperfection of the electoral reform

Author

Listed:
  • Tanguiane, Andranick S.

Abstract

This is the first of four articles on the 2025 German federal elections, continuing our analysis of the 2009, 2013, 2017 and 2021 elections. We begin with the 2023/24 electoral reform, which aimed to curb the uncontrolled growth of the Bundestag caused by political developments not envisaged in the original election rules. The reform fixes the size of the Bundestag at 630 members and introduces limits to parties' mandates at the level of federal states (Länder). All this makes the proportional allocation of Bundestag seats to parties less accurate and skews the balance between the two concepts implemented in the German mixed-member proportional representation system - the descriptive one (parliament consists of local representatives in order to 'mirror' the society) and the agent one (parliament consists of credible political experts from political parties) - in favor of the agent concept at the expense of the descriptive one. We show that the accuracy of Bundestag seat allocation to parties can be improved by applying modern discrete optimization techniques instead of the currently used historical Sainte-Lague/Webster method. The balance between the two concepts of representation can be restored by replacing the official two-tier distribution of Bundestag seats between federal state party associations with that computed directly in one step. Finally, all apportionment problems can be completely solved by introducing adjustment vote weights. All these devices are illustrated using hypothetical redistributions of Bundestag seats.

Suggested Citation

  • Tanguiane, Andranick S., 2025. "Analysis of the 2025 Bundestag elections. Part 1 of 4: Imperfection of the electoral reform," Working Paper Series in Economics 167, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Department of Economics and Management.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:kitwps:320437
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/320437/1/1930056516.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andranik Tangian, 2014. "Mathematical Theory of Democracy," Studies in Choice and Welfare, Springer, edition 127, number 978-3-642-38724-1, June.
    2. Diego Varela & Javier Prado-Dominguez, 2012. "Negotiating the Lisbon Treaty: Redistribution, Efficiency and Power Indices," Czech Economic Review, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, vol. 6(2), pages 107-124, July.
    3. Shapley, L. S. & Shubik, Martin, 1954. "A Method for Evaluating the Distribution of Power in a Committee System," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 48(3), pages 787-792, September.
    4. M. L. Balinski & H. P. Young, 1979. "Criteria for Proportional Representation," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 27(1), pages 80-95, February.
    5. Andranik Tangian, 2020. "Analytical Theory of Democracy," Studies in Choice and Welfare, Springer, number 978-3-030-39691-6, June.
    6. Andranik Tangian, 2017. "Policy Representation of a Parliament: The Case of the German Bundestag 2013 Elections," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 151-179, January.
    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. Tanguiane, Andranick S., 2022. "Analysis of the 2021 Bundestag elections. 3/4. Tackling the Bundestag growth," Working Paper Series in Economics 153, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Department of Economics and Management.
    2. Tanguiane, Andranick S., 2023. "Apportionment in times of digitalization," Working Paper Series in Economics 161, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Department of Economics and Management.
    3. Tanguiane, Andranick S., 2022. "Analysis of the 2021 Bundestag elections. 4/4. The third vote application," Working Paper Series in Economics 154, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Department of Economics and Management.
    4. Tanguiane, Andranick S., 2022. "Analysis of the 2021 Bundestag elections. 2/4. Political spectrum," Working Paper Series in Economics 152, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Department of Economics and Management.
    5. Tangian, Andranik S., 2018. "Testing the improved third vote during the 2018 election of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology student parliament," Working Paper Series in Economics 117, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Department of Economics and Management.
    6. Luca Alfieri & Nino Kokashvili, 2020. "Financial Safety Nets In East Asia And Europe: A Political Economy Assessment," University of Tartu - Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Working Paper Series 121, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, University of Tartu (Estonia).
    7. Petróczy, Dóra Gréta & Hatvani, Ákos, 2025. "A priori szavazási erő az Európai Unió Tanácsában. A demográfiai változások hatása a Tanács döntéshozatalára [A priori voting power in the Council of the European Union. The impact of demographic s," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(2), pages 158-177.
    8. Tanguiane, Andranick S., 2025. "Analysis of the 2025 Bundestag elections. Part 4 of 4: Changes in the German political spectrum," Working Paper Series in Economics 170, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Department of Economics and Management.
    9. Le Breton, Michel & Lepelley, Dominique & Smaoui, Hatem, 2012. "The Probability of Casting a Decisive Vote: From IC to IAC trhough Ehrhart's Polynomials and Strong Mixing," IDEI Working Papers 722, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
    10. Béal, Sylvain & Deschamps, Marc & Diss, Mostapha & Tido Takeng, Rodrigue, 2025. "Cooperative games with diversity constraints," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    11. Roland Kirstein & Matthias Peiss, 2013. "Quantitative Machtkonzepte in der Ökonomik," FEMM Working Papers 130004, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Faculty of Economics and Management.
    12. Deniz Aksoy, 2010. "Who gets what, when, and how revisited: Voting and proposal powers in the allocation of the EU budget," European Union Politics, , vol. 11(2), pages 171-194, June.
    13. Laruelle, Annick & Valenciano, Federico, 2008. "Noncooperative foundations of bargaining power in committees and the Shapley-Shubik index," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 341-353, May.
    14. Leech, Dennis, 2002. "Voting Power In The Governance Of The International Monetary Fund," Economic Research Papers 269354, University of Warwick - Department of Economics.
    15. Block, Joern H. & Hirschmann, Mirko & Kranz, Tobias & Neuenkirch, Matthias, 2023. "Public family firms and economic inequality across societies," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 19(C).
    16. Matija Kovacic & Claudio Zoli, 2021. "Ethnic distribution, effective power and conflict," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 57(2), pages 257-299, August.
    17. Dimitrov, Dinko & Haake, Claus-Jochen, 2011. "Coalition formation in simple Games. the semistrict core," Center for Mathematical Economics Working Papers 378, Center for Mathematical Economics, Bielefeld University.
    18. Mikel Alvarez-Mozos & José María Alonso-Meijide & María Gloria Fiestras-Janeiro, 2016. "The Shapley-Shubik Index in the Presence of Externalities," UB School of Economics Working Papers 2016/342, University of Barcelona School of Economics.
    19. László Á. Kóczy, 2016. "Power Indices When Players can Commit to Reject Coalitions," Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, Springer, vol. 33(1), pages 77-91, August.
    20. Monisankar Bishnu & Sonali Roy, 2012. "Hierarchy of players in swap robust voting games," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 38(1), pages 11-22, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations

    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:zbw:kitwps:320437. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fwkitde.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.