Alternatives to plurality rule for single-winner elections: When do they make a difference?

Romain Lachat () and Jean-François Laslier
Additional contact information
Romain Lachat: CEVIPOF - Centre de recherches politiques de Sciences Po (Sciences Po, CNRS) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Institut d'Études Politiques [IEP] - Paris

SciencePo Working papers Main from HAL

Abstract: Declining levels of turnout and growing distrust in political elites are often seen as symptoms of a crisis of representative democracy. Various proposals of reform have been made to reinvigorate representation and political participation. This paper focuses on one aspect of that debate: finding an alternative to FPTP, which is the electoral rule most frequently used in single-member districts, but which is criticized, among others, for allowing only a limited expression of voters' preferences. Many alternative rules are in use or have been suggested, such as Two-Round majority, Instant Runoff, Approval Voting, Majority Judgement, or Range Voting. The literature on these decision rules has concentrated on their formal properties. Yet, we know surprisingly little about how frequently these rules would lead to different outcomes in normal electoral settings. This paper improves our understanding of these rules by examining their mechanical effects. We start from data on voters' party utilities from "real-world" settings, based on CSES data. This allows simulating and comparing the outcomes of different electoral rules under a variety of distributions of voters' party preferences. We then analyze how frequently they lead to different outcomes and identify the contextual characteristics that explain these differences. For the latter question, we focus on a number of party system or electorate's characteristics, which have been highlighted in debates on challenges to representation (such as ideological polarization, party system fragmentation, or affective polarization).

Keywords: Electoral systems; Condorcet winner; Condorcet efficiency; Polarization; Party system fragmentation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in European Journal of Political Economy, 2024, 81, ⟨10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2024.102505⟩

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Journal Article: Alternatives to plurality rule for single-winner elections: When do they make a difference? (2024)
Working Paper: Alternatives to plurality rule for single-winner elections: When do they make a difference? (2024)
Working Paper: Alternatives to plurality rule for single-winner elections: When do they make a difference? (2024)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:spmain:halshs-04630321

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2024.102505

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in SciencePo Working papers Main from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Contact - Sciences Po Departement of Economics ().