EXAM 2 Review Good luck and let me know if you have any questions All the information is from the notes or the readings If a term is blank then I didn t have them in my notes and couldn t find them in the reading and most likely aren t very important This happened with some of the articles too some of the information was very obscure so I really just got the main points issues Hope this helps 1 Descriptive representation considers that the legislature should be to some degree a mirror of the nation which should look feel think and act in a way which reflects the people as a whole 2 Political ideological representation the extent to which ideological divisions are represented in a legislature via parties individuals or both 3 Party representation regardless of party ideology if a party enjoys broad support but wins no seats then the legislature is by definition not representative 4 Geographic representation each region id is demarcated in such a way that it has representatives that are accountable to that area 5 Legislative quota a quota of a type of person that must be in the legislature a Ex gender quota 6 Reserved seats set aside a fixed percentage of legislative seats for members of a certain group a Ex X of seats for indigenous people 7 Party quotas require a minimum threshold of candidates fielded by political parties have certain characteristics 8 Arguments for gender quotas a Compensatory for exclusionary barriers right to equal representation women should not be tokens mainstreaming women s experiences does not deny voters enhances democratization and models 9 Arguments against gender quotas a Violates the principal of equal opportunity undemocratic candidates selected basis of gender rather than qualifications women don t want to be elected on basis of gender creates conflicts within parties quotas violate liberal democracy 10 Electable positions a factor determining if quotas are effective 11 Effectiveness of gender quotas and electoral rules the representation of women in politics has increased in recent years coinciding with widespread adoption of quotas cultural and attitude changes has lead to both 12 Gender ethnicity and party cleavages a Gender cuts across party cleavages b Ethnicity and race coincide with party cleavages race and ethnicity are ascriptive identities 13 Different solutions for different problems to ensure sufficient representation in the policy making process a Ensuring women are elected from all parties b Ensuring there is sufficient minority representation for groups to be involved in the legislative process 14 Origins of gender quotas adopted across countries in 1994 there was a convention on Women s rights and this is when gender quotas were adopted early implementers were Scandinavian countries and Argentina and began to diffuse regionally probably won t be on test a 1995 Peru adopted gender quotas 15 Origins of reserved seats came out of close conflict situations after the Rwanda genocide there came an idea about power sharing among different minorities there are reserved seats in the Iraq constitution a Reserved seats set aside a fixed percentage of legislative seats for members of a certain group 16 Centrifugal tendency of multiparty system Duverget s law says SMD you usually get two parties which cluster around the median voter when we move to multiparty systems policy moves away from the median voter 17 Effective number of legislative parties these are related to the number and types of issue dimensions that divide the parties you should look at table 5 2 in the Lijphard1999 reading the average of the effective number of parties for the 36 countries is 3 16 they range from Papua New Guinea at 5 98 to Botswana at 1 35 18 Six issue dimensions of party competition main characteristics and where they are found there were 7 listed in the reading c The cultural b Religions dimension d Urban rural dimension a Socioeconomic dimension ethnic dimension it is of some importance in the nine the most important of the issues and it is present in all of the democratic party systems in the period 1945 96 religious differences can be found in more than half of the 36 democracies countries that are plural societies there are many differences between urban and rural areas and these issues are present in the party system of only a few and with medium salience presence of important parties that oppose the democratic regime occurs mainly in Eupean and Asian countries issues participatory democracy and environmentalism middle class people in Western democracies f The foreign policy dimension g The materialist vs postmaterialist dimension happens in 12 of our 26 democracies e The dimension of regime support can occur as a result of the revolves around 2 19 Correlation between the electoral system and the number of parties electoral rules have a mechanical effect on party systems a Majoritarian electoral systems generate fewer parties b Proportional representation systems are more permissive of multiple parties 20 Correlation between the number of issue dimensions and the number of parties there is a relationship between the subjective and objective interests and party s supporters needs and party programs there is a very strong and statistically significant correlation between issue dimensions and number of parties see figure 5 1 in Lijphard a Issue Cleavages dimensions of political conflict along which parties organize and differentiate themselves 21 Relationship between the electoral system and issue dimensions a Electoral system a set of rules chosen so that a society can be decisive b Issue dimensions can be socially constructed 22 Two party system two major parties of comparable size compete for electoral support providing the framework for political competition 23 Multiparty system several parties achieve significant representation in parliament becoming serious contenders for a place in a governing coalition proportional representation 24 Electoral rules and politicized cleavages electoral rules can influence which cleavages become politicized a Institutional party systems consider how electoral rules influence party formation Elites decisions mobilize constituencies voters calculate based on probability of a wasted vote Cox generalized this finding to multi member districts such that the expected number of parties is M 1 b Sociological emphasized the heterogeneity of interests and social groups to explain the emergence of party systems in Western