FSU CPO 2002 - Chapter 16- Consequences of Democratic Institutions

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Chapter 16 PP Notes Chapter 16 Consequences of Democratic Institutions Institutional Trade offs Governments can function very differently depending on the institutions that govern political competition within a given system o Electoral rules majoritarian vs proportional representation o Party System fragmentation o Institutional veto players Elections and Electoral System An electoral system a set of laws that regulate electoral competition between candidates or parties or both The electoral formula determines how votes are translated into seats o Majoritarian systems based on the idea that power should be concentrated in the hands of the majority o Proportional systems Based on the idea that power should be dispersed among as many political actors as possible Electoral rules are the sets of institutions that determine how these votes are converted into seats In majoritarian electoral systems legislative seats are distributed to the candidate or candidates with the most votes Candidate centric high on identifiability geographic representations More likely to result in few parties In proportional representation electoral systems legislative seats are distributed amongst parties in proportion to the total vote they win Allows for many different parties to be elected in the legislature causing multiparty systems and coalition governments Party Systems Democracies vary widely with respect to parties in their systems Some have very few some have over 30 Likewise some parliamentary systems have very few parties while others The number of parties in a system reflects the number of issue cleavages in have many more a given country But this is also partially determined by the electoral system Federalism Bicameralism and Judicial Review States vary in the extent to which political power is divided amongst multiple veto players o A veto player States may be federal or unitary Legislatures can be bicameral or unicameral Judicial institutions can be empowered to interpret the constitution or not Institutional Trade offs ways In practice we can think of constitutions as responding to these trade offs in two 1 Concentrate Power majoritarian systems a Teams of politicians compete for the support of the voters b The teams in majoritarian systems simply refers to parties c The teams selected by a majority of voters are then given complete control over policy i Single party government ii Parties are either government or opposition d As a result there are usually very few usually 2 parties e Voters observe social economic and political outcomes and decide whether to retain or replace the team that is held responsible for producing outcomes f Because majoritarian systems have few parties it is easy for voters to evaluate incumbent and potential governments i Voters can vote retrospectively meaning they look at incumbents past performance to decide how to vote in the current election ii Voters can vote prospectively meaning they evaluate each parties campaign promises ahead of time and vote for the party that best reflects their preferences g Retrospective voting in majoritarian systems enhances accountability and clarity of responsibility i Accountability is the extent to which voters are able to reward or punish parties for their behavior in office ii Clarity of Responsibility is the extent of which voters can identify exactly who it is responsible for policies h Prospective voting in majoritarian systems enhances mandates and government identifiability i A mandate is a policy that the government is both authorized and obligated to carry out once in office ii Government identifiability refers to the extent to which voters can identify what government alternatives they are voting for at election time i Majoritarian institutional arrangements increase accountability identifiability and government mandates i Majoritarian electoral rules ii Two party systems iii Single party governments iv Unitary systems v Unified governments j The United States is an example of a majoritarian system The electoral system used here is called single member district plurality i Voters vote for favorite candidate in a district candidate with the most votes wins ii Then the party that wins a plurality in a majority of districts win government control k A two party system means that usually one of the two major parties hold the majority i This leads to single party majority government ii In parliamentary systems the same party controls both the executive and legislative branches of government VERSUS 2 Disperse Power Consensus Model a Institutions are designed to maximize representation of all views found in society and to make sure that decisions reflect consideration b Representative institutions reflect the preferences of as many voters of minority views as possible c Legislators represent the interests of voters and vote on issues the way citizens themselves would have voted d Representation can be conceptualized in terms of i Responsiveness or dynamic representation how well elected representatives respond to changes in the preferences ii Congruence or static representation refers to how well elected representatives match the preferences of the of the electorate electorate e Institutions maximize the representation of all views in society i Proportional representation electoral rule ii Multipartism iii Coalition governments iv Federal systems v Bicameralism vi Former British Colonies typify the majoritarian ideal unitary SMDP single party government 1 Belgium and Switzerland are ideal types of consensus model proportional representation Multipartism equal participation of linguistic minorities in cabinets f So the majoritarian and consensus models represent two models of democratic responsiveness to the votes they share i In consensus democracies the parties win power in proportion ii Majoritarian democracies out perform consensus democracies on other important dimensions like accountability Evaluating Democracies for their behavior in office Accountability extent to which voters are able to reward or punish parties Clarity of Responsibility the extent to which voters can identify exactly who it is responsible for the policies that are implemented Mandate a policy that the government is both authorized and obliged to carry out once in office Government identifiability refers to the extent to which voters can identify what government alternatives they are voting for at election time Representation can be conceptualized


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FSU CPO 2002 - Chapter 16- Consequences of Democratic Institutions

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