On Curing Political Diseases: The Healing Power of Majoritarian Elections in Multi-Member Districts

Reiner Eichenberger () and Patricia Schafer
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Reiner Eichenberger: University of Fribourg
Patricia Schafer: University of Fribourg

Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, 2023, vol. 40, issue 1, No 6, 79-93

Abstract: Abstract Democratic politics suffers from numerous diseases such as lack of inclusiveness, time-inconsistency, short-termism, negative campaigning, lack of trust in and between governments, and many more. These diseases affect all countries, albeit to a differing extent. How can they be cured? From a politico-economic perspective, an institutional approach is required. We look at a country where these political diseases seem to play a relatively minor role: Switzerland. So far, Switzerland is renowned for its extensive direct democracy and federalism. However, its electoral system has been largely neglected. It uniquely combines proportional representation and majoritarian elections on all government levels. In contrast to the international standard, Swiss majority votes do not take place in single-member districts but in multi-member districts. We analyze how the interplay of majoritarian elections in multi-member districts and proportional representation mitigates many of the political diseases.

Keywords: Institutions; Electoral system; Multi-member districts; Majority rule; At-large; Convergence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D02 D72 P48 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1007/s41412-022-00131-w

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