Turnout and Polarization Under Alternative Electoral Systems

Konstantinos Matakos (), Orestis Troumpounis () and Dimitrios Xefteris
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Konstantinos Matakos: Government Department
Orestis Troumpounis: Lancaster University, The Management School

A chapter in The Political Economy of Governance, 2015, pp 335-362 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This chapter presents a formal model of electoral competition where parties’ platforms are endogenously chosen and depend on the degree of the electoral rule disproportionality. We first show that proportional electoral systems generate centrifugal forces that increase candidate differentiation. This in turn implies that more proportional systems are associated with lower levels of abstention from indifference. This two-step theoretical prediction of the effect of electoral systems on turnout is then empirically validated even when we jointly control for the prevailing pivotality and party-system size hypotheses. Thus, our work highlights an additional link in the proportionality-turnout nexus.

Keywords: Instrumental Variable; Electoral System; Voter Turnout; Electoral Competition; Electoral Rule (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Working Paper: Turnout and polarization under alternative electoral systems (2014)
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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-15551-7_18

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