Electoral Rule Disproportionality and Platform Polarization

Despite common perception, existing theoretical literature lacks a complete formal argument regarding the relationship between the electoral rule disproportionality and platform polarization. In this article, we build a model that incorporates the disproportionality of the electoral system in a stan...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American journal of political science 2016-10, Vol.60 (4), p.1026-1043
Main Authors: Matakos, Konstantinos, Troumpounis, Orestis, Xefteris, Dimitrios
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Competition
Democracy
Economic models
Elections
Electoral rules
Electoral systems
Modeling
Nash equilibrium
Parliamentary system
Plurality voting
Polarization
Political parties
Political platform
Political science
Political systems
Voting
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Summary:Despite common perception, existing theoretical literature lacks a complete formal argument regarding the relationship between the electoral rule disproportionality and platform polarization. In this article, we build a model that incorporates the disproportionality of the electoral system in a standard Downsian electoral competition setup with mainly, but not necessarily purely, policy-motivated parties. We first show that in equilibrium, platform polarization is decreasing in the level of the electoral rule disproportionality. We then argue that the number of parties has a positive effect on platform polarization when polarization is measured by the distance between the two most distant platforms. This effect does not hold when polarization is measured by the widely used Dalton index. Constructing a data set covering more than 300 elections, our main theoretical findings are empirically supported, pointing toward the electoral rule disproportionality as a major determinant of polarization.
ISSN:0092-5853
1540-5907
DOI:10.1111/ajps.12235