The personal(ized) vote and parliamentary representation
Final Report Abstract
Electoral systems define how voters cast their ballots and how seats are allocated. Therefore, they shape the extent to which representation is based on persons or parties. The observable trend towards giving voters more choice among candidates and increasing their influence on which candidates will be elected is positive from a participationist view of democracy. However, it is important to ask about the wider consequences of increased intra-party choice for voters, which are poorly understood. This project examined the consequences of “personalizing” electoral systems for the behaviour of individual members of parliament. The project studied electoral rules and their effects from the perspective of principal-agent theory. In this framework, the overarching hypothesis is that an agent follows the interests of a principal to the extent that the latter provides resources conducive to reaching the goals of the former. If reforms of electoral rules increase the influence of voters at the expense of the party selectorate, this should lead to a shift in orientation towards voters’ preferences among reelection-seeking politicians. Importantly, however, such a shift also depends on how representatives perceive the monitoring capacities of party selectors and citizens. The two central aims of the project were to understand, with the help of theory, how the reelection motivation shapes incentives to focus on personal constituents on the one hand and on candidate selectors within the party on the other; and to empirically examine how these general incentives to focus on each of the two principals are translated into actual parliamentary behaviour. To reach the first aim, the project developed formal principal-agent models that allow to derive predictions for the parliamentary activities representatives engage in and the policy positions they take. To achieve the second goal, the predictions were assessed drawing on recent electoral reforms of the flexible-list electoral systems in the Czech Republic and Sweden, based on quantitative analysis of parliamentary work (legislative bills, parliamentary questions) and individual voting records of representatives. Original plans related to also considering a reputation-seeking mechanism and examining the whole behavioural portfolio of a parliamentarian in one model were given up. Instead, the project gave more weight than initially planned to electoral incentives created by different forms of preferential-list PR electoral systems, and took into account how voters decide between candidates in those systems. The project makes four main contributions. First, approaching personalization of electoral rules as a shift of influence from party selectors to voters is analytically useful. Second, a respective extension of the formal spatial model of parliamentary voting, also taking into account principals’ monitoring capacities, yields a theoretical framework that may be valuable both within and well beyond the area of electoral systems research. Third, the Expected Post-Electoral Allocation Type as a measure of list flexibility clarifies important differences between list PR electoral systems with candidate vote option. Finally, the studies of citizens’ candidate choice behaviour highlight that voters often rely on heuristics when casting a personal vote.
Publications
- 2018. “Ballot Structure, List Flexibility and Policy Representation.” Journal of European Public Policy 25 (12): 1798-816
Däubler, Thomas, and Simon Hix
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2017.1361465) - 2018. “Cue-Taking, Satisficing, or Both? Quasi-Experimental Evidence for Ballot Position Effects.” Political Behavior
Däubler, Thomas, and Lukas Rudolph
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-018-9513-1) - 2018. “Parliamentary Activity, Re-Selection and the Personal Vote. Evidence from Flexible-List Systems.” Parliamentary Affairs 71 (4): 930-49
Däubler, Thomas, Love Christensen, and Lukáš Linek
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsx048)
