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Institutional Design, Policies, and Democracy I

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Institutional Design, Policies, and Democracy I

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    1. Institutional Design, Policies, and Democracy (I)

    2. Updates & reminders: Exams graded & returned by next week Comments: brief & general Class discussions & lectures are fair game for exam! Remember weekly contributions (3 = 10%) Picture (1%) Today & next week(s): institutional design (electoral systems, presidentialism, federalism) Institutions: Nov. 21 & 28 (+ December 6?)

    3. Measures of development & well-being Human Development Index; Gender Empowerment Index; % GNP aid to LDCs (Sachs); Subjective well-being (Inglehart); Post-materialism (Inglehart); Transparency International Corruption Index; Economist Intelligence Unit quality of life index

    4. Economist’s “quality of life” index Material well-being (GDP/capita) Health (life expectancy) Political stability & security (Economist) Family life (divorce rate) Community life (either high church attendance or high labor union membership) Climate & geography (latitude) Job security (unemployment rate) Political freedom (Freedom House) Gender equality (M/F earnings)

    5. Human Development Index (UNDP 2006); Gender Empowerment Index (UNDP 2006); % GNP aid to LDCs (Sachs, Table 2) Subjective well-being (Inglehart 1997, Figure 2.3); Post-materialism (Inglehart 1997, Figure 3.6 ). Transparency International Corruption Index (2007); Economist Intelligence Unit quality of life rankings (2005)

    6. Institutional Design & Democracy Institutions ? two kinds of effects: policy-making (democracy?) Policy-making: consensual vs. majoritarian (representation vs. efficiency; Lijphart 1999) Institutions: electoral system (PR vs. majority) regime type (presidential vs. parliamentary) (federalism vs. unitary systems)

    7. Electoral systems How votes are translated into seats: Votes Electoral system: Seats

    8. Choosing the electoral system Two goals: (i) Proportionality: accurate/fair representation (ii) Efficiency: choosing a government (a government that can govern) (Reilly: encouraging cooperation - yet another goal)

    9. Tradeoffs: Ideally, we would like to have the cake and eat it, too: maximize both representation and efficiency Hard to achieve in practice: one tends to come at the expense of the other Prioritize and choose accordingly

    10. Two types of electoral formulas (i) favor proportionality? ? Choose proportional representation (ii) favor efficiency/governability? ? Choose a majoritarian system

    11. Majority/plurality systems District magnitude: M = 1 Formula: plurality/FPTP (India) majority-runoff (France, French ex-colonies) alternative vote (Australia, Papua New Guinea – pre-1975 & post-2002)

    12. How do majoritarian system work? - M (district magnitude) = 1 - Winner-takes-all Plurality (“first-past-the-post”): more votes than any other candidate Majority-runoff: > 50%+1 of the total vote - otherwise, runoff between two top vote-getters

    13. Alternative Vote (a.k.a. Preferential or Instant Runoff Vote): Australia (legislative), Ireland & Sri Lanka (presidential) M = 1 Voters rank candidates: 1st choice, 2nd, 3rd… If no candidate has more than 50% of first preferences, candidate with least # of votes is eliminated His/her second preferences counted, and redistributed And so on, until we have a winner (more than 50% of the vote) Instant Runoff Voting (5’) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqblOq8BmgM

    14. Quasi-example: Romania 1996 3 candidates: Iliescu, Constantinescu, Roman Iliescu 40%, Constantinescu 36%, Roman 24% Roman eliminated; his second choices counted Say, 2/3 for Constantinescu (66.6%, or 16% of total vote), and 1/3 for Iliescu (33.3%, 8% of total) New count: Constantinescu 52%, Iliescu 48% Constantinescu wins

    15. Rules do matter Outcomes can be different – e.g., the 1996 or the 2004 election: 1996: Iliescu won a plurality (1st round), but Constantinescu won the runoff Had rules been different (plurality elections, instead of majority-runoff), Iliescu would have won Same in 2004: Nastase won the first round, Basescu won the election (runoff) [Reilly: equally important, behavior (strategies and appeals) also change as institutions change]

    16. Reilly & Centripetalism Classical model of electoral competition Theory of centripetalism Ways of thinking about electoral systems ? types of electoral systems

    17. Reilly & theory of centripetalism Democracy in divided societies The “politics of outbidding” Extremist rhetoric and policies – more “rewarding” than moderation

    18. Classical model of electoral competition (economic conflicts)

    19. Incentives for moderation: Most voters: centrists (moderate) position Single-member district, first-past-the-post (plurality) elections (SMDP or FPTP) Two-party competition, with moderate candidates/parties vying for the center This logic does not apply for ethnic or cultural/religious conflicts – positions tend to be either/or, rather than a matter of degree

    20. Institutionalist claim: Changing political institutions Change in political behavior The design of political institutions is paramount in conflict management

    21. Creating inter-group accommodation One promising path: give political parties and candidates incentives to cooperate across ethnic lines Electoral institutions (legislative & executive elections) Electoral sequences (in federal systems)

    22. Papua New Guinea Extraordinarily fragmented (culturally) No common history of statehood Hundreds of often mutually antipathetic groups 4 million people, 840 distinct languages (1/4 of the languages spoken in the whole world)

    23. PNG: a “natural experiment” Effects of various electoral systems Alternative Vote (1964, 1968, 1972) Gains independence in 1975; switch to plurality (FPTP) Effects of AV vs. FPTP? Votes For Cash - Papua New Guinea (17’) <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw3rc4Q9aow>

    28. Other (potential) problems w FPTP? Malapportionment Gerrymandering Picking the “wrong” winner? (New Zealand 1978 & 1981, USA 2000?)

    30. Gerrymandering: County (judet) with 300,000 voters. Assume it elects three representatives in Single Member Districts Two parties running, A & B Party A: 102,000 voters Party B: 198,000 voters Control over drawing the constituencies is as important as electoral support…

    36. Conclusion? Same (overall) partisan support (5R, 4D), different results R draws the districts: 2R, 1D D draws the districts: 1R, 2D

    37. Electoral design in Chile 1988 referendum: bad + good news for Pinochet ?: lost referendum (56 to 44); ?: electoral system choice ?: referendum ? valuable info Electoral support fairly evenly spread (~44% across districts) Best choice? Majority? Suicidal choice Multi-member district PR? A bit better (55 to 45)

    38. Is there a better choice? Yes, there is PR in districts with a magnitude of two Chile: quasi two-party system (L vs. R) You need only 33.4% to be guaranteed one seat

    39. Evaluating electoral systems: “German” vs. “French” How? (i) Comparing democratic performance of countries using each system; (ii) “Full democracies” – what systems do they use (distribution)?

    41. Post-Communist electoral systems

    43. TRS in Ukraine: country-specific problems Regional & ethnolinguistic fragmentation Electoral law: 50% turnout rule 50% vote in favor Legislation favoring independents over partisan candidates

    44. General problems? (Birch, 2003) TRS – destabilizing factor: ? inhibits democratic development ? encourage use of non-electoral means of exercising power Why? It fragments the party system: ? district-specific strategic incentives ? diminishes uncertainty ? less inter-party cooperation

    45. Proportional representation: Multi-member districts % votes ˜ % seats Maximizing proportionality: large districts and minimum/no threshold Reduce proportionality: Low district magnitude (Chile) OR high threshold (10% in Turkey)

    46. Mixed Member Proportional (German system) Billy Ballot explains MMP system http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSiAUZoDvks

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