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An intra-party account of electoral system choice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 December 2018

Valentin Schröder  and
Philip Manow
Valentin Schröder
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Bremen University, Mary-Somerville Str. 5, Bremen D-28359, Germany
Philip Manow*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Bremen University, Mary-Somerville Str. 5, Bremen D-28359, Germany
*
*Corresponding author. Email: manow@zes.uni-bremen.de
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Abstract

We present an intra-party account of electoral reform, contrasting the incentives of legislators (MPs) with those of party leaders. We develop our argument along the switch to proportional representation (PR) in early 20th century Europe. District-level electoral alliances allowed bourgeois MPs to counter the “socialist threat” under the electoral systems in place. PR was thus unnecessary from the seat-maximizing perspective that dominates previous accounts—intra-party considerations were crucial: candidate nomination and legislative cohesion. We show our argument to hold empirically both for the prototypical case of Germany, 1890–1920, using encompassing district-level data on candidatures, elections, electoral alliances, roll call votes and a series of simulations on reform effects; and for the implementation of electoral reforms in 29 countries, 1900–31.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , April 2020 , pp. 251 - 267
Copyright
Copyright © The European Political Science Association 2018

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