Journal of Electoral Studies

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Home Issues Backissues Volume 31, No.1 The Effects of Electoral Rules upon Legislators' Campaign Promises and Legislative Performance: To Compare the District Legislators of Taiwan Legislative Yuan between Its Sixth Term and Seventh Term

The Effects of Electoral Rules upon Legislators' Campaign Promises and Legislative Performance: To Compare the District Legislators of Taiwan Legislative Yuan between Its Sixth Term and Seventh Term

Da-Chi Liao, Cheng-Hsun Li, and Bo-Yu Chen
2013 / 05
Volume 20, No.1

pp.73-119
10.6612/tjes.2013.20.01.73-119
Paper

Abstract

This paper explores the impact of alterations to electoral systems on legislator campaign promises and to what extent legislators keep these promises in later legislative performance. We advance 2 hypotheses: 1. Legislators elected in single member plurality (SMP) system have a greater tendency to propose locally oriented campaign promises than those elected through proportional representation (PR), but will not be more likely to advance social welfare campaign promises; 2. Legislators chosen through SMP will put forth greater effort to actualize campaign promises in various legislative activities.This research performs a quasi-experimental comparison on Taiwan's Legislative Yuan. The 6th Legislative Yuan (2005-2008) utilized a single non-transferable vote system (SNTV), which was a hybrid system similar to PR, while the 7th Legislative Yuan elections were primarily an SMP hybrid two ballot system. We record data for the campaign promises district legislative candidates officially announced during the 6th and 7th term elections to explore the influence of electoral system alterations on national legislators' campaign promises and legislative activities aimed at realizing these promises.Our study essentially verifies the two hypotheses. SMP leads legislators to advance larger numbers of locally oriented campaign promises, while there is no difference between SMP and PR with respect to social welfare campaign promises. SMP system also spurs district legislators to utilize official and observable legislative activities, such as legislative proposals and interim proposals, in adhering to campaign promises. With respect to these findings, we further explore responsiveness and accountability in the SMP and PR systems, as well as its impact on social welfare policy, in order to further reflect on the present trend toward greater respect for PR system in democratic constitutional design.

Keywords

SMP

SNTV

campaign promise

legislative performance