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Abstract

Cross-countries studies of the disproportionality of various elec-toral systems have become a popular topic in academic circles. How-ever, the definition, operationalization, and classification of electoral system variables have methodological flaws. This paper will examine the deficiencies of previous Cross-countries studies. Concepts concerning electoral districts, such as electoral formula, district magnitude, and legal thresholds are fairly clear. However, at the national level, the electoral system may include many electoral districts or dual electoral levels. Because of this, scholars have constructed 1) national electoral formula, 2) average or effective dis-trict magnitude, and 3)effective threshold. Still, the definition, operati-onalization, and classification of these concepts have all been criticized. In addition, when used in Cross-countries studies there have been glaring methodological errors. Furthermore, at the national level, electoral formula and district magnitude have only limited influence on disproportionality. In this light, existing Cross-countries studies of electoral disproportionality are flawed and must be improved. In this paper I propose that the best method for this lies primarily in the identification of possible influences on electoral disproportional-ity at the national level.

Keywords

Average district magnitude
Cross-countries studies
Disproportionality
Effective magnitude
Effective threshold
Electoral formula
Electoral systems

Abstract

This paper is a case study aimed at exploring the dynamic process of electoral campaign in the 1995 election for Legislator in the South District（2nd District）of Taipei City. After reviewing relevant litera-ture, this paper constructs a research framework for the analysis of candidate's campaign strategies. Several factors are of special import-ance that influencing the designing a candidate's campaign strategies: electoral system, the political party, the candidate, the electorate, and the special events in election process. In addition, this paper also discusses the effects of "allocation of votes", one feature under current single-nontransferable-vote（SNTV） system and suggests that the strategy of "allocation of votes" will not work without certain contribu-ting factors. Among those contributing factors, the interaction among political party, candidates, and the electorate plays a key role facilitating one party's optimization of its share of seats corresponding to its popular votes received.

Keywords

Electoral system
Electoral competition
Electoral strategies
Allocation of votes

Abstract

The conventional approach of measuring party identification is applicable to political systems in which (1) the electoral competition is mainly between two major parties, (2) both parties are established and entrenched, (3) the electoral system is stable. To gauge party identification in a multi-party setting or in an early stage of election and party development, a modified and novel scheme is required. This article takes the vote choice as the starting point to gauge the sentiment of support among the Hong Kong electorate towards the political parties. An elector's vote choice is cross-checked by a number of other factors in order to ascertain the strength of the support. Through such a multiple step scheme, the approximate proportion of political party supporters among the Hong Kong electorate in the first two legislative elections held respectively in 1991 and 1995 can be estimated. Thus, the scheme can be a feasible one to substitute political party identification for the sake of gauging and measuring the relationship between voters and paties in the early stage of electoral development in a particular territory.

Keywords

Party identification
Party support
Vote choice
Electoral system
Hong Kong elections

Abstract

This paper examines the major parties' vote-equalizing strate-gies and the impacts of these strategies on candidates' vote-distribu-tion under a SNTV electoral system. From this perspective, this study tries to observe party competition and party politics in Taiwan since the 1980s. Based on a study on legislative elections from 1983 to 1995, this paper shows some research findings. First, the KMT uses the local factions and "responsibility zone system" to mobilize and allocate potential votes to her candidates. Therefore, the vote-distribution of the KMT candidates tends to be concentrated on some parts of the electoral district. On the other hand, the DPP and NP cannot be helped by the local organizations so that the vote shares of their candidates tend to be scattered across the district. Secondly, from a longitudinal perspective, the vote shares of the KMT candidates are getting scattered. This tendency has become evident since the end of the 1980s, when the opposition parties were gradually organized and institutionalized. Thirdly, the influence of the local factions has gradually become weak because of the devel-opment of social economy and the emergence of the opposition par-ties. All of these tendencies show that the KMT's campaign system which depends on vote allocation, local factions and grass-root organizations has become shaky.

Keywords

SNTV electoral system
Vote-equalizing strategy
Legislative elections
Party competition
Local faction
Vote-distribution of candidates
Constituency

Abstract

The Japanese electoral system had adopted the single non-transferable vote (SNTV). Under SNTV, three to five members were elected from each constituency based on a plurality of votes. However, a series of corruption scandals since 1988 in Japan had damaged confidence in political system. As a result, Diet passed new measures transforming the middle-size district system into a mixed-member system in January 1994, combining single-member district & PR party lists. This article introduces the reform process and the new electoral system.It was the first time that Japanese House of Representatives adopted the single-member district & PR party lists parallel system on October 20, 1996. The article is intended to describe the electoral process and analyze its political consequences.The preliminary conclusions of the study are:(1) The new electoral system in Japan is of great advantage to LDP.(2) The new electoral system didn't correct the 'money politics' and transform the electoral competition from candidate-oriented to party and policy-oriented in Japan.

Keywords

disproportionality
electoral system
effective number of parties
fraction
party system
percentage of failure / win ballot
political consequences
proportional representation
single-member district
single-member district & PR party lists parallel system

Abstract

Party and constituency are two major forces faced by legislators. They influence legislators' representative behavior in different degrees and in different ways. This paper examines how these two forces influence Taiwanese legislators' representative styles and behavior. Research findings show that the representative styles of Taiwan's legislators have changed radically since the mid-1980s.Many legislators changed from a party-oriented style to a constituency-oriented style. This paper suggests a possible reason for this radical change. Legislators have to build their personal vote because they face intensive party competition resulted from the emergence of an opposition party, the DPP. The legislators under a single non-transferable vote system cannot count only on their party to get re-election. Most of them have to show their distinctive characteristics and hard-working in the legislative Yuan and in their constituency. They may even deviate from the party line to get attention and support from their constituencies sometimes. Based on a case study on the third term of legislators, this research has several findings. First, approximately two-thirds of the legislators are constituency-oriented, and less than one-third of the legislators are party-oriented. Secondly, the representative orientations of legislators affect their representative behavior profoundly. Party-oriented legislators make more efforts in the law-making process, while constituency-oriented legislators make more efforts in their constituencies. Meanwhile, the party-oriented legislators follow the party line more than their constituency-oriented fellows do. Thirdly, the representative orientations of individual legislators are affected by their vote-getting styles, party affiliation, and constituency styles. The legislators who rely more on their constituency than party to get re-election, the legislators of KMT, and the legislators from homogeneous constituencies, are more likely to be constituency-oriented.

Keywords

SNTV electoral system
representative orientations
representative behavior
party in legislatures
constituency

Abstract

It has been demonstrated that, as an indicator of the fragmentation of political system, the effective number of candidates running under the single nontransferable vote (SNTV) system converges to M+1, where M is district magnitude. How these candidates are to be grouped into parties, however, remains unanswered. I propose that the effective number of parties under SNTV is determined by electoral system as well as the voters' preference profiles. When the voters are idealistic and select the candidates according to their issue positions, the centrifugal tendency of SNTV fosters M+1 effective parties. When the voters care only about absolute gains, the need to maintain a stable distributive coalition encourages one-party dominance, unless regionalism hinders the formation of a grand national party. Using the percentage of agricultural population to approximate the proportion of realist voters, I show that this formula explains well the evolution of party systems in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

Keywords

electoral system
SNTV
Duverger's laws
social cleavage
party system

Abstract

Calling for electoral reform is particularly harsh in the recent years, especially after President Chen announced to adopt Single-Member Constituency Parallel System for the forthcoming general elections after the Conference for Governmental Reform on 5th May 2002. Unfortunately, comparison studies on alternative methods are still few. In order to advance understandings on concerned circumstances, this article tries to analyse and compare political consequences, reform effects and feasibilities of major alternative systems, i. e. Single-Member Constituency Parallel System, Mixed-Member Proportional (MMP), Medium-Sized Constituency Parallel System, and Open-list Proportional Representation, called by different parties in the congress.

Keywords

Electoral System
Electoral Reform
Single-Member Constituency Parallel System
Mixed-Member Proportional
Medium-Size Constituency Parallel System
Open-list Proportional Representation

Abstract

The axis of this paper is legislators' reelections, and the purpose is to explore legislators' reelections under SNTV electoral system. At the beginning, this paper discusses the fourth legislators' reelections in the fifth legislative election then examines the relationship between the major four factors, including party, personal performance, local faction and constituency, and legislators' reelections in order to find out the important variables of affecting legislators' reelections. Finally, this paper will use binary logistic model to build ”the model of legislators' reelections” for comparing the degree of all the variables affecting legislators' reelections. Research findings show that among all the four factors, party and personal performance are the most critical ones affecting the fourth legislators' reelections in the fifth legislative election. Speaking precisely, the nomination of party and legislators' performances (including legislative performance, services of the constituency and the news-exposures in term), which compare with the other legislators' in the same constituency are the important variables affecting legislators' reelection.

Keywords

SNTV electoral system
legislator
reelection
party
personal performance
local faction
constituency

Abstract

Institutions are usually embedded in each other and can hardly be analyzed independently. Existing studies, by aggregating the effect of individual institutions to assess their overall influence, could underestimate the impact at the systematic level when the institutions are considered together. Multipartism, for instance, may shorten government duration under the parliamentary system, but enhance the administrative power if presidentialism is used. In line with existing institutional studies, this paper derives several propositions regarding the impact of institutional configuration on political stability. Bipartism can result to diverse outcomes when it is used under parliamentarism or presidentialism, and electoral cycle plays a crucial role in determining political stability when a president is in charge. These propositions are then applied to forecast Taiwan's constitutional future. The latest constitutional revision set up a high threshold for further amendment to be reconsidered by the people, making semi-presidentialism and a single-member-district biased electoral system the defining features of Taiwan's constitutional structure. Since this combination could lead to the greatest and the lowest stability, electoral cycle will be critically influencing Taiwan's constitutional prospect.

Keywords

constitutional choice
electoral system
party system
electoral cycle
government efficiency

Abstract

The 1990s witnessed an explosion in electoral reforms, especially in adopting the ”mixed electoral systems” which combine the features of both single-member districts (SMD) and proportional representation (PR). In January 1994, the Japanese Diet passed the law that replaced the single nontransferable vote (SNTV), in use since 1947, with a mixed-member majoritarian (MMM) system. Voters cast two votes in this new electoral system: a candidate vote in an SMD, and a party-list vote in the list tier portion of the ballot. The 1996 House election was the first test of the MMM system in Japan. The purpose of this article is to assess the effects of this electoral system change based on the 1996 post-election survey of the Japanese Election Study (JES). We focus particularly on the straight-and split-ticket voting patterns for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and their determinants. Our study indicates that straight-ticket rate was pretty high among the LDP supporters. That is, 80.16% of those who voted for an LDP candidate in an SMD also voted for the LDP on a party-list vote. A further analysis reveals that the LDP identifiers and the more conservative were much more likely to cast straight votes for the LDP, but on the other hand voters with college-level or higher education were less likely to do so. We also find that between two types of ticket-splitters, the percentage of voters who voted for an LDP candidate in an SMD and yet for the non-LDP on a party-list ballot was higher than those who voted the other around. This is probably due to the fact that some non-LDP party identifiers voted strategically in SMDs for the largest party's (i.e., the LDP) candidates, on the one hand, and yet voted sincerely for the non-LDP on the party-list ballot.

Keywords

Straight-Ticket Voting
Split-Ticket Voting
Mixed Electoral Systems
Mixed-Member Majoritarian System
the Liberal Democratic Party LDP

Abstract

Based on the minority representation and distributive theories, the present study investigates whether the distribution of indigenous grants in Taiwan is determined by ethnic representation in the Legislative Yuan or electoral factors. By intuition, ethnicity-laden consideration might be the most important one in deciding the distribution of indigenous people-related benefits, in the sense that the ethnic groups represented more by the same ethnic legislators in the Legislative Yuan tend to receive more benefit than otherwise. However, statistical results in this paper show that indigenous legislators are not likely reaping disproportionate largess for the areas where their own ethnic groups account for most of the indigenous population. They care even more on others. Why? Maybe the legislators believe that simply asking votes by ethnic identification is enough so that pouring more benefits for their ethnic groups may not increase the marginal utility of the votes. They probably need extra votes from other ethnic groups for electoral safety. In addition, the statistical finding shows that disproportionate benefit goes to the higher turn-out rate areas, electoral competitive areas, and the areas where most indigenous legislators' votes are concentrated, indicating that indigenous legislators' electoral concern are more important than the ethnic one. This paper has implications on the design of electoral system of indigenous legislators in Taiwan. For those who worry that current electoral system of indigenous legislators leads to the disadvantaged position of minority groups among indigenous people, the evidences provided in this paper possibly alleviate their anxieties.

Keywords

distributive policy
minority
indigenous legislators
indigenous legislative electoral system
minority representation

Abstract

In social science we routinely ask questions of the form: What is the effect of X on Y? Attempts to answer these questions unavoidably involve causal inference. However, social scientists relying on observational studies are often plagued by the endogeneity problem. That is, the treatment and control groups are not randomly assigned by researchers but formed spontaneously by some factors related to the causal variable of interest. Some existing parametric models, such as the popular Heckman's treatment-effects model, do take account endogeneity problem but are built upon quite stringent functional and distributional assumptions such as linearity and bivariate Normal distribution. Powerful as they are in point identifying causal parameters, their assumptions are not always met in reality. When these assumptions are violated, a better alternative is to adopt Charles F. Manski's nonparametric partial identification approach. This uncommon approach promotes forthright acknowledge of ambiguity in social science research and discredits misplaced certainty of point identification at the cost of imposing strong and yet incredible assumptions. Relying on available data and weak but credible assumptions, partial identification theory reveals the causal effect parameter that lies in a set that is smaller than the logical range of the parameter but lager than a single point. Yet it makes transparent the relationship between maintained assumptions and causal inference.Starting from the counterfactual model of causality, this article introduces Manski's partial identification theory and examines its implications on the upper and lower bounds of the average treatment effect (ATE). We then illustrate the approach by applying it to the case of Taiwan's 2008 Legislative Yuan election and examining whether Taiwan Solidarity Union's nomination in 13 single-member districts had any ”contamination effect” on its party list vote shares.

Keywords

causal inference
endogeneity problem
partial identification
mixed-member electoral systems
contamination effect

Abstract

This paper examines partisan politics in the redistricting process in Taiwan in 2005-2007 to explain why neither major party was able to obtain its best plan in every city or county. Theoretically, the degree of partisanship depends on the extent to which guidelines constrain decision makers, the partisan composition of decision making bodies, and the sequence of action. In this specific case, there were four stages. Redistricting plans went through local election commissions, the Central Election Commission, the legislature, and negotiations between the speaker and the premier. At each stage, the effects of the guidelines, composition, and sequence are considered in detail. In addition, three counties are examined, illustrating the three common patterns: consensus, dominance by the local election commission, and partisan conflict. From a public policy standpoint, the framework presented in this paper provides a way to assess how various reform proposals would alter the incentive and constraints facing various actors. Politically, the framework suggests how future redistricting may differ from the 2005-2007 round, especially if Taiwan has unified government.

Keywords

redistricting
boundary commission
divided government
election commission
electoral system reform

Abstract

With an analytical framework comprised of variables such as parliamentary electoral system, political party system in the parliament, constitutional system (semi-presidentialism) and government type, this paper explores the differences among the constitutional operations from different combinations of the semi-presidentialism subtype (premier presidentialism and president parliamentarism) and the parliamentary electoral system (plurality with single-member-district system, proportional representation system, mixed-member proportional system and mixed-member majoritarian system) in the democracies all over the world. As far as semi-presidentialism is concerned, it is found that the overall constitutional operation under premier presidentialism, no matter which parliamentary electoral system is adopted, goes better than that under president parliamentarism. This finding can be another supportive reference for the perspective which believes premier presidentialism is better than president parliamentarism. Furthermore, the constitutional operation under the combination of president parliamentarism and plurality with a single-member-district system (or mixed-member majoritarian system) is sometimes proceeds more smoothly than that under the combination of president parliamentarism and proportional representation system (or mixed-member proportional system), but sometimes it does not, and even becomes more obstructed. This shows the dilemma of how to choose a suitable parliamentary electoral system under president parliamentarism. Besides, this paper also observes the overall tendency of semi-presidential democracies’ choices for the presidential electoral system, and points out two common misconceptions. The first is the belief that whether the president has great constitutional powers or not is related to the presidential electoral system, and the second is the belief that the president elected via a plurality system has less democratic legitimacy than the president elected via a majority system. These two perspectives do not correspond to actual experiences, and should be clarified.

Keywords

parliamentary electoral system
presidential electoral system
semi-presidentialism
premier presidentialism
president parliamentarism