André Blais

Turnout in electoral democracies

We examine turnout in 324 democratic national lower house elections held in 91 countries, between 1972 and 1995. We rely on Freedom House ratings of political rights to determine whether an election is democratic or not. We distinguish three blocs of factors that affect turnout: the socio-economic environment, institutions, and party systems. We show that turnout is influenced by a great number of factors and that the patterns that have been shown to prevail in studies dealing with more limited samples of countries generally hold when we look at a larger set of democracies. But we also show that the socio-economic environment, which has been downplayed in previous studies, has a substantial impact on turnout.

Do Parties Make a Difference? Parties and the Size of Government in Liberal Democracies*

The paper attempts to determine whether parties of the left, when in government, spend more than parties of the right. It first reviews the theoretical literature and concludes that parties are likely to make a difference, but only a modest one. It then reviews previous empirical studies, which come out with conflicting results. It finally proposes a study that covers 15 liberal democracies over a period of 28 years, from 1960 to 1987, and combines longitudinal, cross-sectional, and pooled designs. The analysis shows that parties of the left do spend a little more than parties of the right. The difference, however, emerges only for majority governments whose party composition remains unchanged over a number of years, an indication that it takes time for parties to affect total spending. A quarter of a century ago, Dye (1966) concluded that policy variations in the United States ought to be attributed essentially to economic factors, political variables proving to be largely uninfluential. This was a most disturbing result for the political science discipline, whose relevance, it would seem, depends on the substantive importance of the phenomena it examines. Ten years later, Wilenskis (1975) study of the welfare state came to similar conclusions: the root cause of the level of welfare expenditure in a country is economic growth, and the mechanism that translates economic change into public policy is demographic rather than political. Enlightened political scientists knew it could not be so, and a counterattack was mounted. The case was made that politics matters, and refined analyses vindicated the revisionist view (Castles and McKinlay 1979; Castles 1982). This paper is about the most cherished of all political variables, the parties. Political scientists typically view parties as fulfilling an essential role in democracy (Epstein 1983). A strong party system is considered as a necessary condition for an adequate representation of interests and opinions (Birch 1971). Our objective is to determine whether it matters

The Electoral Budget Cycle

This article begins with a review of the now substantial literature on the thesis that polticians manipulate governmental outputs so as to favor their chances of reelection. It concludes that while this “electoral cycle” thesis was initially overstated by its proponents, it retains more plausibility than recent critics have allowed. This conclusion is then demonstrated through an analysis of expenditures by the ten provincial governments in Canada between 1951 and 1984.

Mixed electoral systems: a conceptual and empirical survey

Abstract Until recently, mixed electoral systems have attracted minimal academic attention. Recent developments warrant reconsideration. At present no less than 29 countries, totalling about one-fifth of the worlds population, use mixed systems for elections to their first or single chamber. However, there is no consensus in the literature as to whether mixed electoral systems are in a category of their own. Numerous scholars use the concept but do not agree on what it means exactly. We propose a rigorous definition of mixed systems, and argue that electoral systems should not be classified as mixed for the sole reason that they produce results in between those resulting from plurality or majority and PR. Rather, the crucial feature of a mixed system is that its mechanics involves both PR and plurality or majority. We distinguish between independent and dependent combinations, the latter corresponding to those cases where the application of one formula depends on the outcome produced by the other formula. We identify five basic types of hybrids: superposition (now exemplified by Japan), correction (Germany), coexistence (French Senate), fusion (French municipal elections) and conditional (the 1923 and 1953 Italian election laws). Existing and older systems are classified under those headings and their main features are described.

The Psychological Impact of Electoral Laws: Measuring Duverger's Elusive Factor

Duvergers law regarding the impact of electoral systems on party competition depends upon two effects: the mechanical and the psychological. The former is well defined and well documented, whereas the latter has more often been a matter for theoretical speculation. In this article we provide an operational definition of the psychological effect of electoral systems and measure its impact across twenty democratic systems over more than a century. Our findings suggest that it does exist, that it works as Duverger predicted and that its impact is about the same magnitude as the mechanical effect.

Does Proportional Representation Foster Closer Congruence Between Citizens and Policy Makers

This article assesses the claim that proportional representation (PR) fosters a closer correspondence between the views of citizens and the positions of the government. The study uses the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems data set and compares respondents’ self-placements on a Left-Right scale with placements of cabinet parties’ locations in 31 election studies. The authors argue that PR has two contradictory consequences. On one hand, PR leads to more parties and more choice for voters; but these parties are less centrist, and this increases the overall distance between voters and parties. On the other hand, PR increases the likelihood of coalition governments; this pulls the government toward the center of the policy spectrum and reduces the distance between the government and voters. These two contradictory effects of PR wash out, and the net overall impact of PR on congruence is nil. The data support the authors’ interpretation.

ISSUE IMPORTANCE AND PERFORMANCE VOTING

Issue importance mediates the impact of public policy issues on electoral decisions. Individuals who consider that an issue is important are more likely to rely on their attitudes toward that issue when evaluating candidates and deciding for whom to vote. The logic behind the link between issue importance and issue voting should translate to a link between issue importance and performance voting. Incumbent performance evaluations regarding an issue should have a stronger impact on the vote choice of individuals who find that issue important. The analysis demonstrates that there is a significant interaction between performance evaluations and issue importance. People concerned about an issue assign more weight to their evaluations of the governments performance on that issue when making up their mind.

Government, special interest groups, and economic growth*

ConclusionsIn descending order of robustness and strength, the four major conclusions are: (i) the experience of industrial countries in the postwar period indicates that a large welfare state has been associated with a high rate of economic growth; (ii) the Olson thesis that powerful special interest groups impede growth receives empirical support; (iii) the relation between growth and the welfare state is non-linear, with increases in the size of the welfare state beyond some critical level (one sixth of GDP according to our estimates) resulting in reductions rather than increases in the growth rates; and (iv) the strength of the growth-promoting properties of the welfare state is positively related to the strength of special interest groups as proxied by the proportion of the work force unionized.One possible interpretation of these results runs as follows. A large welfare state may retard economic growth by reducing the incentives to work, to save, to move, and to change. On the other hand, in a situation where special interest groups have aquired significant power to block change if they so desire, the welfare state, which offers assistance to those who are the victims of change, may play a growth-enhancing role in reducing the incentive to block change. The fourth conclusion just stated supports this view. The welfare state may also foster economic growth through favourable effects on social consensus, political stability, and labour-management relations. The results suggest that the growth-promoting forces predominate as long as the welfare state is not too large, but beyond a certain point, which corresponds more or less to the median situation among developed countries today, the growth-retarding elements come to the fore.

DECIDING WHO HAS THE RIGHT TO VOTE: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF ELECTION LAWS

The paper analyses seven potential restrictions to the right to vote in 63 democracies. Only two of these restrictions have given rise to a near consensus. An overwhelming majority of democracies have decided that the minimum voting age should be 18 and that the right to vote of mentally deficient people should be restricted. There is little consensus about whether the right to vote should be restrcited to citizens, about whether there should be country or electoral district residence requirements, about which electors residing abroad (if any) should retain their right to vote and about which prison inmates (if any) should have the right to vote. The paper also examines two factors that affect right to vote laws: British colonialism and level of political rights. The pattern found with respect to electoral systems, whereby former British colonies emulate their former ruler, is less systematic in the case of right to vote legislation. Finally, “strong” democracies are slightly more inclusive than “weak” ones when deciding who has the right to vote.

Do Parties Make a Difference? A Reappraisal

Hypothesis: Government spending tends to increase more under governments of the left than under governments of the right. Method: Pooled data analysis of changes in central government domestic spending in 18 countries, between 1962 and 1991. Results: The original finding, that the partisan composition of governments makes a difference, though a small one, is confirmed. The new results do not, however, replicate the previous finding that parties matter only under majority governments.