Damien Bol

From Niche to Mainstream Method? A comprehensive mapping of QCA application in journal articles from 1984 to 2011

This article provides a first systematic mapping of QCA applications, building upon a database of 313 peer-reviewed journal articles. We find out that the number of QCA applications has dramatically increased during the past few years. The mapping also reveals that csQCA remains the most frequently used technique, that political science, sociology, and management are the core disciplines of application, that macrolevel analyses, medium-N designs, and a monomethod use of QCA remain predominant. A particular focus is also laid on the ratio between the number of cases and number of conditions and the compliance to benchmarks in this respect.This paper introduces the mini-symposium on Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and set-theoretic methods, both crisp sets and fuzzy sets, and situates the different contributions in a wider methodological debate concerning cross-case analysis. The paper argues that QCA is not just a set of techniques, but a distinctive research approach, with its own goals and set of assumptions. Concerning the wide methodological debate, special attention is paid to the added value of QCA and specific innovations introduced in the mini-symposium.

Still Lost in Translation! A Correction of Three Misunderstandings Between Configurational Comparativists and Regressional Analysts:

Even after a quarter-century of debate in political science and sociology, representatives of configurational comparative methods (CCMs) and those of regressional analytic methods (RAMs) continue talking at cross purposes. In this article, we clear up three fundamental misunderstandings that have been widespread within and between the two communities, namely that (a) CCMs and RAMs use the same logic of inference, (b) the same hypotheses can be associated with one or the other set of methods, and (c) multiplicative RAM interactions and CCM conjunctions constitute the same concept of causal complexity. In providing the first systematic correction of these persistent misapprehensions, we seek to clarify formal differences between CCMs and RAMs. Our objective is to contribute to a more informed debate than has been the case so far, which should eventually lead to progress in dialogue and more accurate appraisals of the possibilities and limits of each set of methods.

Party Preferences and Electoral Reform: How Time in Government Affects the Likelihood of Supporting a Change

Most of the literature asserts that political parties rationally define their preference for electoral reform with respect to their possible gains and the balance of power between and within parties. Other scholars moderate this rationality, underlining the role of the uncertainty inherent to any change in the electoral system. This article shows how risk and expected gains interact. Through an analysis of the preferences of 84 parties in 13 different electoral reform debates, it shows that risk impedes parties from supporting even advantageous change. However, it also points out that not all parties are equally sensitive to risk. Parties that are dissatisfied with the current system are more willing to favour a reform from which they expect gains. In other words, dissatisfaction makes parties more seat-maximising.

Confronting Theories Based on Necessary Relations: Making the Best of QCA Possibilities

This article provides a first systematic mapping of QCA applications, building upon a database of 313 peer-reviewed journal articles. We find out that the number of QCA applications has dramatically increased during the past few years. The mapping also reveals that csQCA remains the most frequently used technique, that political science, sociology, and management are the core disciplines of application, that macrolevel analyses, medium-N designs, and a monomethod use of QCA remain predominant. A particular focus is also laid on the ratio between the number of cases and number of conditions and the compliance to benchmarks in this respect.This paper introduces the mini-symposium on Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and set-theoretic methods, both crisp sets and fuzzy sets, and situates the different contributions in a wider methodological debate concerning cross-case analysis. The paper argues that QCA is not just a set of techniques, but a distinctive research approach, with its own goals and set of assumptions. Concerning the wide methodological debate, special attention is paid to the added value of QCA and specific innovations introduced in the mini-symposium.

Electoral reform, values and party self-interest

It is often taken for granted that parties support electoral reform because they anticipate seat payoffs from the psychological and mechanical effects of the new electoral system. Although some studies point out that elements related to values and the willingness to achieve social goals are also relevant to explaining party preference in those situations, a general model of how these considerations influence support for electoral reform is still missing. To fill this gap, I develop in this article a policy-seeking model accounting for values-related factors and operationalize it using one of the most firmly established effects of electoral systems in the literature: The degree of inclusiveness and its consequences for the representation of social groups in parliament. The empirical relevance of this model is then tested using an original dataset reporting the actual position of 115 parties facing 22 electoral reform proposals in OECD countries since 1961. The results show that willingness to favour the electoral system most in line with a party’s electoral platform has a unique explanatory power over party support for a more proportional electoral system. In turn, values appear to be as crucial as party self-interest in explaining the overall electoral reform story.

Ticket-splitting in mixed-member systems: on the importance of seat linkage between electoral tiers

Abstract In mixed-member electoral systems, voters usually have two votes: a nominal and a list vote. According to some studies, voters are increasingly using them to cast a split-ticket vote. However, very little is known about whether the type of mixed-member system, and in particular whether the allocation of seats across tiers is linked or not, creates different sets of incentives for this behaviour. This article provides new insights into the topic by analysing survey data from seven countries and 18 elections since 1990. It is found that the proportion of split-ticket votes is greater in mixed-member proportional than in mixed-member majoritarian systems. The results suggest that voters understand the operation of the electoral system and its consequences for the distribution of seats among parties, and adapt their behaviour accordingly.

The international diffusion of electoral systems: The spread of mechanisms tempering proportional representation across Europe

There is an assumption in much of the electoral engineering literature that domestic episodes of electoral system choice occur in a vacuum, isolated from international influences. Yet this assumption remains largely untested, despite the comparative focus of much of that literature. This article focuses on part of this gap by considering two electoral mechanisms that seek to limit party system fragmentation under proportional representation - low district magnitudes and high electoral thresholds - and shows that the mechanisms have spread across many European countries during the post-1945 period.Analyses reveal that national legislators are more likely to adopt one of these electoral mechanisms when a large number of peer countries have made similar choices within the last two or three years.This effect is robust to various model specifications and to the inclusion of multiple controls. The article also offers some qualitative evidence from case studies and parliamentary debates.

Votes for Women: Electoral Systems and Support for Female Candidates

It is a well-established finding that proportional representation (PR) electoral systems are associated with greater legislative representation for women than single member systems. However, the degree to which different types of PR rules affect voting for female candidates has not been fully explored. The existing literature is also hampered by a reliance on cross-national data in which individual vote preferences and electoral system features are endogenous. In this study, we draw upon an experiment conducted during the 2014 European Parliament (EP) elections to isolate the effects of different PR electoral systems. Participants in the experiment were given the opportunity to vote for real EP candidates in three different electoral systems: closed list, open list, and open list with panachage and cumulation. Because voter preferences can be held constant across the three different votes, we can evaluate the extent to which female candidates were more or less advantaged by the electoral system itself. We find that voters, regardless of their gender, support female candidates, and that this support is stronger under open electoral rules. It is a well-established finding that proportional representation (PR) electoral systems are associated with greater legislative representation for women than single member systems. However, the degree to which different types of PR rules affect voting for female candidates has not been fully explored. The existing literature is also hampered by a reliance on cross-national data in which individual vote preferences and electoral system features are endogenous. In this study, we draw upon an experiment conducted during the 2014 European Parliament (EP) elections to isolate the effects of different PR electoral systems. Participants in the experiment were given the opportunity to vote for real EP candidates in three different electoral systems: closed list, open list, and open list with panachage and cumulation. Because voter preferences can be held constant across the three different votes, we can evaluate the extent to which female candidates were more or less advantaged by the electoral system itself. We find that voters, regardless of their gender, support female candidates, and that this support is stronger under open electoral rules.

The Political Economy of Social Choices

We survey the literature that compares the theoretical properties of different voting procedures using models of electoral competition with endogenous candidacy. In particular, we focus on the predictions made by these models regarding the number of candidates running for election and their polarization. We organize the different models into three families based on different assumptions regarding candidate motivation and the timing of candidate entry. We argue that endogenous candidacy models offer both theoretical and empirical advantages over the standard Hotelling-Downs model in the comparison of the properties of alternative voting procedures. On the theoretical front, these models can provide a more satisfactory microfoundation for the emergence and/or stability of a specific configuration of parties or candidates under different voting procedures. On the empirical front these models offer a better account of the stylized facts about elections, particularly when it comes to explaining the cases where Duvergers propositions apply and the cases where they do not. We also point to shortcomings of these models and propose some directions for future research.

Recruiting for Laboratory Voting Experiments: Exploring the (Potential) Sampling Bias

Laboratory experiments are often criticized for relying on student samples only. In this chapter, we re-analyze four laboratory voting experiments that have been conducted on both student-dominated and more heterogeneous samples. We find very few differences regarding the behavior of subjects. Due to data limitation, our chapter does not offer a definitive answer to the question of whether there is a sampling bias in voting experiments. However, we do claim that the researchers interested in the topic should focus how the reasoning abilities of subjects, instead of the fact of being a student, affect the behavior in the laboratory.