Erik S. Herron

Contamination effects and the number of parties in mixed-superposition electoral systems

Abstract The mixed-superposition system is a relatively new variant of the German electoral system. It has been adopted by emerging and established democracies without adequate understanding of its potential impact on the party system. Using the Japanese and Russian cases, our analysis demonstrates that mixed-superposition systems generate incentives and outcomes that differ from PR and SMD systems and encourage the development of a multiparty system. We test the degree to which the mechanical effect punishes small parties in mixed-superposition, PR and SMD systems and find that the mechanical effect is less punishing in mixed-superposition systems than in SMD systems. We also test whether or not there is contamination across the components of the mixed-superposition system with regression analyses of district-level voting data. Our results support the notion that mixed systems are not simple combinations of their component parts and that scholars must control for contamination when they study mixed systems.

One Ukraine or Many? Regionalism in Ukraine and Its Political Consequences

Intra-state regional differences are a central topic in the study of European and Eurasian politics. In Ukraine, regional differences have proven to be powerful predictors of mass attitudes and political behavior. But what does the “regional factor” in Ukrainian politics represent? Is it simply the result of compositional effects, or are the regional differences more than just a sum of other demographic factors correlated with geographic divisions? When analyzing regional divisions as an explanatory variable, what are the implications of employing different regional frameworks? In this article, we demonstrate how geographic divisions in the country hold up even when others factors—such as ethnicity and language use—are controlled for. As part of this inquiry, we compare the results of three competing regional frameworks for Ukraine: one with two regions, one with four regions and one with eight regions. While the eight-region framework is uncommon in studies of Ukraine, the decision to examine eight regions is supported by historical, economic and demographic arguments, as well as by the results of the statistical analyses presented in this article. Scholars who have focused on fewer regions in Ukraine may have underestimated the effects of regional differences and missed interesting stories about intra-state variation in Ukrainian attitudes and voting behavior. The results of this study carry important implications not only for the study of Ukraine but also for those interested in intra-state regional divisions across Europe and Eurasia.

The Relationship Between Independence and Judicial Review in Post-Communist Courts

Following the collapse of communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, constitutional designers codified rules establishing independent judiciaries. To what degree do these constitutional and statutory guarantees of independence reflect the actual behavior of courts? Our analysis demonstrates that official judicial power does not predict expressions of judicial review—overturning legislation in whole or in part. Rather, exogenous factors, including economic conditions, executive power, identity of the litigants and legal issues, influence the likelihood that courts will nullify laws. Our findings should caution both scholars and institutional designers. Both formal and informal factors create the parameters in which courts operate. Although courts have become more powerful institutions in the post-communist era, they face a diverse set of constraints on independent action.

Mixed Electoral Rules and Party Strategies Responses to Incentives By Ukraine's Rukh and Russia's Yabloko

Research on mixed electoral systems indicates that contamination effects between proportional representation and single-member district components should encourage political parties to maximize the number of placements in single-member districts under non-compensatory mixed rules. However, many parties in Russia and Ukraine fielded candidates in relatively few district races, while some nominated candidates in most districts in recent parliamentary elections. The article proposes possible solutions to this puzzle, identifying incentives and disincentives to maximizing candidate nominations in the districts and illustrating them with case analyses of strategies pursued by Ukraines Rukh and Russias Yabloko parties.

Measuring Dissent in Electoral Authoritarian Societies Lessons From Azerbaijan’s 2008 Presidential Election and 2009 Referendum

Although authoritarian regimes assert control over electoral processes, election returns can yield valuable information about dissent. Using election data from two votes in Azerbaijan, this article assesses hypotheses about the sources of antiregime results. The analysis indicates that dissenting votes may be produced by a combination of elite interference at the national and local levels, and through the expression of citizen preferences under the conditions of a limited choice set. Although results must be interpreted with care, authoritarian elections may provide useful insights into hidden elite conflict and/or citizen grievances. The approach to assessing dissenting votes described in the article not only yields information about Azerbaijan’s internal politics but also could be applied to elections in other electoral authoritarian states.

How Viktor Yanukovych Won Reassessing the Dominant Narratives of Ukraine’s 2010 Presidential Election

This article explores two prominent narratives through an analysis of election data. The first narrative is that Yanukovych’s win was legitimate. While fraud may have been present, its scale was small and it was not decisive. The second narrative suggests that Ukraine’s major operational political cleavage separates eastern and western regions, rendering the central region of the country a crucial prize for candidates to secure victory in presidential contests.

Horizontal accountability during political transition: The use of deputy requests in Ukraine, 2002–2006

Horizontal accountability, in which institutional actors with equivalent levels of authority possess tools to challenge one another, is a critical component of mature and stable democracy. This article investigates ways in which partisanship differentiates how political actors use a specific accountability tool – legislative questions – and the responsiveness of government institutions to inquiries. We take advantage of the unanticipated change in Ukraines executive leadership in 2004 to assess the relationship between partisan identity and accountability. The analysis of nearly 16,000 legislative requests from Ukraine illustrates the pivotal role of partisanship in accountability and institutional responsiveness, a finding that is particularly notable given Ukraines inchoate party system and under-developed democratic norms.

Eyeing the Future: Contamination and Legislative Behavior

Victory or defeat in an election is determined by the formal results, announced during the evening or early morning hours after the polls have closed. Confident candidates and their zealous supporters wait impatiently for the ballots to be tallied in polling stations, aggregated nationally by the proper authorities, and reported by the news media. The losers graciously concede to their opponents and the winners make jubilant speeches. While party tacticians immediately begin planning for the next campaign, victorious parties and candidates also turn to a pressing responsibility: governing the country.

A Taxonomy of Mixed Electoral Systems

The “father of taxonomy,” the eighteenth-century biologist Carl Linnaeus, organized the living world by collecting together and labeling similar organisms into increasingly detailed classes. Although he initially believed that the number of species—the most specific category of living creatures—was fixed, he later recognized that hybrids of existing species could produce new, previously unseen ones.1 The emergence and proliferation of mixed electoral systems has generated a similar quandary in the election studies literature. As we noted in chapter 1, some of the analytical literature on mixed electoral systems has emphasized their similarity to existing “species” of election rules. The contamination literature, however, suggests that mixed electoral systems constitute a new species of electoral rules, emerging from the miscegenation of majoritarian and proportional systems. How do we distinguish among different forms—or species—of election rules?2

Interactive Ballots: The Microfoundations of Contamination

The existence of contamination has important implications for the study of mixed electoral systems. Given that the interaction between their mechanical components is likely to generate outcomes that diverge from those observed under pure SMD or PR rules, mixed systems do not constitute a controlled laboratory setting that allows researchers to isolate and compare the independent effects of SMD and PR. Our study of SMD candidate placement’s effects on a party’s PR performance (chapter 3) and our empirical analysis of party nomination strategies in the SMD component of the election (chapter 4) have uncovered evidence supporting the proposition that mixed electoral systems are a different species of electoral institutions. However, our research thus far also suffers from a critical lacuna.