Johannes Raabe

Does substance matter? A model of qualitative portfolio allocation and application to German state governments between 1990 and 2010:

Gamson’s Law of office distribution tells us approximately how many ministries each member of a coalition will receive. However, the question of which ministries are allocated to which parties according to a more general party motivation remains largely open. In a model-theoretic investigation of portfolio allocation we focus on the characteristics of the distributional process concerning the qualitative differences of ministries: which motivation drives parties to choose or disregard certain ministries? Applying the technical framework of divisor methods for our model and estimating party preferences according to their election manifestos, we find that substance indeed does matter. Parties seek to obtain ministries in those policy fields which they mention more intensively in their electoral manifestos and at the same time spread their ministerial control broadly. Furthermore, we find that bigger parties are not qualitatively repaid for their usually observable quantitative loss.

Principles of representation throughout the world: Constitutional provisions and electoral systems

Focusing on the effects of singular technical elements, electoral system research has neglected the question of whether specific systems are supposed to achieve overarching normative goals. Due to their importance for any polity, such principles of representation are widely assumed to be determined in the constitution. Therefore, a world-wide survey of constitutions presents a promising opportunity to study electoral systems’ general goals in a comparative manner. In providing such a survey and investigating the causes, contents and consequences of constitutional provisions, this analysis shows that constitutional embeddedness of the electoral system is contingent upon factors such as region (with constitutional principles especially typical in Europe and Latin America) and decision-context. Importantly, the ‘proportionality principle’ is much more prone to enter a constitution and receive increased protection than its antipode, the ‘majority principle’. Furthermore, mixed principles calling for a balance between aforementioned extremes exist, suggesting that mixed electoral systems are not always merely technical compromises. Finally, constitutional embeddedness seems to have a context-dependent effect on specific technical elements but generally leads to greater stability of the overall electoral system. The key implication for future research is that the normative principle-dimension of electoral systems has to be considered alongside their technical design.

Which electoral systems succeed at providing proportionality and concentration? Promising designs and risky tools

Electoral systems are typically faced with the problem of being asked to provide both proportional representation and party system concentration leading to accountable government. Which electoral system designs are able to successfully deliver on both these challenges and thus optimize the representativeness – accountability trade-off? This paper investigates the performance of different general electoral system designs as well as their specific technical details (such as legal threshold, tier linkages, and compensation mechanisms) based on a data set of 590 elections in 57 countries. The key results are that both proportional representation systems with moderate district magnitudes and mixed-member proportional systems are able to optimize performance. Going to the level of details confirms these results and deepens our understanding further: while different technical changes are able to improve the chances of reaching the best of both worlds, some of these (e.g. raising the legal threshold) also increase the risk of ending up with the worst.

Disentangling the Value of a Ministry: Party Leaders’ Evaluations of German State Ministries

While the role played by ministries in the process of coalition government has been investigated from multiple angles, there is a clear lack of knowledge about which specific ministry features party leaders actually value as they assess different government posts. This paper aims at discovering whether, next to office considerations, the policy influence resting with a ministry does affect its value. A new survey of party leaders in the German states enables us to estimate the relative importance of specific office (e.g. public standing) and policy considerations (e.g. influence via legislation) for ministries’ values as well as to directly investigate differences between parties. The results show that both office and policy considerations matter for ministry evaluation generally, but also that different aspects have different weights. Furthermore, while all parties value the policy influence of a ministry, there is variation as to which type of policy influence (cross-sectional vs. within-jurisdictional) parties emphasise.

Mixed-member proportional electoral systems – the best of both worlds?

ABSTRACT Mixed electoral systems are often associated with the hope of combining proportional election outcomes with a concentrated party system, and thus achieving the best of both worlds in electoral system design. It is especially the mixed-member proportional (MMP) variant that has retained a good reputation in this regard. Via a comparative analysis, we analyze whether or not the general praise for MMP systems is corroborated empirically. Our results show that the performance of MMP systems is heavily influenced by technical details, and elections conducted under MMP vary broadly with regard to possible proportionality–concentration combinations.

Different Rationales of Coalition Formation and Incentives for Strategic Voting

Research on strategic voting has mainly focused on electoral system effects but largely neglected the impact of different rationales of coalition formation. Based on a formal model of rational party choice and a simulation study, we systematically investigate this impact and explore the implications. We show that the logic of the underlying coalition formation procedure clearly affects the degree to which the electorate is exposed to strategic incentives regarding the vote choice. The key implications are that sincere voting is more often in the voter’s best interest if parties are policy-seeking and if there is increased uncertainty during the stage of coalition formation. Furthermore, we explore how different types of coalition formation affect strategic incentives across the policy space.

Ungleiche Erfolgsbedingungen, verzerrte Repräsentation

Wahrend die Europaische Union ihren Mitgliedstaaten grundsatzlich das Prinzip der Verhaltniswahl fur die Durchfuhrung der Europawahl vorschreibt, wird dieses technisch jedoch stark unterschiedlich umgesetzt. Basierend auf verschiedenen Wahlkreisgrosen und gesetzlichen Sperrklauseln finden Parteien in den Mitgliedstaaten daher unterschiedliche Erfolgsbedingungen vor. Dieser Beitrag zeigt am Beispiel EU-kritischer Parteien die Konsequenzen wahlsystembedingter Reprasentationsverzerrungen. Fur stimmschwachere Parteien bedeuten die Wahlsystem- Unterschiede, dass derselbe Stimmanteil in einem Land zur Reprasentation im Europaischen Parlament fuhrt, in einem anderen mit hoheren Hurden jedoch nicht. Stimmstarkere Parteien profitieren von solchen Verzerrungen, indem sie uberreprasentiert werden Fur die EU insgesamt werden. EU-Kritiker im Europaischen Parlament zwar verhaltnismasig reprasentiert – diese Reprasentation fust dabei jedoch auf der Uberreprasentation stimmstarker Parteien aus einigen wenigen Mitgliedstaaten und der volligen Abwesenheit parlamentarischer Reprasentation EU-kritischer Stimmen aus mehreren anderen Mitgliedstaaten. Unterschiedliche Erfolgsbedingungen fuhren so zu unterschiedlich differenzierten Abbildern der nationalen Wahlerinteressen – ein Zustand, welcher nur uber die Vereinheitlichung wahlsystemischer Hurden zu uberwinden ist.

Die Ministerienaufteilung in Koalitionsregierungen – eine modelltheoretische Näherung mit Hilfe von Divisor-Verfahren

Dieser Aufsatz befasst sich mit der modelltheoretischen Erschliesung des Prozesses der Ministerienaufteilung in Koalitionsregierungen. Aufbauend auf einer Diskussion bisheriger Forschungsansatze und -erkenntnisse (fur die rein quantitative Aufteilung ist hier insbesondere die Gamson-Regel einer proportional zu der Sitzstarke der jeweiligen Parteien erfolgenden Aufteilung der Ministerien zu nennen), wird auf der Basis des Funktionsprinzips von Divisor-Verfahren ein Grundlagenmodell der Aufteilung entwickelt. Dieses berucksichtigt sowohl die quantitative wie auch die qualitative Dimension der Ministerienaufteilung zwischen den Koalitionsparteien. Uber die Annahme verschiedener Politikfelder und inhaltlicher Interessen der Parteien wird das wichtige Ziel erfullt, eine differenzierte Analyse der qualitativen Dimension des Aufteilungsprozesses zu ermoglichen.