Konstantinos Matakos

Turnout and Polarization Under Alternative Electoral Systems

This chapter presents a formal model of electoral competition where parties’ platforms are endogenously chosen and depend on the degree of the electoral rule disproportionality. We first show that proportional electoral systems generate centrifugal forces that increase candidate differentiation. This in turn implies that more proportional systems are associated with lower levels of abstention from indifference. This two-step theoretical prediction of the effect of electoral systems on turnout is then empirically validated even when we jointly control for the prevailing pivotality and party-system size hypotheses. Thus, our work highlights an additional link in the proportionality-turnout nexus.

Economic Insecurity and Political Stability: A Case for Growth-Targeting Systemic Vote

In the period after the break of the Great Recession a series of drastic changes in the political systems of many affected countries occurred: the predominant role of systemic parties in forming political outcomes was challenged and many previously non-systemic voices gained significant political power. A simplistic reading of this fact suggests that economic insecurity constitutes a general threat to political stability. In this paper we focus on the years before the Great Recession (1960-2007) and -- after addressing possible issues of endogeneity -- we present evidence from 22 OECD countries that contradicts this conclusion: when the economy is not in turmoil, there is a strong positive relationship between unemployment -- the major macroeconomic determinant of economic insecurity -- and electoral support for systemic parties. That is, democratic politics respond to increasing economic insecurity by enhancing the prospects of political stability and, consequently, economic prosperity and growth (Alesina et al. 1996).

When extremes meet

In this paper we consider a multi-party electoral competition model in which parties, which care both about implemented policy and their electoral performance, strategically promise a redistribution scheme while their social ideologies are considered to be known and fixed (differentiated parties). Voters, who differ both in income and in social ideologies, vote sincerely for the party that they cumulatively like the most (that is, taking into account both the redistribution scheme proposals and parties’ social ideologies). Formal analysis of this game uncovers a moderates-vs-extremists equilibrium: parties with moderate social ideologies tend to favor generous redistribution in order to capture the votes of the poor majority, while parties with extremist social ideologies are more likely to be non-competitive in the economic dimension by proposing policies that do not reflect the interests of the poor. An implication of this result is that, ceteris paribus, an increase in income inequality should lead to an increase in the cumulative vote share of moderate parties and, hence, in a decrease in party-system fragmentation.