Does Proportional Representation Foster Closer Congruence Between Citizens and Policy Makers?

Abstract

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.

How electoral systems affect MPs’ positions

“…Early work by Hotelling (1929) and Downs (1957) demonstrated that if voters vote for the closest (in policy and/or spatial terms) candidate in a majoritarian election with only two candidates the latter two should position themselves at the location of the consider a closer look at the exact "mechanics" linking voters to political actors (e..g, MPs, parties, governments) as proposed by Blais and Bodet (2006) necessary. During the time when Israel elected its prime-minister in a direct election, any measure of congurence involving the government would have a different meaning than during the time when parliament selected the prime-minister.…”

“…In a series of recent articles (e.g. Dow, 2001; Blais and Bodet, 2006;Ezrow, 2007;Ezrow, 2008;Warwick, 2009;Golder and Stramski, 2010;Powell, 2010) a debate has emerged on how congruence between citizens and their representatives (MPs, parties, and governments) should be measured and whether and how this congruence depends on the electoral system.…”

“…1 The contributions of Blais and Bodet (2006) and Golder and Stramski (2010) nicely distinguish between the relationship between citizens and party positions, respectively different types of congruence.…”

“…Concurring with Golder and Stramski (2010) we emphasize that in studies on congruence the exact type of relationship to be studied needs to be clearly defined. As Blais and Bodet (2006) argue the first and important relationship in this context is the relationship between voters and MPs.…”

“…Assessing the various possible combinations Carey and Shugart (1995) propose two rank orderings of electoral systems based on whether they create incentives for MPs to cultivate a personal vote, one for single member districts and one for multimember districts. More recently work by Powell (2000Powell ( , 2010, McDonald and Budge (2005), Blais and Bodet (2006), Warwick (2009) and Golder and Stramski (2010) has considered the full chain of representation from voters through MPs to governments and the policies the latter adopt. While Powell (2000Powell ( , 2010 largely confines 8 The theoretical underpinnings for these rank orderings are rather implicit.…”