Electoral Systems, Political Career Paths and Legislative Behavior: Evidence from South Korea's Mixed-Member System

Abstract

A growing literature looks at how the design of the electoral system shapes the voting behavior of politicians in parliaments. Existing research tends to confirm that in mixed-member systems the politicians elected in the single-member districts are more likely to vote against their parties than the politicians elected on the party lists. However, we find that in South Korea, the members of the Korean National Assembly who were elected on PR lists are more likely to vote against their party leadership than the members elected in single-member districts (SMDs). This counterintuitive behavior stems from the particular structure of candidate selection and politicians' career paths. This suggests that any theory of how electoral systems shape individual parliamentary behavior needs to look beyond the opportunities provided by the electoral rules for voters to reward or punish individual politicians (as opposed to parties), to the structure of candidate selection inside parties and the related career paths of politicians.

Evidence of a winning-cohesion tradeoff under multi-winner ranked-choice voting

“…Two studies of the Russian Duma found higher defection rates among deputies elected in single-member districts (SMD) than their co-partisans elected from closed PR lists (Haspel et al 1998;Kunicova and Remington 2008). Jun and Hix (2010) find similar behavior in the 17 th Korean National Assembly, following a change to mixed SMD/list-PR elections. 6 Olivella and Tavits (2013) find that defection rates increased in the Hungarian parliament, 1994-2010, following a move from closed-list PR to SMD elections.…”

Campaign-Personalization and Constituency Focus in a Mixed-Member Electoral System. The Case of Hungary

“…Many scholars argue (Curtice and Shively, 2000;Heitshusen et al, 2005;Herron, 2002;Jun and Hix, 2010;Lundberg, 2006;Sieberer, 2010) that the candidates' chances of winning affects their behaviour. In this respect, 2010 was a peculiar year too, because opinion polls prior to the election suggested that virtually no SMD candidates would be able to defeat the nominees of Fidesz.…”

“…Otherwise one could not observe this level of personalization, especially when it comes to distributing resources between personal and party campaigns. Due to the absolute majority rule on the first tier of the electoral system -and taking the distribution of preferences within the population which clearly disadvantaged MSZP -, it would have been reasonable to push the resources to the PR-level campaign (Curtice and Shively, 2000;Heitshusen et al, 2005;Herron, 2002;Jun and Hix, 2010;Lundberg, 2006;Sieberer, 2010). But this is not what seemed to happen: MSZP focused on individual campaigns on a greater extent than Fidesz did, indicating that the value of personalization was thought to be important, even if there was no real chance of winning in the constituencies.…”

“…However, in order to explore this mechanism in detail, conducting a case study seems more appropriate than performing a cross-sectional analysis. The most common criticism of cross-country research is that it is difficult to identify the casual effects independently from other cross-country factors (Jun and Hix, 2010). Hence, it might be better to focus the attention exclusively on a single country, and thereby hold cultural and historical aspects constant.…”

The electoral connection of ministerial selection in the UK

“…At this stage, it is argued, 'the main matter which is left undecided after the voters' choice is the nomination of individuals to specific ministerial post or responsibilities' (De Winter, 1995, p. 117). Understanding the ministerial selection as a rational choice of the leader, empirical studies show that personal attributes (Alderman & Cross, 1986;Buck, 1963;Heppell, 2012;King, 1981;Macdonald, 1987;Rose, 1971;Willson, 1959), party loyalty (Becher & Sieberer, 2008;Jun & Hix, 2010;Kam, 2009), and policy preferences (Kam, Bianco, Sened, & Smyth, 2010) of candidates are the determinants of ministerial selection.…”