Looking for Locals: Voter Information Demands and Personal Vote‐Earning Attributes of Legislators under Proportional Representation

Abstract

Kati Suominen Inter-American Development Bank Proportional representation systems affect the extent to which elected legislators exhibit various attributes that allow them to earn a personal vote. The sources of variation in personal vote-earning attributes (PVEA) lie in informational shortcuts voters use under different electoral rules. List type (closed or open) and district magnitude (the number of legislators elected from a district) affect the types of shortcuts voters employ. When lists are closed, legislators' PVEA are of decreasing usefulness to voters as magnitude (and hence the number of candidates on a list) increases. When lists are open, legislators' PVEA are increasingly useful to voters as magnitude increases, because the number of candidates from which voters must choose whom to give a preference vote increases. As predicted by the theory, the probability that a legislator will exhibit PVEAoperationalized as local birthplace or lower-level electoral experience-declines with magnitude when lists are closed, but rises with magnitude when lists are open.

Local favoritism in at-large proportional representation systems

“…A plausible interpretation of these results is that voters use hometown status as a cue to politicians' understanding of local needs and likely behavior once elected (Shugart, Valdini, and Suominen, 2005). In other words, hometown status works similarly to "party cues" (Snyder and Ting, 2002;Geys and Vermeir, 2014).…”

“…We argue that two types of mechanisms are likely to contribute to this pattern. First, a politician from a small municipality is likely to be better informed of different local needs, which could imply both more targeted spending and more votes for local candidates in such municipalities (Shugart, Valdini, and Suominen, 2005). If voters in a small municipality are more likely to know the local candidate, this could also contribute to the hometown bias in voting behavior.…”

“…Again, we document a strong hometown bias driven by municipalities with a below median population size. It appears that voters use hometown status as a cue to politicians' perceptions of local needs and likely behavior once elected (Shugart, Valdini, and Suominen, 2005).…”

Desigualdade e informação política: as eleições brasileiras de 2002

“…De fato, como e qual informação afeta as escolhas eleitorais varia conforme o arcabouço institucional (Lupia e McCubbins, 1998;Shugart, Valdini e Suominen, 2005). Assim, antes de concentrar-se nas lacunas de informação, é preciso verificar que tipo de informação é relevante para as escolhas políticas no Brasil.…”

Preferential votes and minority representation in open list proportional representation systems

“…Assume the minority contains two individuals, while the major- 4 The pure strategy Nash equilibria of this two-player game are equivalent to Strong Nash equilibria (Aumann 1959) of a game where each voter acts as a different player, when these equilibria exist. 5 A consistent literature has analyzed the difference between candidates' behavior under open list and closed list PR (Carey and Shugart 1995;Chang 2005;Shugart et al 2005;Chang and Golden 2007;Ames 1995). The main conclusion is that open list PR increases the value of candidates' personal reputation as opposed to party reputation.…”