Do Parties Benefit from Electoral Manipulation? Electoral Laws and Heresthetics in Poland, 1989-93

Abstract

Electoral reforms had profound political consequences for post-communist Poland. The majoritarian system helped to accelerate the fall of communism, while later changes to the electoral law helped the former communists reclaim power. Despite the high stakes and top priority given to electoral design by political players, their efforts at manipulation were hardly rewarded. Although the political parties were ex ante seat-maximizers, they supported the electoral law that ex post would have given them the most seats about as frequently as they supported its closest competitor. The reasons for their miscalculations included a lack of methodological expertise, unexpected shifts in voter preferences, transition-speci®c poll biases and new entrants and coalitions that emerged in the period between the introduction of the new electoral law and elections. No signi®cant differences among the various kinds of parties were found. The results do show that the effectiveness of manipulation increased strongly over time.

Pork-Barrel Politics and Electoral Reform: Explaining the Curious Differences in the Experiences of Thailand and Japan

“…Rather than the new election rules shaping political outcomes, we found constitutional writers in Thailand and party leaders in Japan shaping the new electoral rules to produce the outcomes that they wanted. This finding parallels a similar debate about the origins of electoral systems in both long-standing democracies and recently democratized countries (Colomer 2005;Kaminski 2002;Persson and Tabellini 2003). This debate identifies a variety of factors, including existing party systems, perceived political threats, ideology, and economic conditions, that explain why elites choose a specific set of election rules (Alesina and Glaeser 2004;Benoit 2007;Blais, Dobrzynska, and Indridason 2005;Boix 1999;Carstairs 1980;Cusack, Iversen, and Soskice 2010;Ticchi and Vindigni 2010).…”

Institutional Change and Persistence: The Evolution of Poland's Electoral System, 1989–2001

“…18 18 There is also evidence that ZChN felt that the polls underestimated its support, yet nonetheless opposed the new law because it allowed Saturday, in addition to Sunday, as the possible election day. ZChN feared the loss of the “Sunday Mass” effect would reduce its vote share (Kaminski 2001). …”

“…19 19 Which proved to be correct, although with only 4.5% of the vote the PC did not attain the threshold. See Kaminski (2001). …”

Institutions and the stabilization of party systems in the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe

“…members or organization, many of which disintegrated or disappeared after the first election (Reich, 2004). 5 In addition, the initial choice environment was characterized by high uncertainty regarding the number and strength of parties participating (Jones Luong, 2000;Andrews and Jackman, 2005), making it difficult for elites to predict the impact of any institutional choice on their own or their parties' future electoral performance (Kaminski, 2002;Shvetsova, 2003). During round table negotiations or within parliamentary or constitutional assemblies, elites focused on short-term costs and benefits of particular institutional features rather than considering the implications of the constitutional design as a whole (Lijphart, 1992;Elster et al, 1998;Geddes, 1996;Benoit and Schiemann, 2001;Moser, 2001;Remington and Smith, 1996).…”