Electoral Rules and the Size of the Prize: How Political Institutions Shape Presidential Party Systems

Hicken, Allen; Stoll, Heather

doi:10.1017/s0022381608081097

Cited by 32 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…We would like to thank Cecilia Martínez-Gallardo for drawing our attention to this important point. 43 Hicken and Stoll 2008;Shugart 1996. However, both Tables 1 and 2 show that the confidence intervals for Cyprus are very large, reflecting the differences in the original measures. The way the scores have been generated and reported gives scholars the opportunity to decide whether to include Cyprus in any estimation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Maximizing the Reliability of Cross-National Measures of Presidential Power

Doyle¹,

Elgie²

2014

Brit. J. Polit. Sci.

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This article aims to maximize the reliability of presidential power scores for a larger number of countries and time periods than currently exists for any single measure, and in a way that is replicable and easy to update. It begins by identifying all of the studies that have estimated the effect of a presidential power variable, clarifying what scholars have attempted to capture when they have operationalized the concept of presidential power. It then identifies all the measures of presidential power that have been proposed over the years, noting the problems associated with each. To generate the new set of presidential power scores, the study draws upon the comparative and local knowledge embedded in existing measures of presidential power. Employing principal component analysis, together with the expectation maximization algorithm and maximum likelihood estimation, a set of presidential power scores is generated for a larger set of countries and country time periods than currently exists, reporting 95 per cent confidence intervals and standard errors for the scores. Finally, the implications of the new set of scores for future studies of presidential power is discussed.A large body of work has estimated the outcome of variation in presidential power. To identify studies of presidential power systematically, we searched a selection of leading comparative politics journals 1 and identified a total of forty-nine studies that included an estimation of presidential power.2 The distribution of this work confirms that scholars are increasingly choosing to estimate the effect of presidential power generally. Four were published from 1995-99 inclusive and ten from 2000-04 inclusive, whereas twenty-five articles were published from 2005-09 inclusive with ten in 2010 and 2011 alone. In all but four of these studies, presidential power was operationalized explicitly or implicitly as an explanatory variable. In these forty-five studies, the dependent variable ranged widely across topics such as economic reform, democratic consolidation, the level of protectionism, the effective number of parties, cabinet composition, voter turnout and many others. In thirty of these forty-five studies, variation in presidential power was confirmed to have a significant effect on the outcome under investigation.What are scholars trying to capture when they estimate the effect of presidential power? In eleven of the forty-nine studies we identified, scholars focused only on a specific aspect of * Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, UK (email: david.doyle@politics. ox.ac.uk); School of Law and Government, Dublin City University, Ireland (email: robert.elgie@dcu.ie). We would like to acknowledge the three anonymous referees and the editors of the journal. We would also like to thank the participants at the ECPR Joint Sesssions of Workshops, Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz, 2013. Data replication sets and online appendices are available at http://dx.doi.org

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…4 Biglaiser and DeRouen 2004, 567. 5 Hicken andStoll 2008, 1110. 6 Clark and Wittrock 2005, 475, 479;Roper 2002, 253.…”

Section: Existing Measures Of Presidential Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

Maximizing the Reliability of Cross-National Measures of Presidential Power

Doyle¹,

Elgie²

2014

Brit. J. Polit. Sci.

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“…They find a positive and significant relationship between presidential strength and number of parties in the party system. Hicken and Stoll (2008) and Golder (2006) also find significant relationships between presidential strength and the structure of the party system. Based on this body of work, we theorize that the stronger the elected president the greater the elite incentives to create new party vehicles to compete for the presidency, thus increasing volatility.…”

Section: Theorymentioning

confidence: 88%

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

Andrews¹,

Bairett²

2014

Electoral Studies

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“…We also have good theoretical reasons to expect that presidential power will affect the number of candidates at the presidential election. Hicken and Stoll (2008) have already proposed such a relationship.…”

Section: Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Proximity, Candidates, and Presidential Power

Elgie

Bucur

Dolez

et al. 2014

Political Research Quarterly

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This article examines the impact of direct presidential elections on legislative party systems. We argue that presidential power shapes the effective number of presidential candidates in a way that will have a reductive effect on the legislative party system, but this reduction will be observed only within an intermediary range of presidential power. We also argue that this proposition should be tested solely on the population of countries with direct presidential elections. We find that the effect of presidential coattails is less important than has typically been suggested, that by contrast presidential power has an influence on the legislative party system, but also that we need to think carefully about how to capture variation in presidential power when trying to estimate its effect. This latter point applies to the debate about the determinants of the legislative party system but also to debates about the effect of presidential power more generally.

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Electoral Rules and the Size of the Prize: How Political Institutions Shape Presidential Party Systems

Cited by 32 publications

References 37 publications

Maximizing the Reliability of Cross-National Measures of Presidential Power

Maximizing the Reliability of Cross-National Measures of Presidential Power

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

Proximity, Candidates, and Presidential Power

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