Electoral rules of the authoritarian game: undemocratic effects of proportional representation in Rwanda

Growing Old Without Grace: Electoral Authoritarianism and the Age Composition of Russia's Regional Legislative Assemblies

“…The second reason to expect that Russia's transition to electoral authoritarianism has not been detrimental to the representation of young people can be inferred from a collateral development, the massive implementation of proportional representation electoral systems in regional assembly elections. While in general, proportional representation is not a first institutional preference for authoritarian regimes, there are several instances, both historical and contemporary (Stroha 2010), when these strange bedfellows get along quite well. In Russia, the introduction of proportional representation into regional politics, mostly in the form of mixed-superposition systems, largely stemmed from the national authorities' effort at state centralisation by inducing national political parties into the peripheries of the country (Golosov 2013a).…”

Political representation in the wake of ethnic violence and post-conflict institutional reform: Comparing views from Rwandan and Burundian citizens

“…In Rwanda, 2000 marked the end of the insurgency war in the northwest and the start of a reconciliation and unity narrative in public discourse (Ingelaere and Verpoorten 2020) materialized by the formal inception of the Gacaca mechanism to deal with genocide-related crimes in June 2002. The 2003 peak in Rwanda coincided with the introduction of a new constitution and the first national-level elections, which were won by Paul Kagame with 95 per cent of votes (Kiwuwa 2005), and his party, the RPF, that won 74 per cent seats in the parliament (Stroh 2010). These formal institutional changes coincided with an upsurge in PPR for both ethnic groups.…”

Democratic politics in Nepal

“…In addition to this, there is criticism that candidates selected under the PR system do not represent the particular electoral constituencies as they are centrally nominated by the political parties. Non-representation of a specific constituency fosters an undemocratic process and outcome (Stroh, 2010: 1) because PR impedes the local accountability of politicians.…”