How Much Change?: An Analysis of the Initial Impact of Proportional Representation on the New Zealand Parliamentary Party System

Barker, Fiona; McLeay, Elizabeth

doi:10.1177/no_doi

Cited by 12 publications

(18 citation statements)

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“…This leads us to expect that parties will be distributed across the entire ideological spectrum rather than just at the extremes as the directional model would predict. In the New Zealand case, Barker and McLeay (2000) observe that the larger number of parties under PR meant that more voters' preferences were reflected in the policy process than under FPP, when one party was the sole significant source of policy.…”

Section: Party Systems Electoral Rules and Voting Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1 Because such changes in stable democracies are rare, New Zealand's transition has prompted a great deal of scholarly interest. Recent studies have examined changes to the party system and parliamentary cohesion (Barker and McLeay, 2000), candidate selection (Gallagher, 1998), impact on political attitudes , voting behaviour (Karp et al, forthcoming), political participation and opinion about the electoral system (Karp and Bowler, 2001;Vowles, 2000). Despite the burgeoning field, there are no empirical studies on how the change in electoral system has altered the relationship between elites and voters.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Issues and Party Competition Under Alternative Electoral Systems

Karp

Banducci

2002

Party Politics

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A B S T R A C TProximity and directional spatial models yield different predictions for mass-elite linkages under alternative electoral systems. Whereas the proximity or Downsian model predicts that parties are likely to adopt positions that are closer to their voters, the alternative directional model predicts parties will adopt more extreme positions in order to generate political support among an electorate that has diffuse policy interests (Macdonald and Rabinowitz, 1989;Macdonald et al., 1991;Rabinowitz et al., 1991). Theoretical arguments lead us to expect that the directional model is most applicable in plurality systems, while the proximity model is best for describing party and voter behaviour in multiparty systems. While others have examined these models from a crossnational perspective, we employ an alternative research design using candidate and mass opinion data from New Zealand, where voters have experienced a change in the electoral system.

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Section: Party Systems Electoral Rules and Voting Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Issues and Party Competition Under Alternative Electoral Systems

Karp

Banducci

2002

Party Politics

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“…After all, it is less than seven years since the first MMP election, and there has been only one major change in the ideological orientation of the government during this period. Against this, almost 10 years have elapsed since the binding referendum in favour of MMP in late 1993, and in political terms it was this event rather than the first PR election three years later that marked the birth of the MMP era (Barker and McLeay 2000;Boston et al 1996a;Vowles et al 2002:3-5). Hence, it is certainly not too early to begin the task of evaluating the institutional, behavioural and policy impact of the new electoral arrangements.…”

Section: Jonathan Bostonmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Proportional Representation on Government Effectiveness: The New Zealand Experience

Boston

Church²,

Bale

2003

Aust J Public Adm

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It is often claimed that proportional representation (PR) undermines government effectiveness, including decisional efficacy, fiscal prudence, electoral responsiveness and accountability. Drawing on New Zealand's experience since the introduction of a mixed‐member proportional (MMP) electoral system in 1996, this article examines the impact of the new voting system on government effectiveness. Although government durability has been substantially reduced and the policy‐making process has become more complex, governments under MMP appear to be no less able to address major policy problems or respond to changing economic circumstances. Moreover, New Zealand has maintained continuous fiscal surpluses under MMP — a radical departure from the protracted, and often large, deficits that characterised the previous two decades under a majoritarian electoral system.

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“…In both instances, New Zealand (which is classified as an evolving system by Golosov) is treated as a two-party system owing to the important continuities even after the change to PR and the fact that during the observation period the system was divided rather clearly in two blocks led by the National Party and the Labour Party (seeBarker and McLeay, 2000).11 The selection of 20 OECD countries is justified by the theoretical framework, which draws on explanations of law and order policies in advanced industrialized countries. The time span from 1995 to 2008 is owing to data availability.…”

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confidence: 99%

A global trend toward law and order harshness?

Wenzelburger

2015

Eur. Pol. Sci. Rev.

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A popular claim made by criminologists argues that globalization has created a general punitive turn in Western industrialized countries and led to much harsher law and order policies. The present paper challenges this view and adds to the literature in two respects as follows: first, it presents empirical evidence that substantial differences in law and order policies remain between Western industrialized countries even when law and order policy is measured in a much more finely grained manner than previously. Second, the paper provides empirical evidence for a persisting influence of the partisan ideology of governments and the party system characteristics of a country on its law and order policies: whereas the general trend of increasing economic globalization may well set the overall tone, this impact is conditioned by national political and institutional settings – and the ideology of the government as well as the party system in particular.

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How Much Change?: An Analysis of the Initial Impact of Proportional Representation on the New Zealand Parliamentary Party System

Cited by 12 publications

References 0 publications

Issues and Party Competition Under Alternative Electoral Systems

Issues and Party Competition Under Alternative Electoral Systems

The Impact of Proportional Representation on Government Effectiveness: The New Zealand Experience

A global trend toward law and order harshness?

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