Mixed-Member Electoral Systems in Constitutional Context

Abstract

Reformers have promoted mixed-member electoral systems as the "best of both worlds." In this volume, internationally recognized political scientists evaluate the ways in which the introduction of a mixed-member electoral system affects the coniguration of political parties. The contributors examine several political phenomena, including cabinet post allocation, nominations, preelectoral coalitions, split-ticket voting, and the size of party systems and faction systems. Signiicantly, they also consider various ways in which the constitutional system-especially whether the head of government is elected directly or indirectly-can modify the incentives created by the electoral system. Part I of the book provides an in-depth comparison of Taiwan and Japan, both of which moved from single nontransferable vote systems to mixed-member majoritarian systems. These cases demonstrate that the higher the payoffs of attaining the executive ofice and the greater degree of cross-district coordination required to win it, the stronger the incentives for elites to form and stay in the major parties. In such a context, a country will move rapidly toward a two-party system. In Part II, the contributors apply this theoretical logic to other countries with mixed-member systems and ind that executive competition has the same effect on legislative electoral rules in countries as disparate as Thailand, the Philippines, New Zealand, Bolivia, and Russia.The indings presented here demonstrate that the success of electoral reform depends not only on the speciication of new electoral rules per se but also on the political context-and especially the constitutional framework-within which such rules are embedded. AcknowledgmentsThe genesis of this volume lies in an attempt to answer a basic research question that surfaced in a roundtable of the second annual Asian Election Studies Conference held at the Election Study Center (ESC) of the National Chengchi University (NCCU), Taiwan, in May 2010. Why was it that Taiwan and Japan, two similar East Asian countries that had both switched from similar single nontransferable vote to similar mixed-member majoritarian legislative electoral systems, had displayed such divergent speeds and degrees in moving toward the theoretically expected consolidation of their party systems? A brainstorm with Gary Cox during his visit to the ESC in November 2011 sparked the idea of taking into account the constitutional context in which the electoral systems operate.As with any book-length project, we have a number of people and institutions to thank. We thank the ESC and its director, Lu-huei Chen, for continuous administrative support throughout the life of the project. A book with twenty-one coauthors based in ifteen institutions spanning four countries needs some sort of institutional base, and the ESC provided that home. We also wish to acknowledge our four home institutions, the Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica, National Chengchi University, the University of Canterbury, and Stanford University. ...

Direct Election, Bureaucratic Appointment and Local Government Responsiveness in Taiwan

“…21 Chao and Myers 2000;Rigger 1999;Wang andKurzman 2007. 22 Batto andHuang 2016;Braig 2010. 23 Lo 2008.…”

Does candidate nomination in districts increase party votes of small parties? Evidence from the 2016 Taiwan legislative elections

“…While this study simply focuses on the case of Taiwan, the results of this study can provide some implications for those countries that adopt a mixed electoral system, although there are some variations in different versions of a mixed electoral system. Currently 32 countries use some version of a mixed electoral system, such as Japan, Mexico, Ukraine, South Korea, Venezuela, Romania, Jordan, Hungary, Mongolia, and so on (Batto and Cox, 2016). Therefore, the findings of this study can be generalized to these countries and demonstrate that small parties have the potential to win or increase their list seats by nominating strong and competitive candidates in the district elections.…”