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Replication Data for: Designing Electoral Districts for Proportional Representation Systems. How Electoral Geography and Partisan Politics Constrain Proportionality and Create Bias

Harvard Dataverse (Africa Rice Center, Bioversity International, CCAFS, CIAT, IFPRI, IRRI and WorldFish)

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Title Replication Data for: Designing Electoral Districts for Proportional Representation Systems. How Electoral Geography and Partisan Politics Constrain Proportionality and Create Bias
 
Identifier https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/PLZ9LJ
 
Creator Walter, André
 
Publisher Harvard Dataverse
 
Description Proportional representation (PR) electoral systems have grown widespread
because they are expected to ensure the representation of interests with
small or geographically inefficiently distributed voter bases. Yet in reality,
most PR systems consist of a large number of districts that vary strongly in
size and some have surprisingly low magnitude. Existing research shows
that such differences matter greatly for political outcomes but offers no
explanation for their origins. We argue that the design of electoral districts
in newly adopted PR systems is systematically linked to electoral
geography and partisan politics. If parties with concentrated voter bases
can influence the design of the new electoral system, they will create a significant
number of low magnitude districts. In general, parties involved
in designing districts benefit from electoral disproportionalities under the
new PR rules. Empirically, we use newly collected district-level data for
several Western European countries in the early 20th century.
 
Subject Social Sciences
Proportional Representation
Electoral System Choice
 
Contributor Walter, André