Objective
An electoral system is an essential component of representative democracy. It translates preferences
of citizens to a legislative body and inevitably distorts preferences, voicing some more loudly than others.
Theorizing and empirically analyzing how the electoral system tilts the playing ground is the aim of this
study.
The number of seats allotted to an electoral district—the district magnitude (DM)—is perhaps the
most important component defining an electoral system. It is long established that DM affects key features
of the political landscape in a country, such as representation, the number of parties, the type of government
(single- or multi-party coalition), parties’ strategy, voters’ consideration, and even redistribution policy.
Most democracies, however, have districts of many different magnitudes, and the range often reaches thirty
seats gap between the smallest and largest districts in a country. Districts in Portugal, for instance, vary
between two and forty-eight seats, and in Switzerland between one and thirty-five. The voluminous
literature on electoral districts uniformly sidesteps this heterogeneity, focusing instead on a single middle
district per country.
The proposed study is the first large-scale study that theorizes about and empirically analyzes the
effects of within-country district structure. I address questions such as: how does district heterogeneity
shape representation at the national level? How does it affect the party system? And how does it affect party
coordination?
In the first part of the study I will theorize about various aspects of district heterogeneity in a country
(e.g. skewness, effective number of magnitudes). I will gain deep understanding for district distributions
and develop politically-relevant measures of heterogeneity. Drawing on insights from the theoretical part,
the second part will empirically examine how district heterogeneity affects the political landscape, and in
particular representation, party system, and party coordination. This part relies on extensive district- and
national-level data collection and data analysis in OECD countries as well as in-depth case analysis.
Analyzing the effect of district heterogeneity on representation, party systems, and party
coordination will open new avenues of research about design of electoral systems.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- social sciences political sciences political transitions elections
- social sciences political sciences government systems democracy
- social sciences sociology social issues social inequalities
You need to log in or register to use this function
We are sorry... an unexpected error occurred during execution.
You need to be authenticated. Your session might have expired.
Thank you for your feedback. You will soon receive an email to confirm the submission. If you have selected to be notified about the reporting status, you will also be contacted when the reporting status will change.
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
ERC-2010-StG_20091209
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Host institution
91904 JERUSALEM
Israel
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.