IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/bjposi/v34y2004i01p1-26_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What Are Elections For? Conferring the Median Mandate

Author

Listed:
  • McDONALD, MICHAEL D.
  • MENDES, SILVIA M.
  • BUDGE, IAN

Abstract

Democracy is often described as a system in which a majority of electors choose one out of a number of competing parties to form a government and carry out its programme. Unfortunately, spontaneous majorities rarely form in support of one party. We generalize from a ‘government’ to a ‘median’ mandate, in which the median elector chooses the pivotal party in parliament, which then translates his or her preferences into public policy. To check this we investigate how accurately parliaments and governments represent the left–right position of the median voter in each of twenty parliamentary democracies. Distortions depend on the type of electoral arrangement, being relatively smaller under proportional representation than under single-member districts. Distortions do not equate to biased representation, however. Once we consider how distortions at one step or one time are compensated by distortions in the opposite direction at another, overall representation of the median voter position is reasonably accurate.

Suggested Citation

  • McDONALD, MICHAEL D. & MENDES, SILVIA M. & BUDGE, IAN, 2004. "What Are Elections For? Conferring the Median Mandate," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(1), pages 1-26, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:bjposi:v:34:y:2004:i:01:p:1-26_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0007123403000322/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. John Maloney & Andrew Pickering, "undated". "Voting and the macroeconomy: separating trend from cycle," Discussion Papers 11/14, Department of Economics, University of York.
    2. Mayne, Quinton & Hakhverdian, Armen, 2016. "Ideological Congruence and Citizen Satisfaction: Evidence from 25 Advanced Democracies," Scholarly Articles 25302405, Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
    3. Hee Min Kim & Richard C. Fording, 2012. "Do voter preferences matter between elections? Democratic performance in Western Democracies," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 15(2), pages 122-140, June.
    4. Tridimas, George, 2011. "The political economy of power-sharing," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 328-342, June.
    5. Alexandru Savu, 2024. "Intergovernmental alignment and the electoral value of mayors: reverse coattails in an unexpected technocracy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 200(1), pages 43-64, July.
    6. Jørgen Bølstad, 2015. "Dynamics of European integration: Public opinion in the core and periphery," European Union Politics, , vol. 16(1), pages 23-44, March.
    7. Matt Golder & Jacek Stramski, 2010. "Ideological Congruence and Electoral Institutions," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(1), pages 90-106, January.
    8. Nicola Maaser & Alexander Mayer, 2016. "Codecision in context: implications for the balance of power in the EU," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 46(1), pages 213-237, January.
    9. Samuel Merrill & James Adams, 2007. "The effects of alternative power-sharing arrangements: Do “moderating” institutions moderate party strategies and government policy outputs?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 413-434, June.
    10. J. S. Maloy, 2014. "Linkages of Electoral Accountability: Empirical Results and Methodological Lessons," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 2(2), pages 13-27.
    11. HeeMin Kim & Hyeyoung Yoo & Jungho Roh, 2015. "A re-examination of the effects of the economy, government spending, and incumbent ideology on national policy mood," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 18(4), pages 329-344, December.
    12. Or Tuttnauer, 2018. "If you can beat them, confront them: Party-level analysis of opposition behavior in European national parliaments," European Union Politics, , vol. 19(2), pages 278-298, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:bjposi:v:34:y:2004:i:01:p:1-26_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jps .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.