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Linking Party Preferences and the Composition of Government: A New Standard for Evaluating the Performance of Electoral Democracy

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  • Blais, André
  • Guntermann, Eric
  • Bodet, Marc A.

Abstract

We propose a new standard for evaluating the performance of electoral democracies: the correspondence between citizens’ party preferences and the party composition of governments that are formed after elections. We develop three criteria for assessing such correspondence: the proportion of citizens whose most preferred party is in government, whether the party that is most liked overall is in government, and how much more positively governing parties are rated than non-governing parties. We pay particular attention to the last criterion, which takes into account how each citizen feels about each of the parties as well as the intensity of their preferences. We find that proportional representation systems perform better on the first criterion. Majoritarian systems do better on the other two.

Suggested Citation

  • Blais, André & Guntermann, Eric & Bodet, Marc A., 2017. "Linking Party Preferences and the Composition of Government: A New Standard for Evaluating the Performance of Electoral Democracy," Political Science Research and Methods, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(2), pages 315-331, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:pscirm:v:5:y:2017:i:02:p:315-331_00
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    Cited by:

    1. André Blais & Eric Guntermann & Vincent Arel-Bundock & Ruth Dassonneville & Jean-François Laslier & Gabrielle Péloquin-Skulski, 2020. "Party Preference Representation," PSE Working Papers halshs-02946659, HAL.
    2. Timothy Yu-Cheong Yeung & Izaskun Zuazu, 2020. "The impact of electoral rules on manufacturing industries: evidence of disaggregated data of 61 industries of 55 countries," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 31(4), pages 458-488, December.
    3. Damien Bol & André Blais & Jean-François Laslier, 2018. "A mixed-utility theory of vote choice regret," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 176(3), pages 461-478, September.

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