Electoral systems and the personal vote

Personalization is a cornerstone of representation. Most electoral systems in the world have a personal vote dimension, which makes understanding the causes of consequences of the personal vote ever more critical. In this chapter, we review the comparative work spawning from Carey and Shugart’s oft-cited work on the incentives for the personal vote. We review the politics of the personal vote in four parts. First, we discuss the intellectual roots and the conceptual foundations of the personal vote. Second, we discuss the empirical indicators most commonly used to measure it. Subsequently, we review the literature on how the personal vote affects legislative behaviour, emphasizing legislators’ reselection and re-election goals. Fourth, we examine how personal vote impacts descriptive representation and how legislators’ attributes matter. Fifth, we turn to the consequences of personal vote-seeking for public policies. The chapter concludes with a section on future research directions.