Electoral Rules and Political Selection

• Tác giả: Andrew Beath
• Ngôn ngữ: eng
• Ký hiệu phân loại: 324.6 Election systems and procedures; suffrage
• Thông tin xuất bản: World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015
• Bộ sưu tập: Tài liệu truy cập mở
• ID: 306497
• Chủ đề: 1. COMMUNITIES; 2. FOCUS GROUP; 3. NATIONAL PARLIAMENT; 4. POLICY ISSUE; 5. VILLAGES

Tóm tắt

Voters commonly face a choice between competent candidates and those with policy preferences similar to their own. This paper explores how electoral rules, such as district magnitude, mediate this trade-off and affect the composition of representative bodies and policy outcomes. The paper shows formally that anticipation of bargaining over policy causes voters in elections with multiple single-member districts to prefer candidates with polarized policy positions over more competent candidates. Results from a unique field experiment in Afghanistan are consistent with these predictions. Specifically, representatives elected in elections with a single multi-member district are better educated and exhibit less extreme policy preferences.