Dissertation Research: Heightened Competitiveness in a Party System Matter? Its Effect on Candidate Quality and Deputy Behavior in Democratizing Mexico

论文研究：政党制度问题上的竞争力增强？

• 批准号: 9905560
• 负责人: Robert Harmel
• 金额: $ 1万
• 依托单位: Texas A&M Research Foundation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1999
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1999-07-01 至 2000-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9905560&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Dissertation; Research; Heightened; Competitiveness; Party

This dissertation project determines what effects, if any, heightened competitiveness in a party system have on candidate quality and deputy behavior in Mexico. It is hypothesized that, as party systems transform from being one-party dominant to being two-party or multi-party, there is a corresponding improvement in the quality of candidates and a change in deputy behavior in the legislature vis-a-vis the executive and/or the formerly dominant party. "Competitiveness" is measured at the level of relative majority districts in terms of the number of votes received by each party's candidate from one election to the next. Candidate "quality" is measured by both the degree and nature of a candidate's political experience prior to running for a seat in the legislature. Changes in deputy behavior are operationalized as being both a change in the amount of constituency service and in the number of substantive amendments filed to major executive-sponsored legislation. How the varying degrees of competiitiveness in the party system affect both candidate quality and deputy behavior is an important question since it has direct implications for legislative autonomy vis-a-vis the executive and the formerly dominant party. In other words, does party system competitiveness matter for enabling the legislature to participate more fully in the policymaking process, and thereby affect the nature of democracy or the process of democratization? To answer these questions, party leaders and officeholders are interviewed to obtain information on the degree of importance placed on prior political experience in selecting candidates and on the importance of constituent casework. These interviews supplement and allow for better interpretation of archival research in the library of the Mexican Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) by determining how much money was spent on each district-level campaign, and by ascertaining the number of constituent-related amendments filed by deputies to executive-sponsored legislation in one session as compared to the previous session. Data obtained from both the interviews and the archival research are coded and compared to determine whether differences between the two elections are correlated with differences in district-level vote totals for each party.

本论文项目确定了什么样的影响，如果有的话，在政党制度的竞争力提高了候选人的素质和代理行为在墨西哥。 据推测，随着政党制度从一党主导转变为两党或多党制，候选人的素质也相应提高，立法机构中的代表行为也会发生变化，而行政机构和/或以前的主导政党则会有所不同。 “竞争力”是在相对多数区一级衡量的，即每个政党的候选人从一次选举到下一次选举所获得的选票数。 候选人的“素质”是通过候选人在竞选立法机构席位之前的政治经验的程度和性质来衡量的。 代表行为的变化是可操作的，因为这是在选区服务的数量和在重大行政发起的立法提出的实质性修正案的数量的变化。 政党制度中不同程度的竞争如何影响候选人的质量和代表的行为是一个重要的问题，因为它直接影响立法自主权，而不是行政部门和以前占主导地位的政党。 换句话说，政党制度的竞争力是否能使立法机关更充分地参与决策过程，从而影响民主的性质或民主化的进程？为了回答这些问题，对政党领导人和公职人员进行了访谈，以了解在选择候选人时对先前政治经验的重视程度以及选民个案工作的重要性。 这些访谈补充并更好地解释了墨西哥众议院和联邦选举研究所图书馆的档案研究，确定了每一个地区一级的竞选活动花费了多少钱，并确定了与前一届相比，代表们在一届会议上提交的与宪法有关的行政立法修正案的数量。 从访谈和档案研究中获得的数据进行编码和比较，以确定两次选举之间的差异是否与每个政党的地区一级选票总数的差异相关。