The Intraparty Dimension and Legislative Representation

政治学的一个核心问题是代表制的本质。 文献早就认识到，地方和国家利益的代表往往是矛盾的。此外，人们早就认识到，选举制度是规范投票和分配立法席位过程的正式规则，对影响民主国家中地方和国家代表性之间的平衡至关重要。 该项目的主要目的是增进对选举制度的“党内层面”如何影响代表性的了解。党内层面涉及影响立法者和立法候选人与其政党组织和选民关系的规则。迄今为止，大多数关于选举制度的文献都侧重于政党间层面，即将选票转化为政党的席位。该项目侧重于党内层面，收集、编码和分析立法委员/候选人个人一级的数据，包括传记数据（出生地、政治经历、职业等）。以及候选人获得的选票和他们在政党名单上的排名（在相关的情况下，如比例代表制）。因此，拟议的研究的智力价值是发展适用于立法代表的党内层面的理论和数据。选举制度影响地方与国家平衡的一个主要方式是通过规则激励立法者和立法候选人培养“个人投票”，通常定义为基于候选人的个人特征，经验和对选民的服务的投票部分，而不是他或她的党派。虽然政党是代表广泛利益，包括国家问题的主要工具，但候选人往往通过关注更多的地方或狭隘的问题来表达他们的个人选票。 PI的相关研究的初步结果表明，在比例代表制（PR）选举下，党内维度的选举制度变化影响了立法者的属性。 例如，党内竞争程度越高，议员越有可能：（1）是他们所代表的地区的本地人，（2）在进入立法机构之前有选举经验。 本调查以这些初步调查结果为基础，通过（1）收集PI已进行初步研究的国家的额外数据，（2）将立法者的数据收集扩展到其他国家，包括比例和非比例选举制度，以及（3）收集，编码和分析党内数据，包括在需要党内竞争的制度中对候选人的投票，以及在广泛的民主制度中对政党名单的排名。拟议研究的更广泛影响至少有三种形式。首先，该项目将产生一个关于立法者和党内投票和名单排名的广泛数据集，这些数据集将提供给其他学者和公众，用于学术，研究和非商业目的。第二，它将有助于研究生的专业发展，通过就业作为研究生研究人员。第三，扩大对政党内部层面的政治学研究，将有助于更好地了解许多国家正在考虑或可能在未来考虑的选举改革的影响，包括已建立的民主国家和过渡民主国家。 美国是越来越关注选举制度对党内影响的国家之一。在地方一级，正在进行替代选举规则的试验，这往往是投票权或重新分配争议的结果。 目前，政治学学科就选举制度对党内层面的影响提供的实用建议有限。

A central question in political science is the nature of representation. The literature has long recognized that the representation of local and national interests is often contradictory. Furthermore, it has long been recognized that electoral systems, the formal rules that govern the process of voting and assigning legislative seats, are crucial to affecting the balance between local and national representation in democracies. The primary purpose of this project is to advance knowledge of how the "intraparty dimension" of electoral systems affects representation. The intraparty dimension concerns rules that affect the ways in which legislators and legislative candidates relate to their party organization, and to constituents. To date, most literature on electoral systems has focused on the interparty dimension, i.e. the translation of votes into seats for parties. This project focuses on the intraparty dimension by collecting, coding, and analyzing data at the level of the individual legislator/candidate, both in the form of biographical data (birthplace, political experience, occupation, etc.) and votes obtained by candidates and their ranks on party lists (where relevant, as in proportional-representation systems). Thus, the intellectual merit of the proposed research is to develop theory and data applicable to the intraparty dimension of legislative representation. A principal way in which electoral systems affect the local vs. national balance is through the incentives given by the rules for legislators and legislative candidates to cultivate a "personal vote," typically defined as that part of the vote that is based on a candidate's personal characteristics, experience, and service to constituents, rather than his or her party affiliation. Whereas parties are the primary vehicles for the representation of broad interests, including national issues, candidates often articulate their personal votes through a focus on more local or otherwise parochial concerns. Preliminary results of related research by the PI have shown that variations in electoral systems on the intraparty dimension affect the attributes of legislators under proportional-representation (PR) elections. For instance, the higher the degree of intraparty competition, the more likely legislators are: (1) to be native to the district they represent, and (2) to have electoral experience prior to entering the legislature. This investigation builds on these preliminary findings by (1) collecting additional data on the countries for which the PI has undertaken preliminary research, (2) extending the data collection on legislators to additional countries, including both proportional and nonproportional electoral systems, and (3) collecting, coding, and analyzing data at the intraparty level, including votes for candidates in systems that entail intraparty competition, and ranks on party lists for PR systems, on a wide range of democracies. The broader impacts of the proposed research are of at least three forms. First, the project will result in an extensive data set on legislators and intraparty voting and list ranks, which will be made available to other scholars and the general public for academic, research, and noncommercial purposes. Second, it will contribute to the professional development of graduate students, through employment as graduate student researchers. Third, extending political science research on the intraparty dimension will improve knowledge about the impacts of electoral reforms that are being contemplated in many countries, both established and transitional democracies, or may be contemplated in the future. The United States is among the countries in which there is increasing interest in the effects of electoral systems on the intraparty dimension. There is ongoing experimentation at the local level with alternative electoral rules, often as a result of Voting Rights or reapportionment controversies. At present, the discipline of political science has limited practical advice to offer regarding the effects of electoral systems on the intraparty dimension.