Collaborative Research: Electoral Systems as Incentive Structures for Interparty and Intraparty Politics

为什么代表的性质在不同的国家、州和地区有所不同？尽管大多数政治家都在努力证明他们应该连任，但公民们经常对他们选出的官员的行为表示失望。 该项目开发了一个新的数据集，该数据集基于近150个国家75年来至少2750次国家立法机构选举。这些数据将用于测试公民获得的代表类型在多大程度上取决于用于选择其代表的选举规则。具体而言，该项目考察了选举规则是否解释了政党间政治的变化-政党的数量和他们承诺的政策的多样性-以及政党内政治-代表们在为其选民提供纲领性政策或特殊奖励与选民服务之间取得的平衡。政党在政策空间中的位置，公民偏好与政策的一致性-以及党内政治-竞选活动的内容，提供的选民服务的数量，立法机构的设计，党的纪律水平，以及纲领性政策和猪肉桶政治之间的平衡。这种努力在两个方面是独一无二的。首先，该项目汇编了一个数据集，其中包含近150个国家在75年期间进行的2，750多次国家立法机构选举的详细系统。 其次，它使用模拟透明地生成区间水平指标，在多大程度上，在党派间层面，选举制度鼓励选民表达他们对各种各样的产品的异质偏好，在党内方面，允许选民填补立法机构与值得注意的个人，而不是党的机器。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为值得支持，通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估。

Why does the nature of representation vary across countries, states, and localities? Despite the fact that most politicians work hard to prove they deserve re-election, citizens often express frustration with the behavior of their elected officials. This project develops a new data set based on at least 2750 elections for national legislatures in nearly 150 countries for a 75 year period. The data will be used to test to what extent the type of representation citizens receive is a function of the electoral rules used to choose their representatives. Specifically, the project examines whether electoral rules explain variation in interparty politics — the number of parties and the variety of the policies they promise — and intraparty politics — the balance representatives strike between offering their constituents programmatic policy or particularistic rewards and constituency service.This project tests whether electoral rules explain variation in interparty politics — the effective number of parties, parties’ locations in the policy space, congruence between citizens’ preferences and policy — and intraparty politics — the content of campaigns, the amount of constituency service provided, the design of legislative institutions, levels of party discipline, and the balance struck between programmatic policy and pork barrel politics. The effort is unique in two ways. First, the project compiles a dataset with the details of the systems used to conduct more than 2,750 elections for national legislatures in nearly 150 countries for a 75-year-period. Second, it uses simulations to transparently generate interval-level indicators of the extent to which , on the interparty dimension, electoral systems encourage voters to express their heterogeneous preferences for a wide array of offerings and, on the intraparty front, allow voters to fill legislatures with noteworthy individuals as opposed to party automatons.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.