Following the 2006 post-electoral crisis, important changes were made to the Constitution and several secondary laws in Mexico. Unfortunately, this new legislation has at least three drawbacks: (1) a weakening of electoral institutions, (2) a reduction in freedom of speech and access to the...

Comparative politics scholars have spent a much time exploring the causes and consequences of electoral volatility, and the result is that much has been learned about what leads both established and emerging democracies to experience electoral volatility. While different measures and factors...

Broadly speaking, this paper seeks to assess whether or not reformers crafted anticipated outcomes. This can be understood along two dimensions. First, there are outcomes that vary in benefit for a particular party. Secondly, there are outcomes that result in anticipated structural changes in...

This paper examines the interaction effect between time (successive elections), district magnitude, and social heterogeinity on the effective number of electoral district parties. Using a new dataset of electoral results on district level in 18 countries, the well know interaction effect between...

Three decades after pioneering work by Donald Horowitz and Arend Lijphart set the terms of the scholarly debate on electoral system design, research on the relationship between electoral formulas and ethnic conflict has produced conflicting results, while international actors are called upon to...

The recent rise and stability in macropartisanship has focused interest upon the long-term dynamics of party bases. Commentators cite immigration and youth as forces which will produce a natural Democratic advantage in the future while conservative writers highlight the importance of high...

We show evidence of prejudiced voting in the 2008 presidential election. We then go deeper to test if black threat theory explains some of this behavior. The theory finds empirical support, especially in the south. We also show that black concentration in an area works interactively with the...

While officials involved in graft, bribery, extortion, nepotism, or patronage typically like to keep their deeds private, the fact that corruption can have serious effects in democracies is no secret. Numerous scholars have brought into the limelight the impact of corruption on a range of...

The Finnish National Election Study of 2003 revealed that in Finland most voters do not identify with parties and are self-described as independents. In this article it is asserted that partisan attachments affect Finnish parties’ optimal positions despite the large amount of independents. To...

Legislators trade influence to attain approval of their most preferred bills. The classical example is found in pork barrel politics with concentrated benefits and diffuse costs where logrolling agreements involving two (or more) legislators can load costs onto legislators excluded from the...