L17. Political Representation and Electoral Systems

Question 1

What is the difference between descriptive and substantive representation?

Answer 1

Descriptive (‘presence, ‘body’):
- Where the legislature looks like the population it represents
- Applies to things like race, gender, class
- Identity forms the basis of shared political interest

Substantive (‘interests’):
- When the representatives have interests that represent the population
- Harder to evaluate since interests are hard to measure and define

• First discussed in Hanna Pitkin’s Concept of Representation (1967)

Question 2

What is the difference between delegates representatives and trustee representatives? (aka accountability)

Answer 2

Mandate (‘delegate’):
- Puppets with no independent will (this is positive because then they represent their constituents)
- preferences, desires, actions bind representatives
- act only on mandates of those who elect them
- is it important to elect certain people if they act like a puppet?

Independence (‘trustees’):
- act independently for constituents (based on their own expertise)
- good for when constituents can’t express their preference
- potential for conflict since they could vote differently than constituents
- some argue that the identity of representatives is critical and should be close as possible to constituents

Question 3

What is the transmission belt model (electoral system)?

Answer 3

• simple naive perspective that electoral systems simply transmit the preferences of voters into decisions
• assumes voter preference and interests exist prior to the electoral system
• idea that voter preferences lead to electoral system which then leads to political decisions

Question 4

What is the constitutive model (electoral system)?

Answer 4

• Start with electoral system and then shapes how constituency is defined, voter preferences and then political decisions
• idea that electoral systems shape voter preferences and interests (people form ideas when they are asked to make a decision)
• Important to remember that people vote differently when under different electoral systems
• electoral systems can influence who runs and what party platforms look like
• choice in electoral system represents the choice of population and state

Question 5

What are the 4 major electoral system types?

Answer 5

• indirect
• proportional “8 seat system”
• plurality
• mixed

Question 6

Describe Indirect system

Answer 6

key idea: voters cast ballots, results in elected officials, those officials then select other officials, those selections make indirect (appointed) representatives
- think Canada’s senate
- bad

Question 7

Describe proportional (‘8 seat system’) systems

Answer 7

key idea: voters vote for parties not officials and there is a minimum threshold of representation
- minimum threshold of representation: ignore the party that didn’t get enough votes to past threshold and gives their seats to another party that did past the threshold (threshold can be like 5% or 10%)
- constituencies need to be defined
- commonly vote for a party, not candidate and party-list style is common

weaknesses:
- encourages many parties leading to unstable govs (maybe)
- weak tie between representatives and constituents (can’t talk to people about specific problems)
- weaker accountability

Question 8

Describe plurality systems

Answer 8

key idea: centrist plurality in each district (always!)
- used in Canada
- Commonly cast votes for candidate not party, candidate with plurality of votes wins, strong tie between representatives and constituents
- Definition of constituencies usually done by territory (ridings)

Weaknesses
- vulnerable to manipulation (gerrymandering)
- bias (vote to seat ratio)?

Question 9

Describe mixed systems

Answer 9

• Key idea: mix of party-list and plurality system (voters cast ballot for individual candidate in riding and then another for party list)

Question 10

What is the seat-vote ratio?

Answer 10

percent of seats to percent of votes
- can show if people are over or under represented (more than 1 = over represented, under 1 = under represented)
- Bias in Canadian system: if you win more than 32% of votes you typically will get more seats, opposite if you win less than 32%

Question 11

How is the bias in Canadian seat-vote ratio explained?

Answer 11

Due to concept of wasted vote. Votes that aren’t needed to win are considered wasted
- strategy of gerrymandering is to maximise the amount of wasted votes for the opposition
- ex. Blox Quebecois (on a national level they have many wasted votes because they are very concentrated geographically)