How the Choice of Candidates Changes Under Different Electoral Systems

THERE IS A RELATION BETWEEN THE COMPETITIVENESS OF DISTRICTS AND THE QUALITY OF CANDIDATES, EXPLAINS A PAPER BY NANNICINI AND GALASSO

The public debate on majoritarian versus proportional systems has focused on the outcome for political parties, while largely ignoring the impact on political selection. Vincenzo Galasso and Tommaso Nannicini have dealt with the topic in Political Selection under Alternative Electoral Rules, recently published in Public Choice. A theoretical paper, it compares the incentives offered by the two electoral systems to the selection of good candidates. The authors have distinguished politicians according to their valence, that is the sum of qualities such as expertise and commitment that produce benefits for citizens, regardless of their political leaning. Political parties face a trade-off in choosing between high-valence candidates that are valuable to the voters and low-valence but loyal candidates.

So, which system is better? “It depends on the number of competitive versus safe districts”, Nannicini says. “As the share of competitive districts increases, the majoritarian system becomes more efficient in selecting good politicians”. This is a result that the authors have already found in Competing on Good Politicians where they have analyzed a dataset on Italian members of parliament elected in majoritarian districts in 1994, 1996 and 2001. Political parties allocate low-valence candidates to safe districts and high-valence candidates to competitive districts. “When comparing majoritarian and proportional systems”, Nannicini says, “the share of contestable districts is critical. A majoritarian system is preferred when the competition is stronger. Otherwise, the proportional system is better”. This is a non-monotonic relationship: when the share of competitive districts becomes large enough, the effect of adding high-valence politicians on the chance of winning the election is reduced and the proportional system becomes more efficient.

Read more about this topic:
Francesco Giavazzi. Elections: How and Why a Direction Is To Be Taken
Vincenzo Galasso. Experts and loyalists are the candidates that get onto the electoral lists
Marco Percoco. How tv news reporting affects voter decisions
Massimo Morelli. How voter turnout varies, and why
Francesco Passarelli. The psychology of voting and protesting
Guido Tabellini. why extremist parties do not win runoff elections

by Claudio Todesco