Electoral Reform and Parliamentary Debates

• Author: Martin G. Søyland,Bjørn Høyland
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12237
• Published date: 01 November 2019
• Date: 01 November 2019

593

LEGISLATIVE STUDIES QUARTERLY, 44, 4, November 2019

DOI: 10.1111/lsq.12237

BJØRN HØYLAND

MARTIN G. SØYLAND

University of Oslo

Electoral Reform and

Parliamentary Debates

The early twentieth century saw many democracies adopt proportional

representative systems. The textbook explanation, pioneered by Rokkan, empha-

size between-party electoral competition; the rise of the Socialist vote share made

Bourgeois parties prefer PR systems to maximize their seat share. While appeal-

ing, this account is not entirely compelling. Consequently, scholars are investi-

gating within-party explanations of support for such reforms. Particularly, Cox,

Fiva, and Smith show how list PR enable party leaders to discipline members

and build cohesive parties. Relying on roll-call votes across the Norwegian 1919

electoral reform from two-round single-member plurality to closed-list PR, they

show that the internal party cohesion increased following the reform. We investi-

gate how the Norwegian electoral reform changed the content of parliamentary

speeches. Comparing speeches from MPs present both before and after the re-

form, we show how parties become more cohesive in parliamentary debates under

list PR than they were under the single-member-district system.

The early twentieth century saw many young democracies

changing their electoral systems from single-member plurality

systems to proportional representative systems. The textbook

explanation for this change, pioneered by Rokkan (1970) em-

phasizes between-party electoral competition. In particular, the

rise of the Socialist vote share made fragmented Bourgeois par-

ties prefer PR systems to minimize their seat share loss in the

aftermath of the introduction of universal suffrage. Boix (1999)

provides a formalization and an empirical test of this argu-

ment (see also Boix 2010). While the argument is elegant, it has

been criticized on both empirical and conceptional grounds.

Empirically, Blais, Dobrzzynska, and Indridason (2004) fail to

find any systematic relationship between the “Socialist threat”

and switching to proportional representation, while Leemann

and Mares (2014), investigating distric t-, rather than countr y-level

effects, indeed find that district-level vulnerability and dead-vote

© 2019 Washington University in St. L ouis

594Bjørn Høyland and Martin G. Søyland

disproportionality explain the adoption of PR. Calvo (2009, 256)

argues that in countries such as Austria, Germany, Italy, the

Netherlands, and Norway, countries Rokkan (1970) use to argue

the “Socialist threat,” PR reforms were actually suppor ted by the

Social Democratic parties. Moreover, in those countries the re-

form improved the seat shares won by the Soc ial Democratic par-

ties rather than helpi ng the old elite maximizi ng their seat shares.

Moreover, the two-round election systems in place in many of

these countries provided the divided bourgeois bloc able op-

portunity for between-coordination after the first round (Blais,

Dobrzzynska, and Indridason 2004; Calvo 2009), although Fiva

and Smith (2017a) point to geographical challenges to mobiliz-

ing and coordinating the party vote the local candidate redraws.

Nevertheless, Fiva and Hix (2018) demonstrate that within-g roup

voter coordination fell in Norway in the aftermath of the reform

to PR.

The reduced incentive to cater for voter coordination in PR

systems has implications for within-party dynamics. As a result,

legislative scholars have star ted to investigate within-par ty effects

of electoral systems more generally and the ef fects of electoral re-

forms on legislative behavior in p articular (for an overview of this

literature, se e Andre, Depauw, and Shugart 2014). When studying

the effect of electoral systems on legislative behavior, a key dis-

tinction is made between candidate- and party-centered systems

(Carey 2007; Hix 2002, 2004). In the former system, voters can

choose their most preferred candidates, while in the latter, voters

are only provided a meaningful choice between parties. In candi-

date-centered systems, legislators vote less in line with the party

(Carey 2007; Cox, Fiva, and Smith 2019; Depauw and Martin

2009), focus more on their constituencies (Høyland, Hobolt, and

Hix 2017; McLay and Vowles 2007), and run more personal cam-

paigns (Catalinac 2016, 2017). Such behavior is mainly attributed

to individual candidates’ incentive to influence their electoral

prospects inde pendently of the party leader ship. Of particular rel-

evance to us, Cox, Fiva, and Smith (2019) investigate how list PR

grants party leaders control of the nomination process which in

turn enable them to discipline their members and build cohesive

parties. Relying on roll-call votes before and aft er the Norwegian

1919 electoral reform from two-round single-member plurality to

closed-list PR, they show that party leaders preferred the reform

to a larger degree than rank-and-file members and that the inter-

nal party cohesion increased following the reform.