Introduction

• Published date: 01 November 2015
• Author: Peverill Squire
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12086
• Date: 01 November 2015

Introduction

In recent years legislative scholars have sought to test theories in

settings beyond the institution or institutions for which they were origi-

nally developed. Such work promises to push the f‌ield to develop more

general theories of legislative behavior. We are fortunate to have a num-

berofarticlesinthisissueoftheQuarterly that continue this effort.

The electoral advantage incumbents enjoy is well-documented in

the study of legislatures in the United States. Whether incumbents oper-

ating in other electoral systems, notably those using proportional

representation, similarly benef‌it is the question tackled by Miriam A.

Golden and Lucio Picci. They examine data on more than 12,000 candi-

dates from two major parties who sought election to the Italian Chamber

of Deputies between 1948 and 1992, a period during which the country

employed an open-list system of proportional representation. The novel

twist in the system was that voters could cast a vote for their preferred

party and a limited number of votes for their preferred candidates on the

party list. The authors perform two distinct analyses, distinguishing

between incumbents who were reselected by the party from those

reelected by the voters. Although there were small differences in incum-

bency effects, the average incumbent enjoyed an advantage in getting

reselected by the party, but no advantage in getting reelected. Only a

small number of elite deputies were able to generate a substantial

personal vote. Thus, the political fate of most lawmakers was in the

hands of party leaders, who could use their power to enforce party disci-

pline. As the authors note, additional studies will be needed to determine

the extent to which this f‌inding can be generalized to other proportional

representation electoral systems. But they do suggest that f‌indings based

on studies of the electoral system used in the United States may not

generalize well to other systems.

Democratic theory assumes t hat alternatives are offere d to the

voters in elections. In congr essional elections in the United States, the

factors determining whethe r alternatives exist has involved th e study

of the strategic behavior of po tential challengers. Less attention has

been given to state legislativ e elections where competiti on is actually

more at risk: On average, only tw o-thirds of state legislativ e contests

LEGISLATIVE STUDIES QUARTERLY, 40, 4, November 2015 503

DOI: 10.1111 /lsq.12086

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C2015 The Comparative Legislative Research Center of The University of Iowa