Abstract
Drawing on a comparison of the origins and effects of the electoral reforms in Italy and Japan in the early 1990s that led to the implementation of a mixed election system in both countries, we look at the extent to which changes in electoral systems are mere paper tigers in terms of having important impacts on party systems and ways of doing political business.
This chapter contains generous borrowings of ideas from the contributions in Daniela Giannetti and Bernard Grofman (eds.) 2011, A Natural Experiment on Electoral Law Reform: Evaluating the Long Run Consequences of 1990s Electoral Reform in Italy and Japan. New York: Springer. The listing of authors is alphabetical.
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Notes
- 1.
See the Appendix in Giannetti and Grofman (2011) for a brief description of the 1993 and 2006 electoral law changes in Italy.
- 2.
Earlier work along these lines, sponsored by the Center for the Study of Democracy at the University of California, Irvine, and involving different teams of scholars, compares SNTV systems in Japan, Korea and Taiwan (Grofman et al. 1999), STV systems in Australia, Ireland and Malta (Bowler and Grofman 2000), mixed systems in a variety of countries (Shugart and Wattenberg 2001a), list PR systems in the Nordic nations (Grofman and Lijphart 2002), single member district plurality systems in Canada, India, the UK and the U.S. (Grofman et al. 2008a), and runoff methods (Grofman 2008b).
- 3.
Wuffle (personal communication, 2001), in comments at a panel on Japanese elections at the 2001 American Political Science Association, likened a mixed member system to a train with engines at both ends, both in operation simultaneously. At the session s/he quipped: “Without more information as to which engine was the more powerful, it is hard to know in which direction the train is going”.
- 4.
In the view of the public and the media after the first elections [under the 1994 electoral rules], this ability to ‘rise from the dead’—to win a PR seat even after constituents in the SMD rejected the candidate in favor someone else—made the legislator what was called a ‘zombie’ Diet member.” Though this term dropped out of common usage, the fact that an SMD candidate could do so badly in the SMD to lose her deposit and yet win a PR seat remained embarrassing. The law was revised to eliminate this possibility after the 2000 election.
- 5.
Another important detail is whether or not voters have one ballot to cast that determines both the SMD outcome and that candidate’s party or coalition share of the PR tally, or have separate ballots for the SMD and PR components of the mixed system (as in Germany), but that distinction is relevant only for true MMP systems, and so is not relevant here. In MMM systems, voters normally are given two separate ballots, and this is true for both Japan and Italy. A much more extensive inventory of different features of mixed member systems and useful ways of classifying those differences is found in Shugart and Wattenberg (2001b).
- 6.
For example, in systems where there are separate presidential elections, the nature of the linkage between presidential and legislative elections can significantly affect the number of political parties (Cox 1997, p. 219; Mozaffar and Vengroff 2002).
- 7.
For example, parties that do not well nationally may survive because of local pockets of strength that give then power in local or regional elections.
- 8.
Parties that wish to increase their PR vote may for purposes of visibility and greater support in the PR component, run candidates in SMD constituencies that they have no hope of capturing, thus increasing ENP in such constituencies; while the perceived need to have sufficiently concentrated political support to win a plurality in at least some SMD constituencies will discourage some parties from forming, thus decreasing ENP in the PR component of the mixed system. Moreover, strategic calculations are not just at the level of parties: voters who see a party as not viable at the SMD level may be less willing to support that party at the PR level since they may, for strategic reasons, have deserted that party at the SMD level and given their SMD support to a candidate of another party—at least in systems where voters have a separate ballot for the PR and the SMD components of the mixed system.
- 9.
For a much more comprehensive examination of the question of the degree to which changes in Japanese and Italian politics were anticipated by those who made/advocated/opposed the early 1990s reforms in those countries see Scheiner and Tronconi (2011).
- 10.
The 1994 election in Italy exhibited the greatest change in party vote and seat shares from the precious election ever recorded in (modern) Italy, far higher than what is the norm in most Western democracies.
- 11.
For example, the continuity between the mixed system put in place in Italy in 1993 and the PR system with bonus for the largest party that replaced it in 2005 seems quite high.
- 12.
See also Scheiner (2008).
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Appendix
Appendix
This brief overview of the basic features of electoral law changes in Italy and Japan over the past two decades is taken from Giannetti and Grofman (2011).
Electoral Reform in Italy, 1993
The 1993 reform replaced Italy’s previous PR system (with preferential voting) with a mixed system. For electing the lower Chamber (630 members) Italy was divided into 26 multi-member constituencies (plus the small region of Valle D’Aosta which always has only one seat). In turn, each constituency was divided into a number of single member districts approximately equal to 75 % of the seat assigned to them. The remaining 25 % of the seats were allocated on the basis of party lists and by PR using the LR-Hare formula.
Candidates could run in both tiers. All SMD candidates had to be endorsed by one or more PR list. The reverse was not true, as PR lists did not need to endorse SMD candidates. Voters can cast two ballots: the first for a candidate in their district, the second for a list in their constituency. No preferential voting was allowed in the PR tier. The allocation of PR seats was a two stage process, as it took place first at the national level. In order to get seats, parties had to receive at least 4 % of the national vote. Subsequently, seats were allocated to each party in the different constituencies. The plurality and PR tiers were linked in several ways. The most important of them was a mechanism of negative vote transfers (scorporo). With this vote re-apportioning mechanism for each plurality seat won a party saw its PR total vote at the constituency level reduced by the number of votes (plus one) received by the second placed candidate in the single member district where the party had won a seat. Only after the scorporo had been implemented were votes allocated into seats.
For electing the Senate, Italy was divided into 20 regional constituencies, two of which had no PR seats (Valle D’Aosta and Molise). Unlike the Chamber, the only candidates were those running in the 232 SMDs. Voters cast only one vote for an SMD candidate, and the eighty-three PR seats were assigned by means of a repêchage mechanism on a regional basis. Each party’s share of the list seats in a regional constituency was allocated to the ‘best losers’ among its SMD candidates. The PR seats were assigned at the constituency level using the d’Hondt formula. While there was no legal threshold for participating in the distribution of PR seats, the d’Hondt formula combined with the small district magnitude of most constituencies made it hard for small or medium-sized parties or coalitions to gain PR seats. The scorporo re-allocation rule also operated in Senate elections, where it was used through subtracting from a group’s total vote all the votes received by those candidates affiliated to the group who had won SMD seats in a constituency. Thus there was a greater correction compared to the Chamber of the disproportionality associated with the plurality formula.
The main differences among the rules for electing members to the Chamber and Senate had to do with to the ballot structure, the allocation of PR seats, and the mechanism of negative vote transfer.
Electoral Reform in Italy, 2005
The 2005 electoral reform abolished SMDs by introducing closed list PR for the entire parliament, but now with a seat bonus. For electing the Chamber, Italy is divided into 26 multimember constituencies encompassing the whole national territory. A number of seats proportional to the population are assigned to each constituency, yielding a total of 617 seats (one additional seat in the small Valle d’Aosta regional constituency is allocated by plurality and the remaining 12 seats are allocated by PR in the newly established Overseas Constituencies). To obtain seats, the following thresholds must be passed on a national basis:
-
minimum 4 % for a party list;
-
minimum 10 % for a coalition;
-
minimum 2 % for a party joining a coalition that passes the 10 % threshold. However, the best loser is also assigned seats.
Coalitions are formed by party lists that registered a common electoral platform and indicated a coalition leader (Article 14 of the Electoral Law). In short, to gain seats parties have to pass a lower threshold if they join pre-electoral coalitions.
The mechanism for seat allocation works as follows. First, the total vote share of coalitions and independent party lists are calculated at the national level and seats are allocated proportionally to them. If a coalition or a party list obtains 340 or more seats, no seat bonus will be given. If a coalition or party list obtains a plurality, but has less than 340 seats, it will be assigned additional seats to reach this number, corresponding roughly to a 54 % majority. The remaining 277 seats are allocated proportionally to other coalitions and party lists.
After the number of seats due to a coalition has been established, seats are allocated proportionally among coalition partners. Only party lists that obtained at least 2 % of the votes are assigned seats (seats are also assigned to the “best loser”). Candidates are elected according to the order they appear on party lists (no preference voting is allowed).
In short, the mechanism described above checks first if a coalition or a party list has obtained an absolute majority of about 54 %. If this is not the case, a seat bonus is allocated to generate such a majority.
The electoral system for the Senate works in a similar way in all of the seventeen regional constituencies (in three regions different systems are used). The procedure is like the one for electing the Chamber, with important differences. Seats are allocated proportionally to coalitions and party lists that pass the relevant vote thresholds. These thresholds are (a) 20 % for coalitions (b) 3 % for parties joining a coalition whose total vote share is at least 20 %, and (c) an 8 % threshold, if a party decides to run independently or joins a coalition that does not pass the 20 % threshold. The main difference between electing the Chamber and the Senate is that seats for electing the Senate are allocated to coalitions and party lists at the regional level, and the seat bonus is attributed on a regional basis. The most important consequence of this provision is that there is no guarantee for a coalition or party list obtaining the largest number of votes at the national level to obtain an absolute majority of the seats in the Senate.
Electoral Reform in Japan, 1994
The Japanese Diet has two chambers, the House of Representatives (the Lower House) elected for a four year term, and the House of Councillors (the Upper House) made of 232 members elected for a six year term with elections for half of the Councillors held every three years. The electoral law changes in 1994 applied only to the House of Representatives, replacing the Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV) system formerly in use (in primarily 3 seat constituencies) in that body.
The electoral system approved in 1994 changed the rules for electing members of the House of Representatives. It combined 300 seats from an equivalent number of Single Member Districts (SMDs) and 200 seats elected by PR from party lists in eleven regional multimember constituencies (this provision was modified in 2000, by reducing the number of PR seats from 200 to 180). Constituency magnitude varies from seven to thirty-three seats. Voters cast two votes: a candidate vote in an SMD, and a vote for a party that registers a list of candidates in the region. The allocation of plurality and PR seats proceeds independently: each party receives its ‘proportional’ share in each list-tier district, plus as many SMDs seats as it wins outright. For allocating PR seats the D’Hondt formula is used.
The only connection between the two tiers is double candidacy. That is, a candidate may run simultaneously in an SMD and on a party list provided that the SMD is within the PR constituency. A candidate who fails to win in the SMDs might still earn a seat if ranked high enough on the PR list. This opens up various strategic possibilities for candidates and parties (Reed and Thies 2001; Di Virgilio and Reed 2011). For example parties can nominate several double candidates as the same rank of the PR list, where the tie is broken by a ‘best loser’ calculation, i.e. awarding PR seats to those candidates who come closest to winning their SMDs. All dual candidates who share the same list position and who lose in their SMDs are re-ranked on the party list according to the ratio of their plurality vote total to their SMDs winner’s vote total. A candidate’s chances of being saved in the list tier, is therefore a direct function of how close the candidate came to winning the SMD outright.
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Giannetti, D., Grofman, B., Reed, S.R. (2014). Studying Electoral Engineering via a Double-Barrelled Natural Experiment: Comparing the Long Run Consequences of 1990s Electoral Reform in Italy and Japan. In: Beretta, S., Berkofsky, A., Rugge, F. (eds) Italy and Japan: How Similar Are They?. Perspectives in Business Culture. Springer, Milano. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-2568-4_10
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