Political Science 1020E Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Plurality Voting System, Proportional Representation, In Reality
2 May 2018
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Monday April 2nd 2018 - Lecture Notes –
Chapter 7 Elections and Voting
Summary of What We’ve Covered Throughout Year - The Storyline of Domestic and Comparative Politics
• The relationship between prime minster and parliaments and the president and senators
• What is the origin of these relationships? —> Constitutions
▪ We looked at the founding documents:
▪ Whether these systems were unitary and federal
▪ Whether there is one concentrated set of powers
▪ Continuing to draw out where policies get played out —> Extended discussion of the
rules of the game
▪ We looked at the big ideas and we wanted to know how these policies get grounded
and acted upon which is the institutions
▪ We are always asking what is the impact of these institutions?
▪ Then we looked at policies —> Grand Bargains —> Different welfare states
▪ We took a big issue which is the social implications of capitalism and we ran it through
these institutional structures and we looked at how the government uses these
various tools
▪ We defined regulatory or coercive tools —> Incentives or taxing and spending tools,
we looked at encouragement or incentive —So we did a deep dive nohow these
institutions process these idea
▪ The idea between
▪ Recently we’ve been doing politics in action —> Who carries the puck down the ice —
> Political parties, social movements, in turn these actors work through the electoral
system which is what we’re doing today and so they can put the puck in the net
▪ We are continuously doing this in a cross national analysis
Elections and Voting
• The actors try to come through the gate first
• Four things he wants to cover:
• 1. Elections and the Common Good?
• 2. Electoral Systems: Translating Votes into Seats
• 3. Post Modern Campaigns: Social Media’s Impact?
• 4. Why We Vote the Way We Do: Structural and Cyclical Factors
Elections and the Common Good
In Practice:
• Elections determine who has control of the state —> Who will use the incentive and regulatory tools to share our
world
• This is a bit of an achievement —> We have peaceful transitions of power through the electoral process
• Once we have this mechanism in place we can hold governments accountable
• We are in a civic conversation in the sense that we are debating big issues —> We’re learning about the content of
policies and how different parties form —> We pause to think about some of these questions during elections
In Reality Not so Much:
• Some elections turn into a negative campaign mode
• Since the campaigns have not really presented visions or policy platforms
Electoral Systems: Votes into Seats
• Each system has different implications for the cohesion and unity of your nation state
• Different institutional deigns
• There is the:
• 1. Single Member Plurality or First Past the Post
▪ Does not matter if they get 33% —> They will lead if they get the most votes
▪ Voters in each electoral district elect a single representative
2. Proportional Representation
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Monday april 2nd 2018 - lecture notes . The idea between: recently we"ve been doing politics in action > who carries the puck down the ice . The actors try to come through the gate first. Four things he wants to cover: elections and the common good, electoral systems: translating votes into seats, post modern campaigns: social media"s impact, why we vote the way we do: structural and cyclical factors. In practice: elections determine who has control of the state > who will use the incentive and regulatory tools to share our world. In reality not so much: some elections turn into a negative campaign mode, since the campaigns have not really presented visions or policy platforms. Electoral systems: votes into seats: each system has different implications for the cohesion and unity of your nation state, different institutional deigns. There are 3 consequences that make the choice of electoral systems matter: party effects.
