POLS 120 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Closed List, Unimodality, Proportional Representation

• School: Emory University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLS 120
• Professor: Holli Semetko

Document Summary

Legislatures in democratic political regimes: unicameral: one chamber, ex. Israeli knesset, swedish riksdag: bicameral: two chambers of equal or unequal powers, ex. U. s. congress, british parliament: why two, (cid:862)lo(cid:449)er(cid:863) (cid:272)ha(cid:373)(cid:271)er, representation of smaller geographical localities (electoral districts, responsiveness to voters (ex. more members, more frequent elections) Legislative elections: frequency, fixed (ex. election every 4 years) vs. Single-member district systems (smds: categorical ballot, each party submits one candidate per district. In other large countries that use smd (ex. Britain, canada, india) we see 3, 4, or multi- party systems: why, perhaps politics in countries like britain have changed in important ways since. Smd systems: summary: pros, usually (not always) produces decisive outcomes. Proportional representation (pr: a party receives parliamentary seats in proportion to its share of the total vote (ex. 10% of votes is approximately 10% of seats): pr systems vary in terms of, district magnitude (how many seats per district, higher magnitude means more proportional results, thresholds (ex.