Geo analysis of intra-partisan competition - The role of geography in intra-party competition in list proportional representation systems

In the last decades, electoral reforms boosted importance of individual politicians in list proportional representation (PR) systems. This institutional personalization pertains to a general trend towards ‘personalization of politics’, and leads scholars to study its broad effects on intra-party competition and personal vote-seeking behavior.

While empirical studies already shed light on the role of individual- and electoral system-level determinants, the impact of geographical context has largely been neglected.

After building an analytical framework which combines insights from three subfields, I investigate the effects of geographical determinants and candidate characteristics on intra-party competition in list PR systems answering two research questions:

• How does geographical context affect intra-party competition?
• What determines a candidate’s preference vote distribution within the district?

To this end, I build a large cross-national dataset comprising information on more than 5.000 candidates in 3.584 municipalities in 123 electoral districts from four countries. Specifically, the project focuses on two open list PR elections (Greece 2019 and Finland 2019) and two flexible-list PR elections (Belgium 2014 and Austria 2017).

This careful research design enables to examine the role of party provided rank order (juxtaposing open list PR-flexible list PR) and the single-multiple preference vote dichotomy on intra-party competition. If voters can cast only one preference vote, intra-party competition is a zero-sum game where local candidates compete for the undividable support of local voters. Conversely, in systems where voters are able to cast multiple preference votes, the level of intra-party competition is considerably lower.

Overall, the project develops our understanding of the broader effects of geography on political representation and the representational/campaign focus of election candidates.

Contact: Prof. Jérémy Dodeigne and Dr. Gert-Jan Put

F.R.S. - FNRS | Postdoctoral research grant -  1.B.322.19