Does the election of politicians from historically underrepresented groups spur others to enter politics? Some political scientists and policymakers posit that the election of women and people of color to prominent political offices can inspire others to run for office, yet prior research has yielded mixed results. We contribute to the literature on representation by exploring the impact of role models on candidate emergence at the local level, where aspiring politicians typically begin to climb the political ladder. Using data from Brazilian elections and a set of regression discontinuity designs, we find no evidence that the election of a woman or Afro-Brazilian mayor spurs women and Afro-Brazilians to run for city council positions. Our results, which are robust to several alternative specifications, suggest that even if the election of a woman or minority politician inspires others to enter politics, barriers may impede them from running for office.

Politicians and parties employ nationalist symbols to attract public support in elections worldwide. Robust evidence indicates that the public perceives women politicians as more liberal than men politicians. The association between politicians’ gender and perceived ideology, combined with the close relationship between nationalism and radical right parties, prompts the question: how do individuals evaluate women politicians when they use nationalist cues? To answer this question, we field a survey experiment in Serbia, a country with a long history of nationalist movements and a digraphic language with one of the alphabets associated with nationalism. Exploiting the Cyrillic alphabet and its association with nationalism, we find that respondents perceive women politicians who use Cyrillic as nationalist as much as men using the same symbol. However, these women are perceived as more nationalist than women and men politicians who do not employ Cyrillic. We then show that women and men respondents utilize these cues differently, indicating that the gender of nationalist politicians and members of the public may affect politician evaluations.

The party politics literature suggests that an institutionalized party system can be key for well-functioning democracies. Do the benefits of strong parties also extend to women's descriptive representation? We argue that increasing parties' strength can perpetuate and even intensify parties' pre-existing patterns of exclusion of particular groups, including women, when elites are gender-biased. While stronger parties are better able to carry out their organizational goals, we contend that increasing gender equity is often not part of such goals. To evaluate this argument, we combine an exogenous electoral reform that increased parties' ability to control their members in Brazil with a regression discontinuity design. We find that while the reform increased parties' ability to pursue their organizational goals, it increased the gap in votes between men and women. Further, we demonstrate that the behavior of men towards women co-partisans drives this pattern. These findings highlight the unintended consequences of institutional engineering.

Legislators are likely to substantively represent groups to which they belong or with which they have some particular affinity. However, there are electoral systems that diminish this tendency and systems that promote it. More precisely, as district magnitude increases representatives will be more free to focus on issues which are not decisive of vote choice for most voters. In this note, we use a case of electoral reform and the nature of the post-reform chamber (Chile's Chamber of Deputies) to test whether increasing district magnitude makes it more likely that women will focus on women's issues. A series of tests on multiple sets of observations show robust results for the conclusion that as the number of candidates elected in a district increases, elected women become more likely to pursue women's issues.

The design of election ballots can influence voters’ behavior. Features of the ballot are particularly important if they systematically harm the electoral chances of some groups. In Brazil, voters type the four or five-digit number of their chosen candidate into an electronic voting machine to cast a ballot. Some numbers have sequences that are easier to memorize and recall than others. I show that candidates with memorable numbers receive a boost in their vote share. Moreover, I demonstrate that women are less likely to be assigned memorable numbers. This paper highlights the importance of thinking thoroughly about the implications of seemingly innocuous characteristics of voting procedures.

Theories of party systems suggest that more restrictive rules should lead to fewer parties. According to this line of reasoning, parties and voters should strategically respond to reforms in electoral rules, such as changes in district magnitude. That is, a decrease in district magnitude should decrease the size of the party system, whereas an increase in magnitude should enlarge the party system. Using a series of difference-in-differences models based on data from Brazilian municipalities before and after an exogenous reform in magnitude, I study the effects of this electoral reform on both electoral coordination and legislative fragmentation. Contrary to the expectation, the number of lists did not change after a decrease in magnitude. However, parties formed more pre-electoral coalitions in municipalities that lost seats. Voters also coalesced around fewer lists. Lastly, as expected, the reform produced a decrease in legislative fragmentation. Both mechanical and psychological effects were responsible for this modification in fragmentation.

In this research note we reason that campaign strategies that are strategic in "pure" majoritarian systems and "pure" proportional systems may (or may not) change when the two are combined in a mixed-member electoral system with a majoritarian and a proportional tier. We argue that campaign effort by individual candidates should be a function of the tier or tiers in which the candidate is competing and whether he or she expects to be a strong contender. We then test our theorizing with candidate campaign spending data from New Zealand, which has used a mixed-member system since 1996. We find support for our reasoning regarding when the strategies appropriate for pure majoritarian and pure proportional systems should be adapted when applied in their mixed counterparts.

The international community invests heavily in democracy promotion, but these efforts sometimes embolden leaders not interested in true democratic reform. We develop and test a formal model explaining why this occurs in the context of electoral system reform --- one of the most important signals of democratic quality. Our formal model characterizes leaders as either truly reform minded or pseudo-reformers, those who increase electoral system proportionality in order to receive international community benefits while engaging in electoral fraud. We hypothesize that the international community will be more (less) likely to detect fraud when leaders decrease (increase) proportionality, regardless of whether there is evidence of numerical fraud. Using a mixed-methods approach with cross-national and case study data from post-Communist states, we find that the international community is generally less likely to detect fraud following an increase in proportionality and vice versa. We suggest that democracy promoters over-reward perceived democratic progress such that pseudo-reformers often benefit.

Democratic institutions provide incentives for voters and candidates. When reformers tinker with multiple institutions, the likely effect of each individual change may be well understood, but their potential interaction may go unanticipated. Prior to elections in 2002, the French legislature adopted a gender parity candidate quota for parties participating in parliamentary elections. In addition, voters ratified a constitutional referendum making the president’s term match that of parliament, and presidential elections were set to be held immediately prior to parliamentary ones. We show that the unanticipated consequence of these separate institutional reforms was to make the fate of female candidates for parliament very much a function of presidential coattails. When the party of the president failed to fulfill the candidate quota, the number of women in parliament showed little change. Conversely, in years when the party of the president took the candidate quota seriously, the number of women in parliament increased.

Electoral systems vary in terms of the choice and influence they offer voters. Beyond selecting between parties, preferential systems allow for choices within parties. More proportional systems make it likely that influence over who determines the assembly's majority will be distributed across relatively more voters. In response to systems that limit choice and influence, we hypothesize that voters will cast more blank, null, or spoiled ballots on purpose. We use a regression discontinuity opportunity in French municipal elections to test this hypothesis. An exogenously chosen and arbitrary cutpoint is used to determine the electoral rules municipalities use to select their assemblies. We find support for our reasoning --- systems that do not allow intraparty preference votes and that lead to disproportional outcomes provoke vote spoilage. Rates of vote spoilage are frequently sufficient to change control over the assembly if those votes had instead been cast validly for the second-place party.

Why do parties form pre-electoral coalitions (PECs) in executive elections? The party of the executive candidate may welcome coalition partners because of the votes that they can deliver. However, PECs often include parties that bring few votes to the coalition. I theorize that parties with a candidate in the executive election welcome small parties because of the campaign resources that they bring to the PEC. I test this argument using data from mayoral elections in Brazil, where parties do not control access to advertisement on radio/TV. The results indicate that campaign resources increase the likelihood of being admitted to a PEC when the party without an executive candidate has few votes to offer.

How can parties improve the electoral prospects of traditionally under-represented women? We argue that if a party signals that a single female candidate is of high quality, other women appearing on the ballot with her will receive a boost in support. More specifically, if a female candidate heads a party’s list in the district, other women from her party will be rewarded with more votes. We test our reasoning by examining the nomination and election of women in three Free-List Proportional Representation systems where voters can cast multiple preference votes for individual candidates. We find robust support for the finding that when voters receive a signal that women can be quality candidates, they tend to reward additional women with preference votes regardless of their rank on the ballot.

Os efeitos produzidos pelo método de converter votos em cadeiras têm estado no centro do debate brasileiro desde a Constituição de 1988 e a reforma política nunca deixou a agenda do debate político, dentro e fora da academia. Os argumentos, no geral, dizem respeito ao fortalecimento dos partidos e ao aumento da accountability eleitoral. Este artigo se propõe a analisar os efeitos de mudanças dos distritos eleitorais. Essas questões estão inscritas em uma discussão mais ampla sobre os impactos do sistema eleitoral no sistema político, bem como sobre o equilíbrio delicado entre governabilidade e representação. Consequentemente, estão diretamente relacionadas à qualidade do sistema democrático.

This chapter defines several individual rules that are part of every electoral system and explains how variations in those rules create incentives for interparty politics and intraparty politics. In interparty terms, weak systems encourage many parties to enter and voters to vote sincerely for their most preferred options. Strong systems discourage many parties from entering and encourage voters to think strategically about viability (the likelihood a preferred option will win seats). In intraparty terms, centralized systems empower party leaders and put an emphasis on the party’s shared reputation. Individualistic systems empower individual candidates and members of congress and put an emphasis on their personal reputations. The systems used in Latin America are located in a two-dimensional space based on these incentives, and instances of electoral reform are captured as changes in incentives or movements in this space.

Este artigo objetiva traçar a trajetória e apresentar uma explicação para a manutenção do sistema eleitoral utilizado para a eleição da Câmara Federal, a representação proporcional de lista aberta, no âmbito da ANC 1987-8. Este arranjo institucional, juntamente com outros, como o presidencialismo, era e continua sendo apontado como um obstáculo para o estabelecimento e consolidação da ordem democrática no Brasil. Visto que o ímpeto reformista permeou em grande medida o processo constituinte, abarcando também os aspectos institucionais, cabe indagar as razões que explicariam a manutenção do sistema eleitoral. Nossa conclusão, baseada nos argumentos levantados, nas votações ocorridas e nos textos aprovados, aponta para uma situação não intuitiva: afirmamos que a “não-mudança” ocorreu por decisão estratégica de atores políticos comprometidos com reformas, com vistas a minimizar resistências a outras questões tidas como prioritárias, principalmente o parlamentarismo.

Quem são os deputados estaduais brasileiros? É possível traçar um perfil socioeconômico destes parlamentares? Possuiriam eles características semelhantes as das populações que os elegem? Neste artigo, mostramos a inexistência de uma tradução das características populacionais nas Assembleias Legislativas: em geral, os deputados estaduais são homens, com elevado grau de escolaridade e provenientes de ocupações prévias com alto prestígio social. Em suma, as Assembleias Estaduais não espelham as características das populações que elas representam.

Esta dissertação tem como motivação a pergunta: Como é o Poder Legislativo Municipal no Brasil? É comumente assumido que Câmaras municipais são menos importantes que o Poder Executivo para elaboração e produção de políticas nos municípios brasileiros. Argumento que este é um entendimento equivocado baseado em estudos conduzidos com poucas informações em que não existem evidências empíricas suficientes para sustentar isto. A fim de apresentar um novo e mais completo entendimento sobre as Câmaras Legislativas Municipais, analiso três tópicos. Primeiro, se as Câmaras são profissionalizadas e bem estruturadas. Segundo, o perfil sócio educacional e ocupacional dos candidatos e vereadores comparados com o da população municipal. Terceiro, o conteúdo dos projetos de lei apresentados pelos vereadores. Utilizo dados do Censo do Legislativo, do Tribunal Superior Eleitoral e de um banco de dados original, conduzo uma série de testes que incluem da estatística descritiva a modelos de regressão. A análise mostra que (1) as Câmaras Municipais são pouco profissionalizadas e parcamente estruturadas; (2) candidatos e vereadores possuem escolaridade mais alta e são provenientes de ocupações mais prestigiosas do que a média da população. Todavia, as Câmaras são as instituições representativas mais acessíveis a indivíduos das camadas mais baixas da população; (3) vereadores podem propor leis em importantes áreas e que se algumas destas áreas são muito regulamentadas (como a saúde e educação), outras não são (por exemplo, habitação e regulamentação do solo). Portanto, não é correto dizer que não existem políticas importantes no Poder Legislativo Municipal.

O senso comum e parte da literatura sobre o comportamento legislativo costumam atribuir a alcunha de "irrelevante" a parcela de produção legislativa dos parlamentares brasileiros. O objetivo deste trabalho é explicitar que o descarte deste tipo de produção legislativa pode levar à perda de informação sobre o comportamento parlamentar, especialmente no que diz respeito ao tratamento dado às bases eleitorais. Foram georreferenciados todos os projetos de lei propostos e aprovados que (re)denominam logradouros do município de São Paulo durante duas legislaturas. O exame destas leis revelou um padrão geográfico estável que coincide com as áreas em que os vereadores concentram mais votos. É possível afirmar que, antes de aleatória, a distribuição destas (re)nomeações no território tende a seguir um padrão: os parlamentares tendem a concentrar as nomeações nas áreas em que recebem mais voto, ou seja, elas são parte da estratégia dos vereadores de demarcação do território.

Este artigo parte dos pressupostos teóricos da escolha racional e do distributivismo, segundo os quais um parlamentar obstinado em busca da reeleição pauta suas ações visando agradar sua constituency. O trabalho avalia esta proposição, examinando o comportamento parlamentar de vereadores; portanto, no âmbito local. Foram utilizados dois tipos de dados: as propostas de legislação encaminhadas pelos vereadores à mesa da Câmara Municipal de São Paulo no período que compreende os Governos de Marta Suplicy (2001-04) e de José Serra/Gilberto Kassab (2005-08), e os dados eleitorais das eleições de 2000 e 2004. Os resultados apontam para inexistência da conexão eleitoral, ou seja, para a rejeição da hipótese distributivista.