Political Representation by Rubén Ruiz-Rufino
European Journal of Political Research, 2017
In this article it is argued that citizens take into account the degree of a government’s politic... more In this article it is argued that citizens take into account the degree of a government’s political autonomy to implement particular policies when expressing their views on satisfaction with democracy (SWD) but, in order to do so, they need to perceive it.When citizens directly observe the external constraints that reduce their government’s autonomy, then variations in levels of regime satisfaction may no longer
be exclusively about government performance – as widely argued by political economists – but also about democratic choice. The argument develops after comparing the existing scenarios in the Eurozone before and after the Great Recession. Citizens only began to perceive their own lack of choice to decide between
policy alternatives when the sovereign debt crisis broke out in May 2010, the date of the first Greek bailout. It is then when citizens started to update their beliefs about the functioning of democracy as a system in which alternative policies can be adopted as bail-out deals were signed between national governments from the Euro periphery and the Troika. This updating process towards the way democracy works explains the increasing gap in the levels of SWD between bailed-out economies and the rest of the countries in the Eurozone. Empirical confirmation for this claim is found after analysing Eurobarometer surveys from 2002 to 2014 and using a two-step difference-in-difference analysis that combines individual and aggregate data.
Democratization
Drawing on two complementary mechanisms, this article explores the question of
whether electoral... more Drawing on two complementary mechanisms, this article explores the question of
whether electoral institutions and conditions of electoral competition create
incentives to promote electoral misconduct in young or developing democracies.
The first mechanism explains how majoritarian institutions like disproportional
electoral systems are more likely to trigger electoral fraud than consensus electoral
institutions like proportional representation. However, for this mechanism to be
activated, the incumbent must feel effectively threatened by the opposition. To
better understand the way this mechanism works, the electoral history of the
country also needs to be taken into consideration. Democracies which have a
historical record of running clean elections are less likely to experience fraud than
countries with a history of electoral misconduct. I test these theoretical claims using
a dataset that contains relevant information for 323 parliamentary elections in 59
new or developing democracies in the period between 1960 and 2006. The
empirical analysis shows a strong and robust empirical support for the two
mechanisms.
European Journal of Political Research, 2007
This article is an exploratory analysis of the efficacy of parliamentary representation
as a mea... more This article is an exploratory analysis of the efficacy of parliamentary representation
as a means to moderate ethnic conflict in new democracies. The authors agree with
many others that the interests of a minority ethnic group are better protected when the group has access to decision makers, can block harmful government policies and veto potentially damaging decisions. Parliamentary representation, however, does not always allow for an effective representation of those who are not in government. Seats in the legislature may be of little use in a parliament where the executive dominates the policy process at all stages.This article focuses on the new democracies of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union between 1990 and 2000.The authors use the number of parliamentary seats obtained by minority ethnic parties as their main independent variable and the MAR ethnic protest and rebellion scores as their dependent variables. In addition, they employ the system of government (i.e., parliamentary versus presidential) as a proxy indicator of the degree of influence that parliamentary parties have over decision making.A cross-section time- series regression analysis shows that the ameliorative effect of parliamentary representation
over ethnic conflict is stronger in those legislatures where the ethnic group has effective influence over decision making. It is also shown that representation within national parliaments has no ameliorative effects over violent secessionist conflicts.When the ethnic minority’s demands are too radical, parliamentary representation is simply an inadequate
instrument.
Ethnicity and representation by Rubén Ruiz-Rufino
Political Studies, 2013
Using survey data collected between 1997 and 2001 in ten post-communist countries, I test a set o... more Using survey data collected between 1997 and 2001 in ten post-communist countries, I test a set of hypotheses that explain satisfaction with democracy among members of the main ethnic minority groups within each country. First, I test whether political representation, per se, has any effect at all. Second, I examine the relationship between the type of political system and the capacity of an ethnic minority to participate in the decision-making process. In particular, I show that those minorities which have a voice in parliamentary democracies are more satisfied than other minorities which act in political systems with a more powerful president. Finally, I focus on the proportionality of an electoral system. In this sense, I show how more proportional electoral systems increase satisfaction with democracy for those minorities that either do not have any political representation at all or whose political ethnic party is small. When the ethnic political party is large, then less proportional electoral systems boost satisfaction with democracy.
Routledge Handbook of Comparative Political Institutions
Electoral Systems by Rubén Ruiz-Rufino
West European Politics, 2011
This article proposes a new way to measure proportionality using aggregated threshold
functions.... more This article proposes a new way to measure proportionality using aggregated threshold
functions. Electoral systems can be summarised by a single value that shows the
necessary share of the total vote to win either one seat or half of the seats in parliament.
The article calculates aggregate threshold values for 142 different electoral systems that
were used in 525 democratic elections between 1946 and 2000. These results are also
contrasted with the most commonly used indices of proportionality and turn out to be
both substantively and empirically richer. Aggregated threshold functions provide both
students and reformers of electoral systems with a measure based purely on institutional
variables that offers an exhaustive summary of the functioning of many electoral
systems.
Electoral Studies, 2007
This article introduces a set of functions that measures the mechanical performance of an elector... more This article introduces a set of functions that measures the mechanical performance of an electoral system. Aggregated threshold functions offer the necessary and sufficient share of the vote nationwide to win a given number of seats. Traditionally, electoral systems have been measured taking into account the share of the vote required to win one seat given a district. In the approach used here, the values obtained are calculated taking into account all districts in which a country is divided and for any number of seats. This article offers the definition and formalization of these functions. Once the aggregated threshold functions are defined in all their terms, I show some data validation to test their capacity of prediction. The main goal of the article is to provide with a tool that can be used, for example, to develop a measure that summarizes in a single value the functioning of an electoral system. This value can be used by electoral reformers as well as by students of electoral systems to test the consequences of electoral systems as a whole.
Articles in Spanish by Rubén Ruiz-Rufino
Zoom Politico - Fundación Alternativas, 2011
Revista Española de Ciencia Politica, 2005
Quiero agradecer a José Ramón Montero su apoyo durante mi investigación doctoral de donde ha naci... more Quiero agradecer a José Ramón Montero su apoyo durante mi investigación doctoral de donde ha nacido este artículo. Así mismo, me gustaría agradecer los pertinentes y acertados comentarios de dos evaluadores anónimos que, sin duda, han enriquecido este artículo. Revista Española de Ciencia Política. Núm. 13, Octubre 2005, pp. 89-118 La caracterización de los sistemas electorales. Una aplicación de las funciones de agregación de umbrales en las nuevas democracias de Europa y América Latina * Rubén Ruiz-Rufino RUBÉN RUIZ-RUFINO LA CARACTERIZACIÓN DE LOS SISTEMAS ELECTORALES 89-118 1. Véase la discusión que ofrece Lijphart sobre las distintas formas que existen para calcular el umbral efectivo (Lijphart, 1994: 25-30) para comprender bien mi queja sobre su arbitrariedad. 90 RUBÉN RUIZ-RUFINO Revista Española de Ciencia Política. Núm. 13, Octubre 2005, pp. 89-118 2. En este punto es necesario aclarar una cuestión puramente terminológica. Como ya he señalado, Lijphart y Gibberd llaman «funciones de pagos» a los votos requeridos para ganar cualquier número de escaños en un distrito. No obstante, como Penadés aclara de forma convincente las «funciones de pagos» deberían referirse a las funciones que predicen el número de escaños que podría obtener un partido dado su porcentaje de votos, mientras que las funciones de umbral deberían indicar las proporciones mínimas y máximas de votos requeridas para ganar un número determinado de escaños en un distrito (Penadés, 2000: 35). En este artículo se utilizará esta última acepción. 92 RUBÉN RUIZ-RUFINO Revista Española de Ciencia Política. Núm. 13, Octubre 2005, pp. 89-118
Italiani Europei, 2008
Europa/Europe Spagna 212 2008 1 zionalità. Dall'altro, essa determina l'assenza di meccanismi di ... more Europa/Europe Spagna 212 2008 1 zionalità. Dall'altro, essa determina l'assenza di meccanismi di controllo sui candidati presentati dai partiti nelle diverse liste.
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Political Representation by Rubén Ruiz-Rufino
be exclusively about government performance – as widely argued by political economists – but also about democratic choice. The argument develops after comparing the existing scenarios in the Eurozone before and after the Great Recession. Citizens only began to perceive their own lack of choice to decide between
policy alternatives when the sovereign debt crisis broke out in May 2010, the date of the first Greek bailout. It is then when citizens started to update their beliefs about the functioning of democracy as a system in which alternative policies can be adopted as bail-out deals were signed between national governments from the Euro periphery and the Troika. This updating process towards the way democracy works explains the increasing gap in the levels of SWD between bailed-out economies and the rest of the countries in the Eurozone. Empirical confirmation for this claim is found after analysing Eurobarometer surveys from 2002 to 2014 and using a two-step difference-in-difference analysis that combines individual and aggregate data.
whether electoral institutions and conditions of electoral competition create
incentives to promote electoral misconduct in young or developing democracies.
The first mechanism explains how majoritarian institutions like disproportional
electoral systems are more likely to trigger electoral fraud than consensus electoral
institutions like proportional representation. However, for this mechanism to be
activated, the incumbent must feel effectively threatened by the opposition. To
better understand the way this mechanism works, the electoral history of the
country also needs to be taken into consideration. Democracies which have a
historical record of running clean elections are less likely to experience fraud than
countries with a history of electoral misconduct. I test these theoretical claims using
a dataset that contains relevant information for 323 parliamentary elections in 59
new or developing democracies in the period between 1960 and 2006. The
empirical analysis shows a strong and robust empirical support for the two
mechanisms.
as a means to moderate ethnic conflict in new democracies. The authors agree with
many others that the interests of a minority ethnic group are better protected when the group has access to decision makers, can block harmful government policies and veto potentially damaging decisions. Parliamentary representation, however, does not always allow for an effective representation of those who are not in government. Seats in the legislature may be of little use in a parliament where the executive dominates the policy process at all stages.This article focuses on the new democracies of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union between 1990 and 2000.The authors use the number of parliamentary seats obtained by minority ethnic parties as their main independent variable and the MAR ethnic protest and rebellion scores as their dependent variables. In addition, they employ the system of government (i.e., parliamentary versus presidential) as a proxy indicator of the degree of influence that parliamentary parties have over decision making.A cross-section time- series regression analysis shows that the ameliorative effect of parliamentary representation
over ethnic conflict is stronger in those legislatures where the ethnic group has effective influence over decision making. It is also shown that representation within national parliaments has no ameliorative effects over violent secessionist conflicts.When the ethnic minority’s demands are too radical, parliamentary representation is simply an inadequate
instrument.
Ethnicity and representation by Rubén Ruiz-Rufino
Electoral Systems by Rubén Ruiz-Rufino
functions. Electoral systems can be summarised by a single value that shows the
necessary share of the total vote to win either one seat or half of the seats in parliament.
The article calculates aggregate threshold values for 142 different electoral systems that
were used in 525 democratic elections between 1946 and 2000. These results are also
contrasted with the most commonly used indices of proportionality and turn out to be
both substantively and empirically richer. Aggregated threshold functions provide both
students and reformers of electoral systems with a measure based purely on institutional
variables that offers an exhaustive summary of the functioning of many electoral
systems.
Articles in Spanish by Rubén Ruiz-Rufino
be exclusively about government performance – as widely argued by political economists – but also about democratic choice. The argument develops after comparing the existing scenarios in the Eurozone before and after the Great Recession. Citizens only began to perceive their own lack of choice to decide between
policy alternatives when the sovereign debt crisis broke out in May 2010, the date of the first Greek bailout. It is then when citizens started to update their beliefs about the functioning of democracy as a system in which alternative policies can be adopted as bail-out deals were signed between national governments from the Euro periphery and the Troika. This updating process towards the way democracy works explains the increasing gap in the levels of SWD between bailed-out economies and the rest of the countries in the Eurozone. Empirical confirmation for this claim is found after analysing Eurobarometer surveys from 2002 to 2014 and using a two-step difference-in-difference analysis that combines individual and aggregate data.
whether electoral institutions and conditions of electoral competition create
incentives to promote electoral misconduct in young or developing democracies.
The first mechanism explains how majoritarian institutions like disproportional
electoral systems are more likely to trigger electoral fraud than consensus electoral
institutions like proportional representation. However, for this mechanism to be
activated, the incumbent must feel effectively threatened by the opposition. To
better understand the way this mechanism works, the electoral history of the
country also needs to be taken into consideration. Democracies which have a
historical record of running clean elections are less likely to experience fraud than
countries with a history of electoral misconduct. I test these theoretical claims using
a dataset that contains relevant information for 323 parliamentary elections in 59
new or developing democracies in the period between 1960 and 2006. The
empirical analysis shows a strong and robust empirical support for the two
mechanisms.
as a means to moderate ethnic conflict in new democracies. The authors agree with
many others that the interests of a minority ethnic group are better protected when the group has access to decision makers, can block harmful government policies and veto potentially damaging decisions. Parliamentary representation, however, does not always allow for an effective representation of those who are not in government. Seats in the legislature may be of little use in a parliament where the executive dominates the policy process at all stages.This article focuses on the new democracies of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union between 1990 and 2000.The authors use the number of parliamentary seats obtained by minority ethnic parties as their main independent variable and the MAR ethnic protest and rebellion scores as their dependent variables. In addition, they employ the system of government (i.e., parliamentary versus presidential) as a proxy indicator of the degree of influence that parliamentary parties have over decision making.A cross-section time- series regression analysis shows that the ameliorative effect of parliamentary representation
over ethnic conflict is stronger in those legislatures where the ethnic group has effective influence over decision making. It is also shown that representation within national parliaments has no ameliorative effects over violent secessionist conflicts.When the ethnic minority’s demands are too radical, parliamentary representation is simply an inadequate
instrument.
functions. Electoral systems can be summarised by a single value that shows the
necessary share of the total vote to win either one seat or half of the seats in parliament.
The article calculates aggregate threshold values for 142 different electoral systems that
were used in 525 democratic elections between 1946 and 2000. These results are also
contrasted with the most commonly used indices of proportionality and turn out to be
both substantively and empirically richer. Aggregated threshold functions provide both
students and reformers of electoral systems with a measure based purely on institutional
variables that offers an exhaustive summary of the functioning of many electoral
systems.