The Political Consequences of Electoral Systems: A Time Sensitive Approach

Research on the political consequences of electoral systems has long been dominated by models that aggregate data at the national level. More recently, as disaggregated data become available, scholars investigate these effects at the at the constituency level, thus focussing at a more appropriate level of analysis. Additionally, research has taken a longitudinal perspective into account, thereby allowing us to make use of institutional changes as treatment effects. However, these dynamic studies focus at the national level (e.g. Best 2012) where causal effects cannot be observed directly. Alternatively, scholars specify time-sensitive models at the constituency level in order to account for the hypothesised effects at the level where they should occur but focus on data from one single country (e.g. Fiva & Folke 2015). Our paper combines the internationally comparative with the constituency level focus and a longitudinal approach. Using CLEA data, our paper will be the first one to look into the effects of electoral systems on party systems at the constituency level in modern democracies using a TSCS approach, including both established as well as young democracies.