Remembering One’s Representative: How District Magnitude and List Type Affect Candidate Recognition
| Published date | 01 August 2018 |
| Date | 01 August 2018 |
| Author | Brenda Van Coppenolle |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321717735699 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321717735699
Political Studies
2018, Vol. 66(3) 786 –807
© The Author(s) 2017
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0032321717735699
journals.sagepub.com/home/psx
Remembering One’s
Representative: How District
Magnitude and List Type
Affect Candidate Recognition
Brenda Van Coppenolle
Abstract
District magnitude and list type shape the incentives for politicians to develop a personal vote.
If voters also react to these strategies, their knowledge about candidates should be influenced
by these features of the electoral system. This article directly tests the responsiveness of voters
by employing individual-level survey data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. As
district magnitude increases, more people remember at least one candidate in closed list systems,
but there is no such effect in open list systems. These influences are also larger for non-voters
than for voters. A measure of political contact is not affected in this way. The differential effect of
district magnitude can be explained by a different campaign focus.
Keywords
district magnitude, candidate recognition, closed lists, open lists, personal vote
Accepted: 29 August 2017
Introduction
For democracies to function properly, knowledgeable voters should collect informa-
tion about their representatives and hold them accountable at elections. Do electoral
systems influence what people know about candidates and therefore who they vote
for? Are voters responsive to the attempts of politicians seeking a personal vote? This
article presents an original empirical test for the voters’ side of an old argument in the
personal vote literature. If electoral systems incentivise politicians to seek a personal
vote, we should also find that voters are influenced by their attempts. Voter respon-
siveness should therefore vary with electoral systems, influencing what people know
about candidates and arguably who they vote for. Electoral systems with some choice
Faculteit der Sociale Wetenschappen, Universiteit Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands
Corresponding author:
Brenda Van Coppenolle, Faculteit der Sociale Wetenschappen, Universiteit Leiden, Wassenaarseweg 52,
2333 AK Leiden, The Netherlands.
Email: b.k.s.van.coppenolle@fsw.leidenuniv.nl
735699PSX0010.1177/0032321717735699Political StudiesVan Coppenolle
research-article2017
Article
Van Coppenolle 787
over candidates within parties (open list systems) incentivise politicians to target vot-
ers individually and draw out the personal vote (Carey and Shugart, 1995; Crisp et al.,
2004; Hallerberg and Marier, 2004). Yet, the effect of the number of seats up for elec-
tion in a constituency or district magnitude on personal vote-seeking can vary across
open and closed list systems. John M Carey and Matthew S Shugart (1995) argued that
increasing the district magnitude will increase intra-party competition in open list
systems but decrease competition between party candidates in closed list systems.
Only in open list systems where intra-party competition increases with district magni-
tude might candidates influence their own electoral prospects by drawing out personal
votes. This article focuses on this interaction effect between district magnitude and the
list type of an electoral system on voter candidate recognition (CR).
In comparing real elections held under different electoral systems (short of conduct-
ing experiments, see Blumenau et al., 2016 and Laslier et al., 2015), we cannot directly
compare the use of the preference vote (a measure of a personal vote) because voters
cannot give a preference to candidates in closed list systems. Instead, this article uses
individual name recognition data from voters to assess how the electoral system has
affected their information processing about individual candidates, using information
from the first wave of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES). The pro-
cessing of information about candidates precedes the decision to vote and can be stud-
ied for all individuals across all types of electoral systems. Unsurprisingly, and in line
with the predictions of the personal vote theory, voters in open list electoral systems are
more likely to remember a candidate name than in closed list systems (see also Curtice
and Shively, 2009; Norris, 2004). Arguably, this results from the intra-party competi-
tion whereby individual politicians compete for voters’ attention. The main result of the
article is an interaction effect between district magnitude and list type on CR; under
closed list systems without choice over candidates, larger districts are associated with
more candidate name recognition. There is no such effect of district magnitude under
electoral systems with choice over candidates.
I hypothesise that the nature of the electoral campaign explains this interaction effect.
The extent to which politicians present individual messages in their campaigns is likely
to vary with district magnitude and list system (Bowler and Farrell, 2011). While more
(famous) candidates will run in larger districts, whether voters will remember any of
these candidates depends on the nature of the electoral campaign.
To lend support to this interpretation in absence of detailed media and campaign
data for this time period, I conduct several additional analyses on the survey data that
are available. I point to a three-way interaction effect with whether the respondent
indicated to have voted or not. The interaction effect of list type and district magnitude
is clearly attenuated for voters.1 Additional analyses lend further support to the cam-
paign-focus interpretation; the Herfindahl index of concentration of names mentioned
by voters in a district shows that more names are mentioned in larger districts in open
list systems, consistent with more individual campaign messages, though this diffuse
campaign does not further boost overall CR probabilities. Finally, long-term reputa-
tional advantages (measured by political contact (PC)) cannot explain these differ-
ences in CR, again pointing to the campaign linking personal vote appeals to the
personal voting response.
The interaction of district magnitude with list type is a crucial element linking vot-
ers reacting to personal vote-seeking in elections (Canache et al., 2000; Carey and
Shugart, 1995; Grimmer et al., 2012), to politicians’ identities (Shugart et al., 2005)
To continue reading
Request your trial