Advocates of proportional representation (PR) often cite its potential for increasing citizen involvement in politics as one of PR’s fundamental advantages over plurality or first-past-the-post systems. The assumption is that plurality electoral systems distort the translation of votes into seats, discouraging and alienating small party supporters and other political minorities. In contrast, PR systems are believed to provide greater opportunities for representation which are assumed to instil greater efficacy and increase participation. We examine this theory linking institutions to electoral participation across a diverse set of countries using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems. Using a multi-level approach we find evidence consistent with the expectations about the negative influence of disproportional systems on political minorities. Voters are also likely to have stronger partisan preferences in PR systems, which enhances political efficacy and increases voter participation. The effects of PR, however, are not all positive; broad coalitions, which are likely to be a feature of these systems, reduce political efficacy.
The paper was published in 2008 and I don’t know enough about European politics to know the shifts since then but you can download it here.
Looks like they categorize Germany as MMP (“Germany, New Zealand and Mexico also have a mixed member proportional (MMP) system, where about half of the members in parliament are selected by closed party lists to correct partisan imbalances resulting from the election of electorate candidates by plurality rules”).
Ah I see, that makes sense, cheers for this. I never knew that despite living there for many years. It really did seem like your vote counted directly towards both party and candidate - didn’t realise MMP isn’t under the umbrella of PR
More people vote under pr thus increasing interest in democracy. People tend to vote more when their votes actually count for the smaller parties / independents.
To your point on Germany, there’s much more involved in having a robust democracy than simply an electoral system. The culture of the society is one.
But you’re from lemmy.ml, so you’re just trying to sabotage democracy any chance you can get.
(oh wow, no I was asking an honest question and ml was the instance first offered to me, jesus)
In Germany, I’m seeing lots of people vote tactfully to keep the AfD out which seems to be a new trend, so I’m not sure how robust PR is in the long run there. Still better than FPTP, of course.
Source
You might need to bend a knee to explain how that answered my question
The paper was published in 2008 and I don’t know enough about European politics to know the shifts since then but you can download it here.
Looks like they categorize Germany as MMP (“Germany, New Zealand and Mexico also have a mixed member proportional (MMP) system, where about half of the members in parliament are selected by closed party lists to correct partisan imbalances resulting from the election of electorate candidates by plurality rules”).
Ah I see, that makes sense, cheers for this. I never knew that despite living there for many years. It really did seem like your vote counted directly towards both party and candidate - didn’t realise MMP isn’t under the umbrella of PR
More people vote under pr thus increasing interest in democracy. People tend to vote more when their votes actually count for the smaller parties / independents.
To your point on Germany, there’s much more involved in having a robust democracy than simply an electoral system. The culture of the society is one.
But you’re from lemmy.ml, so you’re just trying to sabotage democracy any chance you can get.
(oh wow, no I was asking an honest question and ml was the instance first offered to me, jesus)
In Germany, I’m seeing lots of people vote tactfully to keep the AfD out which seems to be a new trend, so I’m not sure how robust PR is in the long run there. Still better than FPTP, of course.