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Demography and Democracy: A Global, District-level Analysis of Electoral Contestation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2015

JOHN GERRING ,
MAXWELL PALMER ,
JAN TEORELL  and
DOMINIC ZARECKI
JOHN GERRING*
Affiliation:
Boston University
MAXWELL PALMER*
Affiliation:
Boston University
JAN TEORELL*
Affiliation:
Lund University
DOMINIC ZARECKI*
Affiliation:
Boston University
*
John Gerring is Professor, Boston University (jgerring@bu.edu)
Maxwell Palmer is Assistant Professor, Boston University
Jan Teorell is Professor, Lund University
Dominic Zarecki is PhD Candidate, Boston University
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Abstract

According to the classical perspective, polity size and democracy are inversely related. In this article, we argue that there is an important exception that manifests itself at the district level in settings where multiparty competition is allowed. Specifically, we find that larger districts encourage greater contestation. This results from a little-noticed mechanical effect as well as from several features of constituencies that are affected by size and have direct repercussions for contestation. To demonstrate this thesis we assembled a unique dataset, the Multi-level Election Archive (MLEA), which unites electoral contests across a variety of districts (national, regional, and local) and elective offices from the eighteenth century to the present, including a total of 88 countries, 2,344 elections, 79,658 districts, and more than 400,000 contests. With this evidence we were able to conduct a broad array of statistical tests, some global and others focused on particular countries or election types, all of which support our general argument.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 109 , Issue 3 , August 2015 , pp. 574 - 591
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2015 

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