Electoral systems affect vote choice. While a vast literature studies this relationship by examining aggregate-level patterns and focussing on the interparty dimension of electoral rules, the convenience of analyzing this phenomenon by emphasizing the role played by the incentives to cultivate a personal vote generated by the system and matching voters with the party they vote for has been traditionally overlooked. In this article, we offer new evidence that documents the impact of the intraparty dimension of electoral systems on the levels of ideological voting registered in a democracy. Using spatial models of politics and employing data from the five waves of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, we find that ideological voting in proportional representation systems is higher when lists are either closed or flexible. Moreover, the results suggest that this effect is slightly amplified in the case of high numbers of district-level candidates.

This paper studies the relationship between incumbent MPs’ activities and their electoral fortune. We address this question in the context of the French political system characterized by an executive domination, a candidate-centered electoral system, and an electoral schedule maximizing the impact of the presidential elections. Given the contradictory influence of these three institutional features on the relationship between MPs’ activities and electoral results, the overall link can only be assessed empirically. We test the effects of several measurements of MPs’ activities on both their vote share and reelection probability in the 2007 legislative election. We show that MPs’ activities are differently correlated to both the incumbents’ vote shares in the first round and their reelection. Despite the weakness of the French National Assembly, several parliamentary activities, especially bill initiation, have a significant effect on MPs’ electoral prospects.

We advance the literature on electoral institutions and legislative representation by investigating legislators’ position taking strategies in Taiwan under the single non-transferable voting period. Existing research largely assumes that representatives elected from the same electoral rule behave similarly. We challenge this conventional understanding by arguing that legislators in multi-member districts (MMDs) tend to move toward the extreme direction from the party line if they come from districts where their party is less competitive. This pattern of legislative representation allows them to appeal to partisan voters, as lowering one's partisan profile can be too costly in such districts. On the contrary, those who are elected from strong partisan districts are expected to deviate from the party toward the moderate direction. Given a solid partisan foundation in these districts, these legislators may target voters across party lines. Our analysis covering the entire period of MMD elections after Taiwan's democratization (1992–2008) provides robust empirical evidence to our theoretical claim. Our findings, therefore, shed lights for future studies on the intertwining nature between electoral systems, district level factors, and legislative representation.

What underlying logic explains candidate participation in vote buying, given that clientelist exchange is so difficult to enforce? We address this question through close analysis of campaigns by several dozen candidates in two electoral districts in Java, Indonesia. Analyzing candidates’ targeting and pricing strategies, we show that candidates used personal brokerage structures that drew on social networks to identify voters and deliver payments to them. But these candidates achieved vote totals averaging about one quarter of the number of payments they distributed. Many candidates claimed to be targeting loyalists, suggestive of “turnout buying,” but judged loyalty in personal rather than partisan terms, and extended their vote-buying reach through personal connections mediated by brokers. Candidates were market sensitive, paying prices per vote determined not only by personal resources, but also by constituency size and prices offered by competitors. Accordingly, we argue that a market logic structures Indonesia's system of vote buying.

How does the choice of electoral rules affect politicians' incentives to campaign on the basis of personalized support? This article examines to what extent the adoption of new electoral and campaign finance rules affects the incentive of politicians in Japan's Liberal Democratic Party to rely on personal support organizations called koenkai. The core of the analysis utilizes newly collected campaign finance data. The empirical analyses confirm a considerable weakening in the number of koenkai across systems as well as a decreased need for politicians to spend money in the proportional representation tier. These results highlight the importance of previous organizational legacies as well as the efforts of political actors to mitigate the effects of rule change on their election and reelection prospects.