Consequences of Electoral System Change in modern democracies: An analysis of political institutions’ effects What happens when electoral rules change?
The objective of this project is to examine the consequences of electoral system change on a series of politically relevant factors such as the size and composition of party systems, political representation and the overall level of democratic quality. A central aspect of the project will revolve around the collection of data depicting electoral institutions and their consequences at the national level, the electoral districts, as well as on the individual level in advanced industrial democracies. Quantitative comparative analyses will allow us then, to re-examine the validity of established fundamental assumptions of electoral research. Thereby, the project seeks to investigate the extent to which political institutions structure the behavior of political actors. The findings seek to enhance the current body of literature and theories on electoral system change and may also provide new insights for engineers of electoral rules. The project is jointly carried out with Prof. Dr. Philipp Harfst from the University of Greifswald in the period between 01.03.2015 and 31.03.2017. The Austrian part of the project is financed by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), the German part by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) Project coordinator: Univ.-Prof. Jessica Fortin-Rittberger, Ph. D. Project staff: Sarah Dingler, MA, Ph. D. Staff involved: Associate Professor Dr. Zoe Lefkofridi, Dr. Corinna Kröber, MA Project homepage: http://effectsofelectoralsystemchange.jimdo.com Twitter-Account: @ElectSystProj
