SPS Seminer Serisi: Daniel Kselman (Duke University)
Sabancı
University
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
"Proportional
Representation & Political Conflict"
by
Daniel Kselman
Ph.D Candidate, Duke University
Thursday, 5 June 2008
13.30 – 15:30
FASS G043
ABSTRACT:
Authors in a variety of settings have argued that proportional representation
(PR) electoral institutions help to reduce political conflict in tense political
situations. Such studies generally rest on two implicit assumptions, namely
that elections are party-centered and that the political-cleavage structures
which define electoral campaigns are relatively fixed and
predictable. This paper develops a game theoretic framework which endogenizes a
country's mode of accountability, demonstrating that the party-centered competition
implicit in previous research emerges only under closed-list proportional
representation. Furthermore, we argue that this party-centrism has potentially
deleterious consequences in country's whose political-cleavage structures are
subject to short-term variation, and propose a particular from of open-list
proportional representation as the most suitable institutional alternative for
peace and stability in fluid political environments. Historical evidence
detailing parallel cycles of party system concentration and political conflict
in Turkey provide a suggestive narrative in support of the paper's basic claims.