Electoral Rules, Constituency Spending and Vote Seeking Behavior

• In Event: Electoral Systems, Electoral Incentives, and Political Actors

Abstract

An ever-growing literature in both American and comparative politics has been trying to unpack the mechanisms driving the so-called incumbency advantage. Under what conditions does holding office significantly enhance the chances of re-election? The bulk of this work tries to address this question by looking at majoritarian electoral systems, with single-member districts. This makes it difficult to distinguish between individual MP incumbency and party incumbency. For example a Labour MP can win the seat in the next British election either because the party has established strong organizational ties within the local electorate or due to constituency service provided by the MP or both. Disentangling the two sources of incumbency requires a proportional representation setup, which can accommodate multiple MP's per district. Although some studies have tried to shed light into this question, the evidence is relative scarce. We try to fill this gap by making use of specific feature of the electoral system that results into quasi-random variation in parliamentary seat incumbency status. In particular, we make use of the 50-seat bonus that the electoral system in Greece gifts to the first party since 2007. In a quasi-random sample of districts, at least one of the seats is secured to the first party. Using a difference-in-differences estimator, we estimate the effect of the extra MP on the constituency vote share of the party. We find a significant effect, mediated via higher levels of public spending in this region. Further analyses allow us to rule out the possibility of personal charisma and point to the inequality generated in party competition by the ability of incumbents to use public resources for the provision of constituency-specific benefits.

Authors

• Konstantinos Matakos, King's College London

• Elias Dinas, European University Institute