Who Redistricts Determines How It Redistricts

• In Event: Demands and Impact of Electoral Reforms

Abstract

Electoral district is one of the most essential bases of political power and legitimacy for representative democracy. Thus, impartiality in the process of redistricting is important since unfair redistricting would produce gerrymandering and malapportionment. The authority of boundary delimitation in some countries is independent, while in other countries it is not. If the authority of delimitation is independent from politics, redistricting can be fair; thus it produces fair representation. However, previous studies have not statistically and cross-nationally examined whether the independence of the delimitation authority decreases malapportionment or not. This paper statistically and cross-nationally investigates the effect of independent delimitation authority on malapportionment by employing a new measure of malapportionment that Wada and Kamahara (2018) propose, which can separate the degree of malapportionment at the (re)districting stage from the overall degree of malapportionment.

Author

• Yuta Kamahara, Yokohama National University