| dc.description.abstract | Theoretically, this research addresses questions concerning political representation in democracies. I investigate how elements that make the electoral environment up impact candidates’ strategies, voting choices, and electoral reforms. In the first chapter, I test hypotheses about incumbency advantage in preferential proportional representation (PR) elections. According to conventional wisdom in the literature, competitive and personalized campaigns would undermine any possible electoral advantage of incumbents in these electoral systems. I show that, even under these adverse conditions, incumbents can still obtain an electoral advantage. But in PR elections, they adopt strategies that aim to expand political support to other localities in the district. Also, my findings show that incumbents influence party decisions to favor their candidacies. These results suggest that the literature underestimates the relevance of parties and incumbents in PR systems with preferential votes. The second essay focuses on voting behavior in the context of polarizing politics. I show that polarization reduces the willingness—particularly among supporters of the incumbent party—to sanction the party in government for poor economic conditions. My results show that polarization weakens electoral accountability. Even abstention becomes a weaker mechanism of economic voting when politics gets more polarized. In the third chapter, I study why elected officials pass electoral reforms that, at first glance, could undermine their prospects in future elections. Analyzing why representatives with rural electoral bases supported the official ballot reform, I show that strategies to make voters—translate support into votes— are crucial in understanding electoral reforms. Before the official ballot, candidates had to print and distribute ballots to potential voters. The combination of suffrage extension and electoral competition increased the costs of making voters. As a result, many representatives saw the official ballot as an opportunity to outsource these costs. Jointly, these essays stress my specialization in political representation, showing my interest in understanding how contextual factors drive mass and elite behavior. | |
