Bargaining over the Distribution of Seats in French Regional Elections

Dunz, Karl (2011): Bargaining over the Distribution of Seats in French Regional Elections.

Abstract

This paper examines the bargaining over how to combine lists of candidates between rounds of the 2004 and 2010 French regional elections. Regressions support the hypothesis that a party's fraction of a coalition's total seats won will be equal to that party's fraction of the total first-round vote of all parties represented in the combined list. However, there is a slight tendency for small parties to get less than implied by this hypothesis. This is the opposite of what is commonly found in studies of coalition formation in parliamentary systems. The paper provides some support for the hypothesis that this is due to the electoral rules determining when a party is allowed to maintain their list in the second round. Finally, this paper examines properties of the function describing how a combined list divides any number of seats won.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Gamson; bargaining; French elections; candidate lists; seat allocation functions
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making

References

Blais, A. and I. Indridason, ``Making Candidates Count: The Logic of Electoral Alliances in Two-Round Legislative Elections'', The Journal of Politics 69 (2007), 193-205.

Browne, E. and M. Franklin, ``Aspects of Coalition Payoffs in European Parliamentary Democracies'', American Political Science Review 67 (1973), 453-69.

Gamson, W, ``A Theory of Coalition Formation'', American Sociological Review 26 (1961), 373-82.

Golder, Sona, The Logic of Pre-Electoral Coalition Formation (Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2006).

Laver, Michael, Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher ``Coalition Theory and Local Government: Coalition Payoffs in Britain'', British Journal of Political Science 17 (1987), 501-9.

Laver, Michael, Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher ``Policy Payoffs in Local Government'', British Journal of Political Science 28 (1998), 333-53.

Laver, Michael and Norman Schofield, Multiparty Government: The Politics of Coalition in Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).

Election results supplements to Le Monde issues of March 23, 2004; March 30, 2004; March 16, 2010; and March 23, 2010.

Ministere de l'Interieur, ``Regionales 2010 Dossier de Presse'', (in French) available at http://www.interieur.gouv.fr/sections/a_votre_service/ elections/actualites/regionales-2010.

Nash, John, ``The Bargaining Problem'', Econometrica 18 (1950), 155-62.

Schofield, Norman and Michael Laver, ``Bargaining Theory and Portfolio Payoffs in European Coalition Governments 1945-83'', British Journal of Political Science 15 (1985), 143-64.

Warwick, Paul V. and James N. Druckman, ``Portfolio Salience and the Proportionality of Payoff in Coalition Governments'', British Journal of Political Science 31 (2001), 627-49.