Matthew S. Shugart ๐ ๐ฎ๐ฑ๐บ๐ฆ๐น๐ผ
@laderafrutal
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Fruits & Votes. UC Davis. Parties/legislatures/electoral systems; politics of agricultural adaptn climate chg ( #AgClimAdapt ). Orchardist. Zionist ๐๐ฎ๐ฑ๐บ๐ฆ๐น๐ผ
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At this YouTube page you can find three video recordings of me from 2023, talking about politics in Israel, before and after the start of the current war.
In the thread below, you can find links/info on my publications.
The following page at my website/blog is where I now keep links to my publications; see also the thread below:
(Sometimes linkrot sets in, but I try to update regularly.)
The old site (mshugart .net) is still up, but I do not maintain it.
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Decades of political science research tells us that democracy generally isn't sustained due to public's commitment to it, but due to elite commitment.
So, not too surprising that "democracy under threat" doesn't resonate--especially with people whose party is in power.
To be clear, I think the elites are correct (IMO democracy is indeed facing a major threat). But this poll raises questions about why that message isn't breaking through to the public. With so much other news, I don't know that elites have always been very focused on the threat.
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I didnโt know this: โBidenโs landmark Inflation Reduction Act includes a rebate of up to $840 for an electric stove or other electric appliances, and up to an $500 to help cover the costs of converting to electric from gas.โ GOOD!
US federal agency considering a ban on gas stoves
"US Consumer Product Safety commissioner said gas stove usage is a โhidden hazard.โ Any option is on the table. Products that canโt be made safe can be banned"
Would be great win for
#IAQ
#EndFossilFuels
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It exists. Itโs in my hand. Itโs real!
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By the way, I think "insurrection" is the correct term. Not "coup". In case anyone still cares about such political-science niceties.
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Every one of these points is simply wrong.
The Electoral College:
โ
Protects against the tyranny of the majority
โ
Encourages coalition-building and national campaigning
โ
Makes every state, and therefore every voter in every state, important
โ
Discourages voter fraud and makes it harder to steal elections
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Given that I've already announced it over at the Other Site, I might as well do it here, too.
I am retiring, effective July 1!!!
No, not going away. You'll still have my snark and other Twitter contribution for a while. And I'll remain on 6 or 7 current students' diss. comtes.
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@jbview
@MattGlassman312
Same.
There are at least two slippery slopes to authoritarianism here, but one (tolerating criminal behavior by a past and potential future pres.) is less risky *in this case* than the other (prosecuting your political opponents).
But let's not kid ourselves--it will be ugly.
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No, it would be helpful if we had a prime minister, instead.
At times like this, it would be helpful if our country had a president.
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Honored to win this, and appreciative of my UCD department for sending this notice out.
Prof. Shugart (
@laderafrutal
) and
@Samuels_DavidJ
's book won the APSA's Hallet Award for "a lasting contribution to the literature on representation and electoral systems." Congratulations!!
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Anti-democratic discourse is getting normalized in various quarters and this should be treated as alarming.
The freedom to vote is not fundamental to all of our freedoms. I don't lose any of my freedoms if I don't vote.
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Thank you, Ethan, for sharing the news! I am honored and otherwise... well... just don't really know what to say!
UC Davis' Matthew Shugart (
@laderafrutal
) has been promoted to the rank of "Distinguished Professor," reserved for scholars and teachers of the highest distinction, whose work has been internationally recognized and acclaimed. It is our highest campus-level faculty title.
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One of my favorite things on Twitter is when someone offers to explain to me how parliamentary systems work.
(Or what Duverger's so-called law is, or how PR works, etc., etc.)
I mean, it is so much fun.
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Urgent plea from someone who studies legislatures around the world. Identify periods by election years, not Congress/legislature numbers.
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Most of you are talking about politics and stuff. But Iโve got baby goats in the barn!
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The norm of not abusing lame duck sessions is one of those I can't believe has lasted until so recently (or am I just unaware of past abuses?)
Lame duck sessions are themselves an affront to democracy. No reason we can't swear in a new legislator as soon as district's results in
Wisconsin Republicans use their gerrymandered majority in a lame duck session to suppress voters & usurp the powers of duly elected Dems before they take office solely because the GOP lost. This is a direct assault on democracy itself
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A question for IR and history colleagues: What are the best examples of cases in which troops & equipment were massed near a border and a war did NOT result, because of concessions or other reasons?
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This conversation about democracy with โฆ
@AdamPrzeworski
โฉ is engaging and well worth 52 minutes of your time.
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I am not the first to point this out, but we Jews managed to do Passover with only our household or involving others via Zoom. So I trust that folks will be all right doing Thanksgiving and Christmas that way, too, as everyone should for their health and their extended family's.
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Now that folks are so interested in Greenland, I feel duty bound to let you all know that Greenland uses an open-list proportional representation system. And in the most recent elections, the effective number of parties was approximately 4.4.
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From my colleague at
@ucdavis
Jim Adams,
@NoamGidron
&
@RWillH11
They note "Winner-take-all electoral institutions are strongly linked with greater dislike of partisan opponents, compared to more proportional systems of the kind found in Western Europe"
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This logic for non-recognition of Somaliland makes no sense. Its borders were defined in colonial era separately from (rest of) Somalia. By this standard, Eritrea shouldnโt have been recognized (and wouldnโt South Sudanโs claim be even weaker?). (Yeah, I know. I donโt do IR.)
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Iโve studied parties and their leaders for a long time. I have seen few, if any, leaders in an advanced parliamentary democracy that are even close to Corbyn in being so fundamentally incompetent.
Corbyn would remain โneutralโ in a second referendum. In other words, he has no position on the most important issue of the day, no, in fact, the most important issue of several generations. I find that astounding for someone who wants to be PM
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Indeed. It is why I repeat from time to time that all the discussion of democratic backsliding, while important, misses the bigger picture: The US in many ways never has truly consolidated a state.
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12.5 years after the initial awarding of the NSF grant and nearly 7 years since the first conference paper, today I finished the full draft of the Party Personnel book (with
@MeBergman2
,
@corystruthers
, Ellis Krauss, & Robert Pekkanen).
I think now I will take my spring break
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Finally, the covariate Iโve been looking for.
There's a pretty strong correlation (R^2=0.525) between the # of UFO sightings per capita in a state & the % of the vote a state gives to 3rd-parties:
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Hey, Iowa Dems. Can we talk?
I study elections and electoral systems for a living. And I can't figure out your stupid system.
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A trip down memory lane today.
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That 1/3 probability should be alarming to all but the most naked of partisan hacks. There is NO theory of government that says it is OK for the House of REPRESENTATIVES to have a majority that lost the vote of the people.
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When someone says PR is good, the opponents will shout "Italy!" as though it should be a conversation ender. But a little-appreciated fact is that Italy had a much LESS fragmented party system than expected for its electoral system back when it used a PR system.
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Current projections make the unrepresentative nature of the House electoral system even more stark: Dems may have only ~51% of seats despite 8-10 pct pt lead in votes. ****DEMOCRATS, if your name means anything, you must make fighting for PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION a priority!**
That would be just over a 5 percentage point seat margin on whatโs still expected to be a 6-10 point vote margin. That would be a very unusual occurrence in the world of seats & votes, and a reminder of just how unrepresentative the House of Representatives electoral system is.
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Can I make a plea to stop referring to eliminating the filibuster as โnuclear optionโ? Enabling majority rule (in a still deeply minoritarian body) isnโt wanton destruction. Itโs a small but important step towards democracy. (This is kind of a subtweet but with wide application.)
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You can now have both of these in your electoral systems book collection!!
The latest is <The Oxford Handbook of Electoral Systems> (published by OUP, 2018).
It sits proudly next to <Votes from Seats> (CUP, 2017).
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This is fascinating
Last year, I got to see the most amazing sight: 300,000 bats roosting along a river in Tamworth, Australia.
Local residents found them scary. But it was actually good news.
The congregation meant Australia was being protected from the deadly Hendra virus.
Let me tell you why:
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This is a train wreck. I do not care what your opinion is of Bernie Sanders. (Really, I don't.) But a nominating system that could give the vast bulk of the delegates on the biggest day of voting to a candidate pulling in a quarter of the vote is a really terrible system.
Ok, we did it... 5 Super Tuesday polls in 2 days (and we released SC on Wednesday). What's the takeaway? There's only one candidate at >15% in 5/5 of these polls (Sanders). Biden and Warren look like they might be multi-state competitive candidates, but no one else really does.
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Oh, just stop it already. No one is disenfranchised by closed primaries. Any voter can register with a party and, voila, they are enfranchised to vote in its primary.
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Itโs almost as if term limits on legislators werenโt a great idea.
How do electoral incentives influence politician behavior, specifically when forcing them to anticipate reelection bids? In
#APSRFirstView
,
@fouirnaies
& Hall find legislators who cannot seek reelection are less productive.
#polisciresearch
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Shame on
@NPR
for this wording. If you changed "votes" to "first preferences" it would be more accurate. But "all votes" appropriately should mean the full preference schedule of any voter who indicated more than a first choice, and those were counted only today.
Republican incumbent Bruce Poliquin was ahead after all votes were counted, but because of Maineโs โranked-choiceโ voting system, Democrat Jared Golden won. For some context:
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Pet peeve of mine: When scholars of particular legislatures refer to the "15th Bundestag" or "9th Knesset" or "112th Congress".
I am a comaprativist. I can't possibly remember how all those translate into good old Gregorian years. Please, give the election year!
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Please, if you are teaching an overview of electoral system effects, consider using this. It is much more lawlike in its scientific derivation and empirically accurate than the (in)famous "law" that too often gets taken as if it were literal binding law.
I am pleased to announce the publication of a short-form version of the derivation and test of the seat product model.
Predicting Party Systems from Electoral Systems
Matthew Shugart and Rein Taagepera
Oxford Research Encyclopedia
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Itโs truly alarming that such retrograde antediluvian anti-democratic (and, for that matter, anti-republican) ideas could be promoted by candidates for a major party in an alleged democracy (or republic, if you must).
NEW: Republican candidate for Colorado Governor
@LopezforCO
proposes eliminating one-person one-vote for statewide elections. Lopez's plan for a state-level electoral college system would heavily favor Republicans.
#cogov
#copolitics
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โFPTP is indefensible.โ And any of the three possible new systems would be โmiles betterโ. Yes, I endorse these statements.
Andrew Coyne: Which electoral system for B.C.? Any option is better than the status quo
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So much needs fixing. But given I have this magic wand, and the wand lets me do only one thing, it is:
Change to a parliamentary system (with executive dependent only on the House majority).
And I did not even have to think about it for more than half a second.
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As someone who has done research on legislative chamber size, I find it so cute that some folks are tweeting about how all problems would be solved if we had 1,000 or 2,500 (or pick some other absurdly high number) Representatives.
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Wow. Itโs almost like they created an organization to advance collective goals and a system of selective incentives to reward cooperative behavior.
Members of Congress who pay their dues and hit their targets are rewarded with better committee assignments in the future, and more favorable treatment of legislation they author, than members who shirk their dues.
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Look whoโs back! We are both a lot happier than we look in this photo.
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I am pleased to announce the publication of a short-form version of the derivation and test of the seat product model.
Predicting Party Systems from Electoral Systems
Matthew Shugart and Rein Taagepera
Oxford Research Encyclopedia
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7.7 pct.-pt. lead, only 57% chance of majority.
Mull that over a few times.
Then realize that, regardless of partisanship (yeah, I know...), there's no way a country that calls itself a democracy should tolerate such risk that the more popular of 2 parties might NOT win control
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Honestly, I should probably just mute "approval vote" and "final five" at this point.
Lots of folks looking for validation of their pet "reform." Sorry, not here for that
PR or bust. Next best is the Maine model.
But the real priority should be building alternative party orgs
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Today I think I cracked a nut that's had a dauntingly hard shell for years: a logical model of the second-party vote share at district level.
I know it may not sound like much, but I am taking it as a neat accomplishment!
(Stay tuned for details; still some checking to do.)
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Oh, yeah, I was on a podcast. Who says old retired professors canโt do new things?
We just had one of our all-time nerdiest discussions on The Downballot, and you know that's saying something! Poli sci Prof. Matthew Shugart (
@laderafrutal
) joins us to explain electoral systems around the worldโand which the US might consider adopting
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Arrived today! I wrote the chapter on the Israeli electoral system.
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Exciting. My first-ever desk reject!
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American democracy is in a severe emergency. Let's do something about it.
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Speaking of my research agenda from way back (see previous tweet), by coincidence Iโve been going through a closet today. I found thisโsurely the only surviving copy of my first APSA paper.
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I went to visit Boots in the hospital today. He is so stressed. But after I stroked his head and talked to him he stopped shaking, nudged me and came on to my lap. He even ate a little bit out of my hand. Hoping to get this sweet boy back home tomorrow.
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Nearly 13 years after awarding of the NSF grant, today we submitted to Oxford Uni Press final production files for,
Party Personnel Strategies: Electoral Systems and Parliamentary Committee Assignments
with
@MeBergman2
@corystruthers
Ellis Krauss & Robert Pekkanen
Abstract:
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Serious answer: rapidly and critically lose approval among GOP voters.
Serious question: What would Trump have to do for the GOP to turn on him?
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This is a key point of Samuels and Shugart (2010): When a party becomes presidentialized, the separation of powers ceases to apply, effectively.
Presidentialization has various manifestations, but fundamentally it's about electoral incentives.
Most Republican members are willing to admit POTUS doesn't operate in reality, but know they're doomed in their next primary if they say so publicly. As long as that's true, we're headed for a world w/ zero accountability.
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This is so deeply saddening. Mat became a friend and valued mentor when I was just starting as an Assistant Professor 32 (!) years ago at UCSD. He taught me so much about the profession, and introduced me to principal-agent theory and much more. Yes, he was a visionary.
My friend and mentor Mat McCubbins passed away last night. He was a visionary researcher and an incredible teacher. He changed my life and that of so many others. He was a tremendous father and dedicated husband. See you on the other side, dude.
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Because unlike gender or race, age might actually affect ability to campaign or do the job.
@NateSilver538
Now just imagine if the same polls were taken on another candidate and it said the top reason for not supporting them was they were female or a minority. How is is agism now okay?
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@SeanDEhrlich
@tressiemcphd
Worse: I got your auto-responder, but I saw you posting on Twitter. So here's a DM about something I need from you.
(No, I am not sub-tweeting anyone, as I can think of a few who might be worried now that I'm mad at them. It's OK...)
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"Yang said many other Western nations โ including the United Kingdom, Germany and Sweden โ all have successful political systems with more than two parties, arguing that those systems are "more responsive to the will of the people""
Remind me: Which of those uses open primaries?
Watch
@AndrewYang
full interview where he discusses the many reasons why he thinks opening our primaries to ALL voters should be a top priority in American politics:
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Dear news media: itโs not a coup when a collective body to whom a leader is accountable exercises accountability by replacing its leader.
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I retired. I still get review requests. I still have a hard time saying no. But I am slowly getting better at it. Very slowly.
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RCV is just a ballot format and counting procedure. It's not an electoral system type.
PR is, and any form of PR is better than any single-winner system, RCV or otherwise.
This should be the messaging.
@leedrutman
There is a form of RCV that achieves proportional representation. It's what we want to use in Congressional elections, & it's what Ireland already uses to elect its Parliament.
#FairRepAct
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Me geeking out over a friendโs ballot for the BC electoral reform referendum.
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You can ban a small party that threatens democracy. You can't ban one of only two parties in the system and remain a democracy. That problem does not make the GOP any less fascistic. It simply makes it all the more dangerous.
If you believe the Republican Party is actually fascist, it would require you to believe a legal ban on the GOP would be justified. Either that or you're not taking fascism seriously enough. That is precisely what some democracies have done when facing an imminent fascist threat.
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The Oxford Handbook of Electoral Systems, ed. by
@erikherron
, Pekkanen, and me, is now out in paperback! Here is a feature about it from UW (where Pekkanen is based).
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This is highly out of date. We now know that the vast majority of coalition governments are signaled in the election campaign and shifts in govt composition reflect clear shifts in votes for principal parties.
Also, his claim is not too relevant for presidentialism anyway.
Any voting system has to squeeze a huge diversity of views into a winning coalition.
Majoritarian systems force parties to do that before the election, diluting their brand.
PR does it after the election, giving voters little control over governments.
Both have big drawbacks.
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I sure picked up loads of likes and follows for remarks on Somaliland yesterday. New record for action from single theme! Iโll hand it to the nascent countryโs supportersโtheyโre really good on Twitter. (How many of them will be disappointed by the normal content of this account?
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It will be endlessly over-interpreted.
Final predictions for the Virginia gubernatorial election tomorrow?
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Persuasive? Hardly! It is practically boasting of willful ignorance of the political science literature on electoral systems, coalitions, and policy-making.
Perhaps persuasive to the authoritarian left, if you see FPTP as your best hope is to impose policy a majority rejects.
A persuasive case that proportional representation is a bad fix for electoral dysfunction, and leftists should not be tempted to embrace it, from
@BMStudebaker
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Say it loud. Say it often.
The Electoral College is IN NO WAY necessary for the survival of federalism. Federalism exists in parliamentary systems (Australia, Canada, Germany, India) & countries in which Presidents are directly elected (Argentina, Brazil, Mexico)
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No, they are never perfect. But some of us who study comparative democracy have been warning for some time that US elections are more imperfect than those in almost any other country commonly referred to as an established democracy.
This year is (yet another) major stress test.
Elections arenโt perfect instruments of democracy but this has me genuinely worried.
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The thing is, festering problems including climate change may increase the risk of democratic failure, but result in a form of authoritarianism that will be far worse. I still think the solution here is better democracy, not discarding democracy. Important issues here:
A prestigious journal in political science,
@apsrjournal
, has published a disturbing piece of l political theory.
In my reading, it explicitly argues that we must put climate action over democracy and adopt authoritarian governance if democracies fail to act on climate change.
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MPSA has extended its registration deadline. I did not see that coming.
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@MadisonDilemma
Maybe sheโs admitting sheโs staying in the Senate. Not that she can do it herself there, either...
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Some more localities in 2022 voted to make their elections concurrent with statewide votes.
In 2022, voters across the country approved ballot measures that will move their local elections from odd-numbered to even-numbered years. The changes are primed to send turnout soaring in county and city races that typically draw the fewest voters.
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The electoral college isn't some cherished cultural heritage. It was a bad compromise that even the founders themselves did not have a serious argument for.
At least for the equal-rep Senate and some of their other logrolls, they made up a clever post-hoc "theory".
The political culture in American and Europe is in the hands of revolutionaries who donโt hesitatate before proposing to tear down every inheritance of the past. But what gets torn down cannot be easily replaced.
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Two things from yesterday that still have me feeling cranky today.
(1) People with a PhD in political science who use that as a credential for nothing better than third-rate punditry.
(2) People who classify a political event according to how they feel about the outcome.
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New furniture for the office assistant.
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We've had a sighting! <<The Oxford Handbook of Electoral Systems>> has been published.
I am co-editor with
@erikherron
& Robert Pekkanen.
The Oxford Handbook of Electoral Systems is one step closer to delivery. Advance copies arrived in the office of
@EditorMolly
. Look for them at
#ISA2018
and
#MPSA2018
.
#OHElectSys
@laderafrutal
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Here's a common problem I see in the pro-reform community (not political scientists, but activists): too much focus on ballot formats and voting methods (RCV, approval, etc.) and not enough on what matters most of all: District magnitude and majority vs. non-majority allocation.
Utah HB 174, as currently introduced, would allow municipalities to use IRV (
#RankedChoiceVoting
),
#ApprovalVoting
, or
#STARvoting
. That is AMAZING.
So, why am I still not happy about it? It seems to require block versions of these methods for multi-winner elections! Yuck!
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It is impossible to process that two of the most significant colleagues of my formative years as a scholar have left us this year.
Earlier this year, Mat McCubbins. Now Frances Rosenbluth. I co-taught with both of them my first few years at UCSD.
Just devastating.
(2/2)
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Yes. This is a really important point. The GOP could afford to be a more typical center-right party under direct presidential elections* and both it and the country would be so much better for it.
(*and proportional legislative elections, too!)
Our red state/blue state mentality is toxic. If every vote counted equally no matter where someone lived, GOP would face better incentives for trying to win persuadable voters, & our democracy would be healthier for it.
End the Electoral College & gerrymandering, fix the Senate
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The 1990s were an incredible time to be at UCSD. So many significant books and papers about political institutions in different contexts being produced. So many stimulating seminars commenting on each others' drafts.
(1/2)
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So APSA has put out its call for submissions to the 2021 meeting "in Seattle". You all understand that such large gatherings as soon as ~12 months from now are pretty unlikely to happen, right?
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<Votes from Seats: Logical Models of Electoral Systems>, by Shugart & Taagepera, 2017, is now available from CUP!
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A few days ago, I posted this about the toxic highly "presidentialized" institutions of France, and how dangerous the current moment is.
As I say there, I expect Macron to win and then get an assembly majority again. But if he doesn't...
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I suppose the "Angelina Jolie" who followed me and congratulated me on a publication, and then got her Twitter account suspended, is not the famous one.
Too bad.
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I did something wild today. Went to this big building on campus. Went up some stairs and down some corridors and found a book I was looking for. Went downstairs to this big desk. The person there let me take the book home. So amazing. Do you think this idea could catch on?
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My occasional reminder that the few other large democracies that cling to the ancient concept of elections determined in single-seat districts figured out some time ago how to do actual independent (not "bipartisan") redistricting, and thus do away with gerrymandering.
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Itโs a profound personal and professional failure that so many people in the USA make this โrepublicโ argument, probably thinking they are making a really smart technical point. We need to teach basic political concepts better.
Abolishing the electoral college means that politicians will only campaign in (and listen to) urban areas. That is not a representative democracy.
We live in a republic, which means 51% of the population doesnโt get to boss around the other 49%.
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People are talking about someone named JD Vance. I have no idea who that is. I am better off retaining this ignorance, right?
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That second sentence was purely and simply a brain cramp, right?
This is pretty clearly a smart move for both Garcia and Yang. Also arguably a flaw in ranked choice voting that these sorts of strategic alliances can matter.
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@arthur_spirling
@MartinRGross
This is a great idea. It is also extremely flexible: You can have a different password for every interaction you take part in.
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My periodic reminder: When the collective body to which a leader is accountable under the rules of the organization removes the leader (or tries to), IT IS NOT A COUP.
Thursdayโs Guardian
โTory coup fails. But scale of rebellion damages Mayโ
#tomorrowspaperstoday
#bbcpapers
(via
@hendopolis
)
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Please send help. I made the mistake again. I engaged with someone here who knows PR is bad because he knows Israel had a government deadlock. And he was going to educate me about all that.
@craigaroo
@jennifernvictor
It's just not relevant to the US debate. But anti-PR types bring it up all the time. I am tired of is. Let's move on and be constructive before we lose what's left of our democracy.
As you were.
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I've squinted at many a Stata Do file over the last 15 or so years. Yesterday I noticed that you can enlarge the text size with a little drop down menu at the top.
So I guess this is what people meant when they said retirement would be just another step in lifelong learning.
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Some thoughts on the electoral systems for Italy's election today.
Short summary: The reduced house sizes and parallel allocation make these the most majoritarian systems Italy has used so far (in the post-WWII era).
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