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Proportional Representation and Right-Wing Populism: Evidence from Electoral System Change in Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2022

Michael Becher Open the ORCID record for Michael Becher [Opens in a new window] ,
Irene Menéndez González  and
Daniel Stegmueller Open the ORCID record for Daniel Stegmueller [Opens in a new window]
Michael Becher*
Affiliation:
IE University, Madrid, Spain Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, Toulouse, France
Irene Menéndez González
Affiliation:
IE University, Madrid, Spain
Daniel Stegmueller
Affiliation:
Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: michael.becher@ie.edu
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Abstract

How much do electoral institutions matter for the rise of populist parties? Evidence on this question is mixed, with some scholars arguing that the role of electoral rules is small. We provide new evidence for the impact of electoral system change. The UK's adoption of a proportional electoral system for European elections in 1999 provides a unique opportunity to study the link between electoral rules and the ascendancy of right-wing populist parties. Employing both synthetic control and difference-in-difference methods, we estimate that the electoral reform increased the vote share of right-wing populists by about 12 to 13.5 percentage points on average. During a time when populism was rising across Europe, the reform abruptly shifted populist votes in the UK above the European trend and above more plausible comparison cases. Our results also imply that caution is needed when empirical results based on partial reforms are extrapolated to electoral system change.

Keywords

populismelectoral ruleselectoral reformEuropean Unionsynthetic control
Type
Letter
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , January 2023 , pp. 261 - 268
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Supplementary material: Link

Becher et al. Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/ITBVI2
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Becher et al. supplementary material

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