What are the consequences of losing political representation in a democracy? A reform of Germany’s mixed electoral system left more than 7 million citizens in 23 constituencies without a directly elected representative after the 2025 national election. Which and how many constituencies were...

This is the first of four articles on the 2025 German federal elections, continuing our analysis of the 2009, 2013, 2017 and 2021 elections. We begin with the 2023/24 electoral reform, which aimed to curb the uncontrolled growth of the Bundestag caused by political developments not envisaged in...

This is the third out four papers on the 2025 German Bundestag elections continuing our analysis of the 2009, 2013, 2017 and 2021 elections. In particular, this paper contributes to the discussion of the imperfection of the German 2023/24 Electoral reform in [Tangian 2025a]. We show that policy...

This paper examines how natural disasters shape electoral preferences by analyzing the impact of earthquakes in Italy between 1990 and 2019. Using a staggered Difference-in-Differences design, we estimate that affected municipalities are more likely to elect female, more educated, and older city...

In the 2024 European Parliament elections turnout varied significantly across EU Member States, influenced by institutional factors such as compulsory voting and concurrent elections. Socioeconomic disparities persisted; older, higher-educated, and wealthier citizens were more likely to vote,...

In the 2024 European Parliament elections turnout varied significantly across EU Member States, influenced by institutional factors such as compulsory voting and concurrent elections. Socioeconomic disparities persisted; older, higher-educated, and wealthier citizens were more likely to vote,...

We estimate the causal effect of the electoral system on corruption by leveraging a specificity of the French electoral law where the electoral system for municipal councils depends on municipal population. Specifically, municipalities with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants use an individual majority...

How can women's representation improve in countries that do not embrace legislated gender quotas? We study municipal elections in Turkey during 2009-2019. A conservative dominant party, Erdogan's AKP, is often challenged by a Kurdish party that promotes gender equality in electoral lists....

Majority voting is considered an efficient information aggregation mechanism in committee decision-making. We examine if this holds in environments where voters first need to acquire information from sources of varied quality and cost. In such environments, efficiency may depend on free-riding...

The debate in the European Union (EU) on the expansion of majority decision-making is entering a new round. Germany, in particular, is seeking to build a coalition in favour of more majority decisions in light of the, at times, difficult decision-making process concerning foreign and security...

Bouton et al. (2022) compare the properties of majority run-off and plurality rule elections in a laboratory setting, focusing on Duverger's prediction that plurality rule leads to higher levels of strategic voting. They produce a causal estimate of the difference in incidence of strategic...

Moya Chin's (2023) paper argues that politicians in two-round majoritarian systems have to appeal more broadly than those in single-round elections. The author uses data for mayoral elections in Brazil. The key findings of the paper conclude that of two-round systems (1) fostering inclusiveness,...

Kommunalwahlen werden nicht zuletzt aufgrund ihrer geringen Wahlbeteiligung häufig als nationale Nebenwahlen betrachtet. Die Fokussierung der Nebenwahlperspektive auf nationale Einflussfaktoren führt jedoch zu einer Unterbewertung lokaler Heterogenität. Der Artikel untersucht, inwiefern...

Kommunalwahlen werden nicht zuletzt aufgrund ihrer geringen Wahlbeteiligung häufig als nationale Nebenwahlen betrachtet. Die Fokussierung der Nebenwahlperspektive auf nationale Einflussfaktoren führt jedoch zu einer Unterbewertung lokaler Heterogenität. Der Artikel untersucht, inwiefern...

The Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) used by the Council of the European Union developed to a high degree of complexity from one modifying treaty to another, until the latest definition stipulated in the Treaty of Lisbon. This paper analyses this EU intra-institutional voting method using a...

We empirically identify politically-motivated redistricting and its consequences, studying the effects of changed electorate composition on US congressional district boundaries and on political outcomes. We exploit the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which legalized millions of...