Replication Data for: Electoral Rules and Partisan Control of Government: A Replication Study

Does the electoral system affect government partisanship? Iversen and Soskice (2006) answer this question in the affirmative. These authors argue that center-right governments dominate in majoritarian systems, whereas proportional representation systems see more center-left governments. They explain this difference by the strategic voting behavior of the middle class under alternative electoral rules. In this study, we test the robustness of their empirical results to alternative measures of the main variables as well as to a completed version of the original dataset. Our replication does not corroborate Iversen and Soskice's empirical findings. First, we cannot substantiate the notion that center-right governments emerge more frequently in majoritarian systems. Second, a time-series cross-section analysis does not support the hypothesis that the electoral system is a significant determinant of partisan control of government.

选举制度是否会影响政府的党派属性？艾弗森与索斯基奇（Iversen and Soskice，2006）对此给出了肯定答复。两位学者提出，在多数选举制（majoritarian systems）下，中右翼政府占据主导地位，而比例代表制（proportional representation systems）则更易产生中左翼政府。他们将这一差异归因于中产阶级在不同选举规则下的策略性投票行为。本研究通过更换核心变量的衡量方式，以及使用原始数据集的完整版本，对其实证结果的稳健性进行检验。本次重复验证研究未能证实艾弗森与索斯基奇的实证发现：其一，我们无法证明多数选举制下中右翼政府出现频率更高这一论断；其二，时序截面分析（time-series cross-section analysis）并不支持选举制度是政府党派控制权的重要决定因素这一假说。