Data for: Active and Passive: Two Ways Party Systems Influence Electoral Outcomes

Parties can not only actively adjust the electoral rules to reach more favourable outcomes, as is recognized in political science, but they also passively create an environment that systematically influences electoral competition. This so far neglected link is theorized and successfully tested on two out of three contextual factors related to party systems: (a) choice set size (i.e. number of options provided to voters), (b) degree of ideological polarization, and (c) the presence of a populist subject. The research utilizes established datasets (i.e. Constituency-Level Elections Archive, Party System Polarization Index, Chapel Hill Expert Survey, The Manifestos Project Database, and registries of populist parties from other studies) and via OLS regression analysis concludes that the choice set size and presence of a populist subject are attributes with passive influence over electoral systems. Thus, they must be reflected when outcomes of electoral systems are estimated or compared across various contexts.

政治参与者不仅能够积极调整选举规则以实现更为有利的结果，如政治科学所公认，他们亦能通过被动地营造一种系统性地影响选举竞争的环境。迄今为止，这一被忽视的联系已被理论化，并在与政党体系相关的三个背景因素中的两个上得到了成功的验证：(a) 选择集规模（即提供给选民的选项数量），(b) 思想极化程度，以及(c) 民粹主义主题的存在。本研究利用了成熟的数据库（如选区级选举档案、政党体系极化指数、查珀希尔专家调查、宣言项目数据库以及其他研究中民粹主义政党登记册）并通过普通最小二乘回归分析得出结论：选择集规模和民粹主义主题的存在是影响选举系统的被动属性。因此，在估计或比较不同背景下的选举系统结果时，这些因素必须得到反映。