Electoral Systems and the Personal Vote

This database updates and expands the coding of electoral systems presented in Gaviria et al's (2003) Database of Particularism. Data now cover up to 180 countries from 1978-2005 and distinguish electoral systems by the degree to which electoral institutions create incentives for candidates to cultivate a personal vote - as described theoretically in Carey and Shugart (1995) and Gaviria el al. (2003) - including the amount of vote pooling among co-partisan candidates, the amount of parties' control over ballot access, and whether voters cast their votes for candidates or parties. The database also contains several variables that rank-order electoral systems by tier, distinguish mixed-member and other multi-tier electoral systems, capture district magnitude (in two ways), and record election years. Database created 2007. Database last updated 2010.