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Measuring parliamentary deviation
Author(s) -
COLOMER JOSEP M.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
european journal of political research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.267
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1475-6765
pISSN - 0304-4130
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-6765.1996.tb00669.x
Subject(s) - standard deviation , power (physics) , general election , analogy , relative standard deviation , absolute deviation , electoral system , political science , economics , politics , law , statistics , mathematics , physics , linguistics , philosophy , democracy , quantum mechanics , detection limit
Deviation between party seat shares and party expected power in parliamentary winning coalitions is measured with a new formula. In analogy with electoral deviation, in which proportions of votes and proportions of seats for each party are compared, proportions of seats and the proportions of influence in parliamentary majorities for each party are compared. A new parliamentary power index, which can be applied to different criteria in coalition formation, is used for this purpose. Formal trends of parliamentary disporportionality are presented. An empirical application for real elections in the period 1972–1993 in five European countries with parliamentary regimes shows a positive correlation between electoral deviation and parliamentary deviation.