Electoral Institutions and Intraparty Cohesion

Matakos, Konstantinos and Savolainen, Riikka and Troumpounis, Orestis and Tukiainen, Janne and Xefteris, Dimitrios (2024) Electoral Institutions and Intraparty Cohesion. Journal of Political Economy Microeconomics, 2 (4). ISSN 2832-9368

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Abstract

By utilizing unique data capturing candidates’ ideological positions in Finnish municipal elections and leveraging exogenous changes in council size at different population thresholds as a proxy for electoral rule disproportionality and the expected advantage to the election winner, we identify a positive effect of council size on party cohesion. We propose the following mechanism: if a more diverse set of candidates is electorally appealing but less efficient in serving policy-related goals, parties face weaker incentives to maintain cohesion in institutional settings, such as smaller councils, which reward higher vote shares more generously.