Unit 8 — Legislatures and Elections

Builds on Unit 3 - Democracy and Unit 4 - Authoritarian and Non-Democratic States by examining the institutions through which representation is organized. Legislatures are the central mechanism translating citizen preferences into law, and electoral systems determine how that translation happens.

Key Concepts

• Legislatures are deliberative bodies that pass laws, oversee the executive, and represent the population
• Two basic structural forms: unicameral (one chamber) and bicameral (two chambers)
• Two fundamental electoral logics: single-member district (SMD) and proportional representation (PR)
• Hybrid systems attempt to capture advantages of both
• Representation is a contested concept — who counts, how votes translate to seats, and how decisions are made within legislatures all shape its quality
• Executive–legislative relations are a major determinant of how representation works in practice

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What Legislatures Are

Legislatures are deliberative bodies composed of elected (or, in authoritarian contexts, appointed/selected) decision makers who represent the population at large.¹

Core features:

• Where debates about fundamental values and voter preferences take place
• Where interest groups and lobbyists direct their efforts
• Where presidents and prime ministers often begin their careers
• Typically the institution with the greatest responsibility for overseeing the executive

Historical Development

• The rise of legislatures is inseparable from the rise of constitutional and democratic regimes
• For centuries, elected legislatures incrementally claimed authority from unelected monarchs
• Early legislatures were not truly representative — the Magna Carta Parliament (1215) was composed of nobles, not commoners; Rome’s Senate was restricted to male property-holders
• In contemporary authoritarian regimes, legislatures may be rubber-stamp bodies (e.g., North Korea) or dominated by a single party (e.g., China’s National People’s Congress)
• Over time, most countries have extended the franchise to women, ethnic minorities, and lower-status men

Authoritarian Legislatures

Even authoritarian regimes often maintain a legislature — not for genuine representation, but to create the appearance of legitimacy and deliberative decision-making.

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What Legislatures Do

In facade democracies, legislatures do very little — their role is to provide an appearance of support for the government. In liberal democracies, legislatures play a variety of important roles organized around three core functions: the legislative function, the representative function, and the oversight function.

Primary Functions

1. Legislating — proposing bills, negotiating compromises (“horse-trading”), and passing laws
2. Power of the purse — controlling government budgets and disbursing funds to the executive
3. Oversight — scrutinizing the executive branch through testimony requirements, reports, and questioning of ministers
4. Focusing national debate — serving as the arena where public issues are contested and clarified

Secondary / Often Overlooked Functions

• Socializing politicians — training future presidents and prime ministers
• Constituent service — helping individual citizens navigate government
• Electoral survival — re-election drives much legislative behaviour, shaping what legislators prioritize²

Exam Alert

The power of the purse is one of the legislature’s most significant checks on the executive — it forces executives to remain attentive to legislative demands even absent new legislation.

The Legislative Function in Detail

The process of turning bills into laws is affected by the powers of the executive in the political system. The key issue is the extent to which the government controls the legislature — i.e., the extent to which the legislature is reactive to the executive. This depends heavily on the strength of party discipline.

The Representative Function

Representation involves doing casework for constituents, but also raises deeper questions:

• Do legislators’ personal characteristics match those of the population?
• Should legislators follow the public opinion of the people who voted for them?
• Should they use their own judgement in deciding how to act?
• Should they follow the policies of their political party? How powerful is party discipline?

Descriptive representation asks whether the legislature looks like the population of the country. Substantive representation refers to policy outcomes that positively impact equity-seeking groups. Descriptive representation can lead to substantive representation.

Descriptive Representation in Canada

• 104 female MPs (30% of the total)
• 53 BIPOC MPs (15.7%, compared to 26.3% in the general population)

The Oversight Function in Detail

In a democratic system, one role of the legislature is to hold the government to account. In most cases this means it is the job of the opposition parties to act as a check on the government. Mechanisms include:

• Debates in the full chamber/house
• Committee investigations and reports
• Question period

The oversight function varies depending on whether it is a parliamentary or presidential system. In parliamentary systems, the legislature can pass a vote of no confidence to bring down the government. The ability to do so depends on whether the government has a majority, whether it is a coalition government, and the strength of party discipline. In presidential systems, the legislature cannot pass a vote of no confidence but can: reject presidential legislative measures, refuse to confirm presidential appointments, and impeach the president.

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Types of Legislatures

Unicameral vs. Bicameral

Feature	Unicameral	Bicameral
Number of chambers	One	Two
Common where	Small populations, unitary states, homogeneous societies, authoritarian regimes	Large/federal countries, heterogeneous populations
Examples	Scandinavia, much of sub-Saharan Africa, China	USA, UK, Germany, Brazil, Canada, France

Lower chamber — usually larger, more directly reflective of the population (e.g., House of Representatives, House of Commons, France’s National Assembly)

Upper chamber — usually smaller, often representing territorial units like states or provinces (e.g., Senate, House of Lords, France’s Senate); powers vary widely³

Germany’s Bundesrat — Strong Bicameralism

The German Bundesrat is composed of 69 representatives from the 16 state governments (the Länder). Each Land has a minimum of 3 votes and a maximum of 6 votes, allocated roughly on the basis of population. Votes are cast as a bloc from each state — individual representatives cannot vote differently. The representatives change whenever there is a change in the government of their state. Germany is considered an example of “strong bicameralism” because the Bundesrat holds significant legislative power, particularly on matters affecting the Länder.

The U.S. Exception

In most bicameral systems, the lower chamber is more powerful. The United States is a notable exception: the Senate has at least as much power as the House of Representatives.

Naming Conventions

Term	Typical Usage
Congress	Full legislature in a presidential system (separation of powers)
Parliament	Full legislature in a parliamentary system (executive chosen by legislature)
Assembly / House / Chamber	Often refers to one component of a bicameral legislature

Congresses vs. Parliaments

Dimension	Congress (e.g., USA)	Parliament (e.g., UK)
Head of government	President (separately elected)	Prime Minister (chosen by parliament)
Executive dependence	Does not depend on legislature’s confidence	Depends on parliament’s confidence
Power structure	Separation of powers + checks and balances	Parliamentary supremacy (fusion of powers)
Executive strength	Formally limited by checks	May dominate in practice via party control

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Selecting Legislators

Who sits in the legislature and why depends on the country being studied. In authoritarian systems, representatives may be elected but not through free and fair elections. In liberal democracies, representatives are elected in elections that are free and allow genuine competition. The way these elections take place is determined by the electoral system, and different systems affect the results.

How Members Are Chosen

• In unicameral systems, legislators are elected directly by the population
• In bicameral systems, the lower chamber is typically elected by the people
• Members of the upper house are selected in different ways — sometimes appointed (e.g., Canada’s Senate historically), sometimes selected by provincial/state governments (e.g., Germany’s Bundesrat), and sometimes directly elected (e.g., the U.S. Senate)

Election Timing and Structure

• Timing varies: how long between elections, who decides when elections take place, and whether there are fixed election dates
• Constituency size matters: some countries use single-member districts while others use multi-member districts

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Electoral Systems

Two fundamental categories, with hybrids between them.

1. Single-Member District (SMD) Systems

How it works: The country is divided into geographic constituencies (districts); each elects one representative; the candidate with the most votes wins.

Variants:

Variant	Description
First-past-the-post (plurality)	Candidate with the most votes wins — even without a majority
Runoff system	If no majority in round one, top two candidates compete again
Second ballot (two ballot)	Similar to runoff — if no candidate wins a majority in the first round, a second round is held among the top candidates

Key properties of SMD:

• Candidate-centred — voters choose individuals, not parties
• Favours large parties at the expense of smaller ones
• Creates a strong geographic link between voters and their representative
• Can produce disproportionate outcomes (e.g., 2005 UK election: Labour won 55% of seats with 35% of votes; Liberal Democrats won 9.6% of seats with 22% of votes)⁴

SMD Disproportionality

In a country with 500 single-member districts, two parties averaging 40% each will likely sweep all seats, while two parties with 10% each win zero seats — despite representing 20% of the electorate combined. Under PR, those smaller parties would each receive ~50 seats.

2025 Canadian Federal Election

Plurality systems favour larger parties and parties whose supporters are geographically concentrated. A party that attracts 10% of the vote evenly spread across the country might not secure any seats.

Party	% of Votes	% of Seats
Liberals	43.8%	49.3%
Conservatives	41.3%	42.0%
NDP	6.3%	2.0%
Greens	1.2%	0.3%
PPC	0.7%	0.0%

2. Proportional Representation (PR)

How it works: Voters choose a party; seats are allocated to parties in proportion to their share of the national vote.

Key properties of PR:

• Party-centred — voters select platforms and programs, not individual candidates
• Supports multiparty systems and smaller parties
• Results in fewer wasted votes — votes translate more accurately into seats
• Increases the likelihood that no party will have a majority in the legislature, necessitating coalition governments
• There is also the possibility that extremist parties will secure representation under this system
• Uses a threshold (commonly 5%) to prevent extreme fragmentation — e.g., Germany requires a party to meet a 5% threshold to be represented in the Bundestag
• Seat allocation involves rounding rules — many methods exist⁵

Variant — Open-list PR (used in Brazil and many European countries):

• Voters choose an individual candidate
• Votes are aggregated by party for seat allocation
• Candidates with the most votes within their party gain seats first
• Encourages candidates to seek personal support → weaker party discipline

Common Mistake

PR does not eliminate the need for choices — most PR systems still require some form of list ordering, threshold calculation, or candidate selection. “Pure” PR is rare in practice.

3. Multi-Member Districts (MMD)

• More than one representative elected per district
• Less winner-take-all than SMD
• Outcome depends heavily on district magnitude (number of seats per district)
• Points in the direction of PR as district magnitude increases

4. Mixed / Hybrid Systems

Attempt to combine the advantages of SMD (identifiable local representatives) and PR (proportional party representation).

Mechanism (Germany and New Zealand model):

• Each voter casts two votes: one for a local district candidate, one for a party
• District seats are filled by plurality winners
• Additional “at-large” seats are allocated to ensure the overall legislature is proportional to the party vote
• Overhang seats: if a party wins more district seats than its party-vote share entitles it to, it keeps those extra seats → the total size of the legislature is not fixed⁶

New Zealand's Electoral Reform

New Zealand switched from first-past-the-post to a German-style mixed-member proportional (MMP) system by national referendum in 1993. The change explicitly aimed to increase proportionality. Each voter now has two votes: one for a district candidate, one for a party.

5. Preferential / Ranking Systems

System	How It Works	Where Used
Alternative Vote (AV) / Instant-Runoff	Voters rank candidates; lowest-ranked candidate eliminated and their votes redistributed until one candidate has a majority	Australia (House), some U.S. local elections
Single Transferable Vote (STV)	Used in MMD contexts; winners’ surplus votes redistributed until a full slate is elected	Ireland, some local U.S. elections

Advantage of ranking systems: reduces strategic voting — voters can honestly pick their first preference without “wasting” their vote on a candidate unlikely to win.⁷

Voting Procedures Summary

Electoral System	How Voter Votes	How Winner Is Determined
SMD (plurality)	Choose one candidate	Candidate with most votes elected
PR	Choose one party	Seats allocated proportionally to parties
Open-list PR	Choose one candidate	Votes aggregated by party; seats by party share
Mixed / Hybrid	Two votes (candidate + party)	Districts filled by plurality; totals adjusted for PR
Alternative Vote	Rank candidates	Losers’ votes reallocated until one candidate has majority
STV	Rank candidates	Winners’ surplus votes reallocated until full slate chosen

Indirect Election

• Representatives in a lower chamber sometimes elect members of the upper chamber
• Example: Germany’s Bundesrat members are chosen by state (Länder) assemblies, not directly by voters

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Executive–Legislative Relations

Oversight Functions

• Legislatures require testimony from military leaders, cabinet ministers, and executive officials
• Review executive appointees (including judicial nominees in some systems)
• Motion of censure — legislature formally sanctions the executive for inappropriate conduct

Removing the Executive

System	Removal Mechanism	Conditions
Parliamentary	Vote of no confidence → government falls, new elections called	Simple majority; in Germany, requires constructive vote of no confidence (must propose a replacement government simultaneously)
Presidential	Impeachment process	Stringent — requires specific offences; fixed term limits executive removal

Exam Alert

The constructive vote of no confidence (Germany) is a key institutional design — it prevents a government from being removed unless a viable alternative is already in place, promoting stability.

Formal vs. Partisan Powers

• Formal powers = constitutional rules (e.g., power to call no-confidence votes)
• Partisan powers = ability of executive party leaders to discipline legislators through control of candidate lists and electoral outcomes
• Where executives control party lists, they have significant leverage over legislators regardless of constitutional text

Divided Government

• Common in presidential systems (especially the USA): voters elect an executive of one party and a legislature controlled by another
• Causes: decline of strong party identification, ticket-splitting, voter desire to moderate policy
• Can provide a check on executive overreach, or can produce gridlock

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Causes and Effects: What Explains Patterns of Representation?

Defining Representation

Representation in legislatures = the process by which elected legislators reflect the interests and preferences of voters in their constituencies.⁸

Two competing views on how representatives should behave:

1. Mandate view — follow the will of constituents directly
2. Independence view — exercise own judgment; make “tough choices” even if unpopular

Hannah Pitkin (The Concept of Representation, 1967) argues no absolute rule can be established — the answer depends on the specific issue and context.

SMD and Representation Problems

Apportionment = distributing legislative seats among geographic constituencies Districting = drawing the geographic boundaries of those constituencies Redistricting = redrawing boundaries as populations change

Gerrymandering = drawing districts in irregular shapes or compositions to achieve a desired political outcome — often to entrench incumbents, though sometimes used to ensure minority representation⁹

Malapportionment = voters are unequally represented; some regions have many more legislators per capita than others

Malapportionment in the U.S. Senate

Wyoming has ~1 senator per 250,000 people; California has ~1 senator per 18 million. The 25 least-populous states hold ~16% of the U.S. population yet control 50 senators — a majority. In theory, those senators could block legislation supported by states representing 84% of Americans.

Malapportionment in Brazil

Roraima (pop. ~400,000) has 3 senators → 1 per ~133,000 residents. São Paulo (pop. ~41 million) also has 3 senators → 1 per ~14 million residents.

PR and Representation: Trade-offs

Advantage of PR	Disadvantage of PR
Every vote “counts” — small parties get seats	No single identifiable local representative
Legislature reflects national partisan preferences	Geographic link between citizens and legislators weakened
Encourages multiparty competition and broader debate	Voters may not know whom to contact for constituency concerns
Government reflects majority or coalition of majority	Coalition formation can produce instability or policy paralysis

Internal Legislative Decision-Making

Representation is also shaped by how decisions are made within the legislature:

• Committees — “legislatures within the legislature”; specialized subgroups that shape agendas before issues reach the floor. If committees dominate, then who sits on which committee matters more than individual floor votes.
• Party discipline — parties are “disciplined” if members vote together. Key determinant: whether party leaders control candidates’ electoral fates (e.g., list placement in PR systems vs. primaries in candidate-centred systems)

Cox and McCubbins — Legislative Leviathan

The U.S. House operates as a “legislative cartel”: the majority party shapes rules to dominate the legislative process. Committees are important but are not independent of partisan forces — the majority party creates committee structures to serve its interests.

Mezey’s Typology of Legislatures

Policymaking Power	Level of Support	Type
Strong	High	Active (e.g., U.S. Congress)
Modest	High	Reactive (e.g., British Parliament — executive dominates agenda)
Strong	Low	Vulnerable
Modest	Low	Marginal
Any	Minimal	Minimal (authoritarian rubber-stamp bodies)

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Thinking Comparatively: Representation in New Zealand and Beyond

The core normative debate between SMD and PR reduces to a single question:

Is representation choosing a political party and its platform, or voting for a specific candidate closest to one’s views?

• Party-based (PR): focus on issues/platforms; legislature reflects national will; government accountable for policy
• Candidate-based (SMD): voters hold a specific person accountable; constituent service; local issues addressed

The German/New Zealand MMP model attempts to resolve this by giving every voter two votes — one for a district candidate, one for a party — and then adjusting the legislature’s composition so that the overall seat share matches each party’s vote share.

Hypotheticals and Counterfactuals

Comparativists use hypotheticals (what would likely happen under different rules?) and counterfactuals (what would have happened if circumstances had been different?) to reason about institutional design. These are tools for structured inference, not mere speculation — they must be grounded in comparative evidence.

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Conclusion

Legislatures go by different names and have different powers and structures. In authoritarian states they are largely irrelevant — their job is to provide an appearance of support for the government. In democratic systems they are important bodies that represent the people, legislate, and hold governments to account. Their importance varies from state to state depending on several factors, including: whether it is a parliamentary or presidential system, the electoral system, and the strength of party discipline.

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Definitions

Term	Definition
Legislature	Assembly or body of representatives with the authority to make laws
Bicameral legislature	Legislature with two chambers, which may have equal or unequal powers
Unicameral legislature	Legislature with a single chamber
Lower chamber	In a bicameral legislature, the house that typically has more legislators and represents the national vote more directly
Upper chamber	In a bicameral legislature, the smaller house often representing larger geographic constituencies such as states or provinces
Congress	A form of legislature typically associated with a presidential system and separation of powers
Parliament	A type of legislature often associated with systems in which legislators vote on the leadership of the executive branch
District system	An electoral system in which voters select representatives from specific geographic constituencies
Constituency	A group of voters or geographic district that legislators or other elected officials represent
Single-member district (SMD)	Electoral system in which voters choose a candidate and the winner is elected by the most votes earned (plurality or runoff)
First-past-the-post	Electoral system in which the candidate with the most votes is elected, regardless of whether a majority has been attained
Runoff	Electoral system in which top candidates from a first round compete again until a candidate receives a majority
Multi-member district (MMD)	Electoral system in which district constituencies have more than one representative
Proportional representation (PR)	Electoral system in which voters choose a preferred party and seats are allocated to parties according to percentage of vote won
Open-list proportional representation	PR variant in which voters choose a candidate but votes are aggregated by party to determine seat allocation
Alternative vote (AV)	Voting system in which voters rank candidates; votes of low-ranking candidates are reallocated until a winner is determined
Single transferable vote (STV)	Voting system in which voters rank candidates; winners’ surplus votes are reallocated to lower-ranking candidates until a slate is chosen
Strategic voting	Voting in a way that does not reflect a voter’s ideal preference, so as to prevent a less-desired outcome
Indirect election	Electoral system in which representatives are chosen by other elected officials rather than directly by the citizenry
Representation	In legislatures, the process by which elected legislators reflect the interests and preferences of voters in their constituencies
Apportionment	The process by which legislative seats are distributed among geographic constituencies
Districting	The process by which districts or other geographic constituencies are created for elections
Gerrymandering	Creation of districts of irregular shape or composition to achieve a desired political result
Malapportionment	Apportionment in which voters are unequally represented — typically more legislators per capita for low-population areas
Committee	In a legislature, a body composed of a group of legislators convened to perform a specific set of tasks
Executive–legislative relations	The set of relationships between the executive and the legislative branches of government
Parliamentary sovereignty	System in which the constitutionality of laws passed by legislature and executive is not subject to constitutional interpretation by the judiciary
Overhang seats	In mixed-member proportional systems, extra seats retained by a party that won more district seats than its party-vote share would normally entitle it to
Wasted votes	Votes that do not contribute to electing a representative; more common in plurality/SMD systems than in PR systems
Descriptive representation	When the personal characteristics of legislators (gender, ethnicity, etc.) mirror those of the population they represent
Substantive representation	When policy outcomes positively impact equity-seeking groups, regardless of whether legislators personally share those characteristics
Facade democracy	A political system that maintains the appearance of democratic institutions (including a legislature) without genuine democratic competition or accountability
Second ballot (two ballot) system	Electoral system in which if no candidate wins a majority in the first round, a second round is held among the top candidates
Casework	The work legislators do to help individual constituents navigate government services and resolve issues

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Footnotes

1. Dickovick & Eastwood, Comparative Politics, 3rd ed., Chapter 9, p. 203. ↩

2. David Mayhew’s influential work on the U.S. Congress argues that re-election is the singular driving motivation of legislators. Morgenstern and Nacif (Legislative Politics in Latin America) note this assumption does not hold universally — many Latin American legislators seek positions elsewhere (e.g., governor) and do not prioritize re-election. ↩

3. The UK House of Lords has largely vestigial powers today. Germany’s Bundesrat is limited to voting on matters pertaining to the Länder (states). The U.S. Senate is an outlier in having equal or greater power than the lower house. ↩

4. 2005 UK General Election results: Labour 35.2% vote → 355 seats (55.1%); Liberal Democrats 22.1% vote → 62 seats (9.6%). Illustrates how first-past-the-post systematically disadvantages third parties. ↩

5. Common seat allocation methods include the d’Hondt method and the Sainte-Laguë method. The choice of method can slightly favour larger or smaller parties respectively. ↩

6. Because overhang seats vary election to election, the German Bundestag does not have a fixed size: 622 seats in 2009, 631 in 2013, 709 in 2017. ↩

7. The Academy Awards (Oscars) also use a preferential voting procedure similar to STV — an example of ranking systems outside electoral politics. ↩

8. Hannah Pitkin, The Concept of Representation (1967) — the foundational text on this concept. Pitkin introduces the “mandate–independence controversy”: no absolute rule determines when representatives should follow constituents vs. exercise independent judgment. ↩

9. The term “gerrymander” comes from Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry, who in 1812 approved a salamander-shaped district designed to favour his party — giving rise to the portmanteau. ↩