Japan Society for the Promotion of Science:Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research
Date (from‐to) : 2014/04 -2017/03
Author : Kasuya Yuko; HORIUCHI Yusaku; HIROI Taeko
This project analyses the situation, causes, and consequences of legislative malapportionment around the world. It has three research components: (1) measuring the degree of malapportionment, (2) investigating the causes of malapportionment, and (3) analyzing the its consequences. The first part yielded the database that compiles the degree of lower chamber malapportionment for 140 countries. Several papers were written on the causes of malapportionemnt. The main findings are that the degree of malapportionment increases as the electoral competition becomes more competitive, and decreases as the degree of executive constraints (such as the presence of independent judiciary). As for the consequences, members of this project found that malapportionment harms economic development of overrepresented districts in the case of Brazil. In the context of electoral authoritarianism, it reduces the electoral violence.