In representative democracies, a mandate is a perceived legitimacy to rule through popular support. Mandates are conveyed through elections, in which voters choose political parties and candidates based on their own policy preferences. The election results are then interpreted to determine which policies are popularly supported. A majority government provides a clear mandate, while plurality or coalition government suggests a lesser mandate, requiring greater compromise between parties. Parties with strong mandates are free to implement their preferred policies with the understanding that they are supported by the people. When no mandate exists for a single party, the median voter may be used to determine what policies have a mandate for implementation. The modern concept of a political mandate first developed around the 16th century and became a prominent aspect of politics after the French Revolution.
A mandate is a social construct based on what is understood to be the will of the voters. [1] Mandate theory proposes that political parties are vehicles for policy options. Voters choose from these options during elections, which then empowers the policies that have the most popular support and allows for their implementation. [2] When voters overwhelmingly support a specific party or candidate in an election, it may be interpreted as a communication from the voters that they wish for the associated political platform to be implemented, creating a mandate for that platform. [3] Mandates are based on the idea that all voters are equal, and popular assent from the group as a whole is necessary to govern. [4] Those involved in politics look to mandates to determine what is expected by the voters and what they will consider acceptable. [5] A mandate is desirable for political parties, as it gives them leeway in policy implementation. [1] A party or candidate may claim to have a mandate, but it only confers a political advantage if this claim is widely accepted. [5] Non-electoral governments, such as dictatorships and monarchies, may also claim to have a popular mandate to rule. [6]
Mandates develop from the interpretation of elections. [7] If it becomes widely accepted that the voters support a given platform, then it will be understood that a mandate exists, regardless of the actual wishes of the voters. [5] There is no agreed upon metric for how much support a position must have—or be believed to have—before there is a mandate for its implementation. [8] When a political mandate is unclear, it may be seen as the policy preferences of the median voter on a left–right political spectrum. [9] This presents its own challenges when applied, as policy preferences are often more complex and have multiple dimensions. [10]
Modern democracies do not consistently provide a majority mandate, as several competing parties offer different policies, requiring coalition governments to make compromises between their members. In the United States, the two-party system always results in one party having a majority in government that can be interpreted as a mandate. [11] In the event of a coalition government, there is no single party with a popular mandate, as every party was supported by less than half of voters. [12] Some political systems, such as that of the United Kingdom, frequently give a majority of legislative seats to a party that received only a plurality of the vote. In this case, the majority only carries a mandate if it is representative of the median voter. [13] Policy does not necessary correspond to the platform of the dominant party, as it may still have to negotiate with other parties or otherwise have limits on its power to implement certain policies. [14] Proportional representation allows for more nuanced voter preferences, but it also allows for a party with only plurality support to receive a majority of seats. [14] In any coalition-based system, voters are unable to know what coalitions may form after an election, further distancing voter preferences from electoral results. [15]
The existence of political mandate as a concept is challenged by supporters of deliberative democracy, who believe that parties are elected as representatives to negotiate and compromise between different policy proposals. [11] Direct democracy bypasses the issue of mandates entirely as it allows voters to choose policies directly. [16]
Ancient Greece and the Roman Republic both incorporated ideas of citizenship in their governments that granted all men the right to participate in political decisions. [17] In the post-classical era, the authority of a ruler was typically accepted without question and without consideration of the wishes of the people. Religious authority or the blessing of a deity was often invoked as justification for a ruler's power. [18] The first ideas of a mandate for popular rule developed around the year 1500. [19] These ideas began to see political implementation during the Age of Revolution, when monarchical rule was overthrown across many kingdoms through popular uprising. [20] The French Revolution specifically invoked popular mandate as a necessary factor for political legitimacy. [17] As modern electoral politics emerged, rulers came to seek legitimacy from popular mandate in individual constituencies. [21]
Plurality voting refers to electoral systems in which a candidate who polls more than any other is elected. In systems based on single-member districts, it elects just one member per district and may also be referred to as first-past-the-post (FPTP), single-member plurality (SMP/SMDP), single-choice voting, simple plurality or relative majority. A system that elects multiple winners elected at once with the plurality rule and where each voter casts multiple X votes in a multi-seat district is referred to as plurality block voting. A semi-proportional system that elects multiple winners elected at once with the plurality rule and where each voter casts just one vote in a multi-seat district is known as single non-transferable voting.
Proportional representation (PR) refers to any type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions among voters. The essence of such systems is that all votes cast – or almost all votes cast – contribute to the result and are effectively used to help elect someone – not just a bare plurality or (exclusively) the majority – and that the system produces mixed, balanced representation reflecting how votes are cast.
Strategic voting, also called tactical voting, sophisticated voting or insincere voting, occurs in voting systems when a voter votes for a candidate or party other than their sincere preference to prevent an undesirable outcome. For example, in a simple plurality election, a voter might gain a better outcome by voting for a less preferred but more generally popular candidate.
The New Deal coalition was an American political coalition that supported the Democratic Party beginning in 1932. The coalition is named after President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal programs, and the follow-up Democratic presidents. It was composed of voting blocs who supported them. The coalition included labor unions, blue-collar workers, racial and religious minorities, liberal white Southerners, and intellectuals. Besides voters the coalition included powerful interest groups: Democratic Party organizations in most states, city machines, labor unions, some third parties, universities, and foundations. It was largely opposed by the Republican Party, the business community, and rich Protestants. In creating his coalition, Roosevelt was at first eager to include liberal Republicans and some radical third parties, even if it meant downplaying the "Democratic" name. By the 1940s, the Republican and third-party allies had mostly been defeated. In 1948, the Democratic Party stood alone and survived the splits that created two splinter parties.
Voting is a method by which a group, such as a meeting or an electorate, convenes together for the purpose of making a collective decision or expressing an opinion usually following discussions, debates or election campaigns. Democracies elect holders of high office by voting. Residents of a jurisdiction represented by an elected official are called "constituents", and the constituents who choose to cast a ballot for their chosen candidate are called "voters." There are different systems for collecting votes, but while many of the systems used in decision-making can also be used as electoral systems, any which cater to proportional representation can only be used in elections.
A parliamentary system, or parliamentary democracy, is a system of democratic government where the head of government derives their democratic legitimacy from their ability to command the support ("confidence") of the legislature, typically a parliament, to which they are accountable.
First-past-the-post voting is an electoral system wherein voters cast a vote for a single candidate, and the candidate with the most votes wins the election. Analogous systems for multi-winner contests are known as plurality block voting or "block voting" systems; both FPTP and block voting are "plurality" systems in that the winner needs only a plurality of the votes and not an absolute majority. The term first-past-the-post is a metaphor from horse racing of the plurality-voted candidate winning such a race; the electoral system is formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts, and informally called choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting or score voting.
Electoral reform in New Zealand has been a political issue in the past as major changes have been made to both parliamentary and local government electoral systems.
Vote splitting is an electoral effect in which the distribution of votes among multiple similar candidates reduces the chance of winning for any of the similar candidates, and increases the chance of winning for a dissimilar candidate. This is commonly known as the spoiler effect, which can discourage minor party candidacies.
Majority rule is the principle that the group which has the most supporters get to decide the rules that all will be compelled to abide by. A majority is more than half of the voters involved, and rule by such a majority is thought to be to the benefit of more than rule by less than half would be. Majority rule is the binary decision rule most often used in decision-making bodies, including many legislatures of democratic nations. Where no one party wins a majority of the seats in a legislature, the majority of legislators that wields power is partly composed of members of other parties in support.
Bipartisanship, sometimes referred to as nonpartisanship, is a political situation, usually in the context of a two-party system, in which opposing political parties find common ground through compromise. In multi-partisan electoral systems or in situations where multiple parties work together, it is called multipartisanship. Partisanship is the antonym, where an individual or political party adheres only to its interests without compromise.
The median voter theorem is a theorem applying to single-winner elections relating to ranked preference voting put forward by Duncan Black in 1948. It states that if voters and policies are distributed along a one-dimensional spectrum, with voters ranking alternatives in order of proximity, then any voting method which satisfies the Condorcet criterion will elect the candidate closest to the median voter. In particular, a majority vote between two options will do so, such as two-party system.
Particracy, also known as partitocracy, partitocrazia or partocracy, is a form of government in which the political parties are the primary basis of rule rather than citizens or individual politicians.
In electoral systems, a wasted vote is any vote that does not receive representation in the final election outcome. Plurality voting systems have the greatest number of wasted votes.
An independent voter, often also called an unaffiliated voter or non-affiliated voter in the United States, is a voter who does not align themselves with a political party. An independent is variously defined as a voter who votes for candidates on issues rather than on the basis of a political ideology or partisanship; a voter who does not have long-standing loyalty to, or identification with, a political party; a voter who does not usually vote for the same political party from election to election; or a voter who self-describes as an independent.
Plurality block voting, also known as plurality-at-large voting, bloc vote or block voting (BV) is a non-proportional voting system for electing representatives in multi-winner elections. Each voter may cast as many votes as the number of seats to be filled. The usual result when the candidates divide into parties is that the most popular party in the district sees its full slate of candidates elected in a seemingly landslide victory.
Instant-runoff voting (IRV) is an electoral system that uses ranked voting. Its purpose is to elect the majority choice in single-member districts in which there are more than two candidates and thus help ensure majority rule. It is a single-winner version of single transferable voting. Formerly the term "instant-runoff voting" was used for what many people now call contingent voting or supplementary vote.
Direct representation or proxy representation is a form of representative democracy where voters can vote for any candidate in the land, and each representative's vote is weighted in proportion to the number of citizens who have chosen that candidate to represent them.
An electoral system or voting system is a set of rules that determine how elections and referendums are conducted and how their results are determined. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections may take place in business, non-profit organisations and informal organisations. These rules govern all aspects of the voting process: when elections occur, who is allowed to vote, who can stand as a candidate, how ballots are marked and cast, how the ballots are counted, how votes translate into the election outcome, limits on campaign spending, and other factors that can affect the result. Political electoral systems are defined by constitutions and electoral laws, are typically conducted by election commissions, and can use multiple types of elections for different offices.
Ian Budge is a political scientist who has pioneered the use of quantitative methods in studying party democracy across countries. Currently Emeritus Professor of the Department of Government, University of Essex he has been Professor at the European University Institute, Florence (1982-5). and visiting professor at various institutions in five other countries.
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