What Drives Citizen Support for Electoral Reform? Disentangling Partisan, Local, and Fairness Considerations
P11-S289-5
Presented by: Oliver Rittmann
Previous research has explained citizens' support for electoral reform with partisan self-interest and perceived procedural fairness. However, electoral reforms also affect the geographic distribution of officeholders, raising important questions about local representation. If citizens are self-interested and value local representation, they will prefer electoral systems that not only maximize their preferred party's prospects but also increase the number of representatives from their local district compared to others. Past studies were unable to disentangle local and partisan considerations because the electoral reforms they examined did not alter these dimensions separately.
We address this limitation by studying citizens’ reactions to a recent electoral reform in Germany. This reform creates the possibility that district candidates may not secure a seat in the Bundestag, even if they win the most votes in their electoral district. As a result, the reform creates quasi-random variation in the distribution of representatives across districts, enabling us to disentangle citizens’ local considerations from their partisan and fairness considerations.
Our pre-registered analysis draws on original survey instruments and a vignette experiment conducted with the German Internet Panel shortly after the 2025 federal election (N = 3,000). We present quasi-experimental and survey-experimental evidence to separate partisan, local, and fairness considerations. We contrast these findings with candidate preferences on the same reform using data from the GLES candidate study. Our findings address a critical gap in the research on the support for electoral reforms, where questions about the importance of local representation have been at the center stage of public debate.
We address this limitation by studying citizens’ reactions to a recent electoral reform in Germany. This reform creates the possibility that district candidates may not secure a seat in the Bundestag, even if they win the most votes in their electoral district. As a result, the reform creates quasi-random variation in the distribution of representatives across districts, enabling us to disentangle citizens’ local considerations from their partisan and fairness considerations.
Our pre-registered analysis draws on original survey instruments and a vignette experiment conducted with the German Internet Panel shortly after the 2025 federal election (N = 3,000). We present quasi-experimental and survey-experimental evidence to separate partisan, local, and fairness considerations. We contrast these findings with candidate preferences on the same reform using data from the GLES candidate study. Our findings address a critical gap in the research on the support for electoral reforms, where questions about the importance of local representation have been at the center stage of public debate.
Keywords: Electoral System, Electoral Reform, Citizen Preferences, Candidate Preferences, Bundestag, Germany