Data source: Johnson and Wallack
This database updates and expands the coding of electoral systems presented in Gaviria et al.'s (2003) Database of Particularism. Data now cover up to 180 countries from 1978-2005 and distinguish electoral systems by the degree to which electoral institutions create incentives for candidates to cultivate a personal vote - as described theoretically in Carey and Shugart (1995) and Gaviria et al. (2003) - including the amount of vote pooling among co-partisan candidates, the amount of parties' control over ballot access, and whether voters cast their votes for candidates or parties. The database also contains several variables that rank-order electoral systems by tier, distinguish mixed-member and other multi-tier electoral systems, capture district magnitude (in two ways), and record election years. Database created 2007. Database last updated 2010.
When using this dataset, please cite as:
(Johnson & Wallack,
2012)
Browse variables and select them for download.
jw_avgballot
Country-level weighted averages of Party Control over Ballot - SMD (lower/only house) (jw_smdballot) and Party Control over Ballot - MMD (lower/only house) (jw_mmdballot), where the weights are the pe ...
jw_avgballot2
Country-level weighted averages of Party Control over Ballot - SMD (upper house) (jw_smdballot2) and Party Control over Ballot - MMD (upper house) (jw_mmdballot2), where the weights are the percentage ...
jw_avgpool
Country-level weighted averages of Sharing of Votes among Candidates - SMD (lower/only house) (jw_smdpool) and Sharing of Votes among Candidates - MMD (lower/only house) (jw_mmdpool), where the weight ...
jw_avgpool2
Country-level weighted averages of Sharing of Votes among Candidates - SMD (upper house) (jw_smdpool2) and Sharing of Votes among Candidates - MMD (upper house) (jw_mmdpool2), where the weights are th ...
jw_avgvote
Country-level weighted averages of Candidate- or Party-specific Voting - SMD (lower/only house) (jw_smdvote) and Candidate- or Party-specific Voting - MMD (lower/only house) (jw_mmdvote), where the we ...
jw_avgvote2
Country-level weighted averages of Candidate- or Party-specific Voting - SMD (upper house) (jw_smdvote2) and Candidate- or Party-specific Voting - MMD (upper house) (jw_mmdvote2), where the weights ar ...
jw_bicameral
Equals 1 whenever a country has a bicameral legislature.
jw_domr
This variable ranks countries in increasing order of incentives to cultivate a personal vote according to their most dominant or populous tier (or tier with the greater number of legislators). The var ...
jw_election
Dummy variable, 1 if year of election to lower house.
jw_election2
Dummy variable, 1 if year of election to upper house.
jw_indy
Equals 1 wherever independent candidates are legally allowed (even where the legal requirements are strict), and 0 otherwise. This complements the cases where the ballot variables above equal 1 or 2, ...
jw_indy2
Same as jw_indy, but for upper house elections. The ballot variables focus on the amount of party control over candidates' access to a competitive position on the ballot. The variables equal (in order ...
jw_legsize
The number of legislators coded in the dataset. These may not account for the total number of legislators if there are appointed legislators that have no electoral rules to code.
jw_legsize2
The number of legislators coded in the dataset. These may not account for the total number of legislators if there are appointed legislators that have no electoral rules to code.
jw_mcand
In keeping with the emphasis on the incentives faced by individual legislators, this variable measures the district magnitude considering the viewpoint of the average legislator in the lower house. It ...
jw_mcand2
This is the district magnitude of the average legislator in the upper house.
jw_mdist
This is the standard magnitude of the average district in the lower house. For example: A country with 300 seats divided among one national district with 200 members and 100 single-member districts wo ...
jw_mdist2
This is the average district magnitude in the upper house.
jw_mmdballot
Ballot (coded as above) for multi-member district tiers in elections to the lower house. The ballot variables focus on the amount of party control over candidates' access to a competitive position on ...
jw_mmdballot2
Ballot for multi-member district tiers in elections to the upper house. The ballot variables focus on the amount of party control over candidates' access to a competitive position on the ballot. The v ...
jw_mmdpool
Pool for multi-member district tiers in elections to the lower house. The Pool variables measure the extent to which votes among candidates from the same party are shared. The variables equal (in orde ...
jw_mmdpool2
Pool for multi-member district tiers in elections to the upper house. The Pool variables measure the extent to which votes among candidates from the same party are shared. The variables equal (in orde ...
jw_mmdvote
Vote for multi-member district tiers in elections to the lower house. The Vote variables focus attention on the distinction between casting votes for either parties or individual candidates. The varia ...
jw_mmdvote2
Vote for multi-member district tiers in elections to the upper house. The Vote variables focus attention on the distinction between casting votes for either parties or individual candidates. The varia ...
jw_multiround
The variable indicates whether there are run-off elections. These are usually for SMDs with absolute majority requirements. Where jw_multiround is equal to 1, voters have more than a single vote to ca ...
jw_multitier
Indicates whether there are two or more tiers to the legislature.
jw_multitier2
Equals 1 wherever there are multiple allocation tiers, regardless of whether they are the result of mixed member systems that incorporate different members under different rules, or systems that have ...
jw_parallel
Coded 1 if multiple tiers are elected in parallel fashion, 0 when they are elected in (at least some-what) compensatory fashion. Is coded only when jw_multitier = 1.
jw_persr
This variable ranks countries in increasing order of incentives to cultivate a personal vote according to their more personalistic tier (or tier with the greater incentives to cultivate a personal vot ...
jw_propcoded
Shows the proportion of total legislators (elected and non-elected) that are included in the database (i.e. those that are elected).
jw_propcoded2
This is the proportion of the total number of legislators (elected and non-elected) that are coded.
jw_propmmd
Proportion of seats from Multi-Member District (lower/only house).
jw_propmmd2
This is the proportion of coded legislators elected in multi-member districts.
jw_propn
The proportion of legislators that are elected via a national tier.
jw_propn2
This is the proportion of coded legislators that are elected via a national tier. This is often (but not always) similar to the proportion elected via multi-member districts (jw_propmmd): some elector ...
jw_propsmd
Proportion of seats from Single-Member Districts.
jw_propsmd2
This is the proportion of coded legislators elected in single-member districts (Note: In the original data for Kyrgyzstan propsmd2=60 in 1997-1999 and propsmd2=45 2000-2004. We have replaced these fig ...
jw_rank
Equals 1 in two circumstances: where voters may rank order candidates according to preference, or where citizens have multiple preference votes for multiple candidates, even if they may not specifical ...
jw_rank2
Same as jw_rank, but for upper house elections.
jw_smdballot
Ballot for single-member district tiers in elections to the lower house. The ballot variables focus on the amount of party control over candidates' access to a competitive position on the ballot. The ...
jw_smdballot2
Ballot for single-member district tiers in elections to the upper house. The ballot variables focus on the amount of party control over candidates' access to a competitive position on the ballot. The ...
jw_smdpool
Pool for single-member district tiers in elections to the lower house. The Pool variables measure the extent to which votes among candidates from the same party are shared. The variables equal (in ord ...
jw_smdpool2
Pool for single-member district tiers in elections to the upper house. The Pool variables measure the extent to which votes among candidates from the same party are shared. The variables equal (in ord ...
jw_smdvote
Vote for single-member district tiers in elections to the lower house. The Vote variables focus attention on the distinction between casting votes for either parties or individual candidates. The vari ...
jw_smdvote2
Vote (coded as above) for single-member district tiers in elections to the upper house. The Vote variables focus attention on the distinction between casting votes for either parties or individual can ...
jw_tiervote
Equals 1 when citizens are given a separate vote for deputies in each legislative tier.
jw_tiervote2
Equals 1 when citizens are given a separate vote for deputies in each legislative tier.