This research deals with a critical, but inadequately studied, feature of representative democracy in the United States: the election of members of the U.S. Congress, state legislatures, and numerous city councils and county legislatures in district-based electoral systems. Indeed, all but two democratic nations elect national legislatures in single member or multimember geographic-based districts. This project is aimed at assessing the consequences of district-based representation. The most obvious consequence in American elections is political gerrymandering, where one party attempts to redraw the district lines so that the underlying electoral system favors one political party over the other. Redistricting can also increase or decrease the electoral responsiveness of an electoral system - - the degree to which the division of parties in a legislature responds to changes in voter preferences. Unfortunately, although numerous scholars have assessed the impact of redistricting on a political system through simple means, it is difficult to determine its effect on the more fundamental aspects of American politics such as partisan bias and electoral responsiveness by casual inspection of voting results. Indeed, even the Supreme Court has recognized this difficult methodological problem. In Davis v. Bandemer (106 S.Ct. 2797. 1986), the court declared political gerrymandering justiceable for the first time. However, the justices could agree on neither the acceptable measures of political gerrymandering nor the requisite standards for democratic representation. This investigation will enable the investigator to continue the substantial program of research he has begun in this area. The general strategy is to contribute to political science research by developing a series of mathematical and statistical models of district-based representation. The research began at the most aggregated level, the nationwide translation of votes into seats, and mapped broad patterns in American electoral systems. This research now moves toward progressively more micro-levels to find what political phenomena give rise to these broad patterns. These levels of analysis include the district-level translation from votes to seats, a district level model with incumbents and challengers analytically removed, a model of drawing district lines around geographically located voters, and, finally, studying the geographic distribution of partisans and individual voting behavior.

Agency
National Science Foundation (NSF)
Institute
Division of Social and Economic Sciences (SES)
Type
Standard Grant (Standard)
Application #
8909201
Program Officer
Frank P. Scioli Jr.
Project Start
Project End
Budget Start
1989-07-01
Budget End
1991-12-31
Support Year
Fiscal Year
1989
Total Cost
$78,429
Indirect Cost
Name
Harvard University
Department
Type
DUNS #
City
Cambridge
State
MA
Country
United States
Zip Code
02138