Great for Constitution Writing but an Obstacle to Democratic Consolidation: The Ephemeral Value of the Hare Quota Formula in Tunisia’s Parliamentary Elections

Autor: Alexander Peter Martin, John Michael Carey
Rok vydání: 2022
Předmět:
Zdroj: Representation. :1-23
ISSN: 1749-4001
0034-4893
DOI: 10.1080/00344893.2022.2133002
Popis: The Hare Quota-Largest Remainders (HQLR) formula promoted consensus-building during Tunisia’s constitution-writing process and in the new democratic regime’s first years but it is now an obstacle to democratic consolidation. HQLR discourages the development of a tractable partisan choice set -- one large enough to afford voters meaningfully distinct options but not so large as to be cognitively overwhelming -- and fosters party fragmentation in parliament, obstructing the formation of workable governing coalitions. One result has been coalitions and national unity governments so heterogeneous as to lack common purpose, frustrating and disillusioning citizens and risking nostalgia for the decisiveness of the previous, authoritarian system. Replacing HQLR with either D’Hondt or St.Lague divisors formula would reverse the incentives toward parliamentary fragmentation, foster a more coherent political party landscape, and, if democratic competition is restored following President Kais Said’s auto coup in July 2021, facilitate Tunisia’s democratic consolidation by clarifying partisan accountability in parliament.
Databáze: OpenAIRE