La caracterización de los sistemas electorales. Una aplicación de las funciones de agregación de umbrales en las nuevas democracias de Europa y América Latina

  1. Ruiz Rufino, Rubén
Revista:
Revista española de ciencia política

ISSN: 1575-6548

Año de publicación: 2005

Número: 13

Páginas: 89-118

Tipo: Artículo

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Otras publicaciones en: Revista española de ciencia política

Resumen

Este artículo introduce una nueva forma de medir los efectos mecánicos de los sistemas electorales. Frente a intentos por clasificar estas instituciones con variables categóricas o con valores aproximados para obtener el primer escaño, las funciones de agregación de umbrales se presentan como una medida que permite resumir en un único valor el comportamiento mecánico de cualquier sistema electoral. Es una medida con carácter universal al poderse aplicar a cualquier diseño institucional y también una medida general pues su valor resume su funcionamiento teniendo en cuenta todos los distritos. Esta medida permite caracterizar los sistemas electorales a partir del valor mínimo para ganar la mayoría de escaños en el parlamento. Con este valor se puede observar la proximidad o lejanía de cada sistema electoral con respecto a un punto ideal llamado de proporcionalidad perfecta. Las funciones de agregación de umbrales son aplicadas a 91 elecciones ocurridas en países que han transitado a la democracia entre 1974 y 2000. Se observa que en los sistemas proporcionales el número de distritos es una variable importante para explicar la mayor o menor proporcionalidad de los sistemas electorales. En los sistemas híbridos este factor se explica dependiendo de si las fórmulas empleadas en los distintos niveles de distribución de escaños son iguales.

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