Party Strategies and Voter Behavior in the East European Mixed Election Systems

Abstract

I pursue two goals in this article: first, to explain parties’ and voters’ strategic choices in mixed electoral systems and, second, to assess the presence of such behavior in East European transitional elections. I develop a spatial model to explain parties’ decisions to form coalitions when proportional representation and plurality formulas are combined. Next, I identify factors that encourage voters to support different parties in the two tiers of the competition and use district-level data to examine these effects in Croatia, Lithuania and Ukraine. The findings suggest that considerations of spatial distribution of party support and the need to cross two thresholds shape decisions on whether or not to enter electoral coalitions. Some Croatian, Lithuanian and Ukrainian supporters of weaker parties, similar to voters in consolidated democracies, split their vote when they face strategic situations.