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This research examines the central question of representation in the California State Legislature and the United States House of Representatives. This thesis examines the proper size for both legislative bodies in comparison to their current sizes. Considering this analysis, this thesis proposes that the California State Legislature be doubled in size, and that the United States House of Representatives be increased in size in accordance with the Wyoming Rule. This thesis examines the advantages and drawbacks of a larger legislature in both settings. Increasing the size of the California State Legislature would lower campaign costs, improve representation for communities of interest, and reduce the effectiveness of partisan gerrymandering. Increasing the size of the U.S. House of Representatives would reduce malapportionment among states, make the Electoral College more equitable, and increase political diversity among the states.

This diploma thesis opens a new deep insight into the issue of electoral systems in Czech and Central European political science. The mid-point of this research is the electoral bias in the electoral system to the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic. The electoral bias is researched on all general elections from 1996 until 2013. To find out the electoral bias I apply mathematical method created and used by professor Galina Borisyuk from University of Plymouth. This method is based on several mathematical methods used by the American and the British political scientists for decades. However, the new method created by Galina Borisyuk is the most convenient for many reasons. Mainly this method isn't necessarily connected with plurality majority system, which was essential variable so far. Second key attribute of this method is the possibility to apply it on the three party systems, which is important variable for our political system in the Czech Republic as well. In analytical part of this research I apply the new mathematical method in all elections to the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic. Ascertained results are analysed in the conclusion together that I have set the feasible ways to develop a new path the research of bias in the future.

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No. of bitstreams: 1 TeseSK.pdf: 4983553 bytes, checksum: 07e162ddc09c2b9535ea3eb301215708 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-03-28 / Não recebi financiamento / This thesis addresses the relationship between mallaportionment and legislative behavior, precisely, the effects of overrepresentation on legislative outcomes, It is well established that overrepresented subnational units benefit disproportionately from resources distributed by the central government. Explanations for this fact are based on a model of legislative bargaining over distributive projects. Therefore, the focus of this investigation is the legislative coalitions. However, this model assumes legislators who are elected in single-member districts, where there is a one-to-one correspondence between the legislator and the district. In these systems, defining the interest of the district is straightforward and the legislator can easily claim credit for defending it. The same is not true in multi-member districts where interests that successfully seek representation are varied and legislators elected from the same district can claim to represent different constituencies. So, the goal of this research is to prove the applicability of the legislative bargaining mechanism in a multi-member district electoral system. The central assumption is that in multi member electoral districts, legislative coalitions cut-across the apportionment cleavage and wash out the impact that overrepresentation might have had under a single-member electoral structure. I test this claim by comparing legislative coalitions in the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies and the Senate between 1989 and 2014 and examined the pattern of transferences of federal funds of the central government to subnational units of the country. While both Brazilian houses are symmetric in their power, elections for the former are based on proportional representation electoral systems in large districts and for the later on majority rules in one or two-member districts. I performed three types of descriptive statistical analyses: voting unit analysis; dyadic analysis and winning coalitions analysis. The results showed that the relation between the higher volume of fiscal transferences and overrepresentation is stronger in the Senate. In turn, it was demonstrated that, although the effects of overrepresentation on the coalitions is also higher in the Senate; in general, the impact of malapportionment in the congress is discreet. Thus, denying the expectations disseminated by the literature, the legislative bargain for distributive projects is not, necessarily, the underlying mechanism to distortion in the discretionary distribution of social resources which favors the overrepresented units. / A tese trata do impacto da sobrerrepresentação no comportamento legislativo com o foco na formação de coalizões. Está bem estabelecido que as unidades subnacionais sobrerrepresentadas são desproporcionalmente beneficiadas por recursos distribuídos pelo governo central. As explicações para este fato são baseadas no modelo distributivista de barganhas legislativas. Entretanto, o modelo considera legisladoras e legisladores eleitos em distritos uninominais. O objetivo desta pesquisa foi testar a aplicabilidade do modelo de barganhas legislativas por projetos distributivista em um sistema eleitoral de distritos plurinominais e; analisar o peso da desproporcionalidade de representação distrital nas coalizões legislativas. A hipótese central foi que os efeitos da sobrerrepresentação distrital dependem do tipo de sistema eleitoral. Em sistemas eleitorais de distritos uninominais há a correspondência de um para um entre legisladora (legislador) e o distrito e a definição dos interesses do distrito é, relativamente, mais clara. Nesse caso, a(o) parlamentar pode facilmente reivindicar o crédito por defendê-los e esperar obter reconhecimento de seu distrito eleitoral por causa disso, isto é, obter retorno em forma de votos. O mesmo não é verdadeiro para sistemas eleitorais de distritos plurinominais, onde os interesses bem sucedidos na busca por representação são variados e as(os) legisladores que se elegeram por um mesmo distrito podem reivindicar a representação de diferentes círculos eleitorais. Sistemas eleitorais de distritos plurinominais incentivam a formação de coalizões que atravessam distritos eleitorais. Esta condição rompe com a representação enraizada nos limites dos distritos eleitorais e atenua o impacto que a sobrerrepresentação teria sob uma estrutura eleitoral de um só membro. Testei esta afirmação comparando as coalizões legislativas na Câmara e no Senado do Brasil entre 1989 e 2014 e, também, examinando o padrão das transferências de fundos federais do governo central para as unidades subnacionais do país. Ambas as casas legislativas brasileiras são simétricas quanto ao poder, mas as eleições para a primeira são baseadas em sistema de representação proporcional em distritos de grande magnitude e para a segunda sobre a regra majoritária em distritos de um ou dois membros. Realizei três tipos de análises estatísticas descritivas: análise da coesão do voto; análise de votos iguais de duplas de parlamentares e análise da participação em coalizões vitoriosas. A hipótese secundária é que legisladoras (legisladores) de distritos sobrerrepresentados têm menor propensão a votar conjuntamente e são menos cruciais para o resultado das votações legislativas, do que quando elas e eles são analisados levando em conta outros atributos, tais como filiação partidária e coalizão do governo. Os resultados mostraram que no Senado a relação entre maior volume de transferências fiscais e a sobrerrepresentação é mais forte. Mas, embora no geral, os efeitos da sobrerrepresentação sobre as coalizões seja também maior no Senado, o impacto da representação desproporcional nas votações nas duas casas legislativas é discreto em relação aos outros fatores examinados. Entre eles a participação na coalizão do governo se destaca como determinante do comportamento legislativo nas votações. Portanto, contrariando as expectativas divulgadas na literatura, a barganha legislativa por projetos distributivos não é o mecanismo subjacente à distorção na distribuição discricionária de recursos fiscais que favorece unidades sobrerrepresentadas.

The master's thesis deals with local elections in the Czech Republic from the point of view of electoral engineering. Theoretical part of the thesis is focused on the elections, electoral systems and variables of electoral systems. The main variables are electoral district magnitude, electoral formula, legal threshold and the number and character of tier districting. The thesis then describes issue of gerrymandering and malapportionment from the theoretical perspective. The next part of the thesis deals with legislative framework of the local government elections from 1989 including rules and problematic characteristics of current electoral law for electing members of municipality. Empirical part of the thesis analyses local elections in the Czech Republic and results of the elections between 1994 and 2014. In the last chapter, division of the territory into electoral districts is assessed with an emphasis on principle of equal weight of votes and degree of proportionality. Comparison was carried out by using two indices of proportionality, Loosemore and Hanby index and D'Hondt index.