Mich "Heterogeneous Electoral Constituencies Against Factionalism"

Mardi intime de la Chaire Hoover par Suzanne Bloks (Hamburg University)

In Federalist 10, James Madison suggests that more diverse or heterogeneous electoral constituencies can provide a remedy against factionalism.
Inspired by the pluralist reading of Federalist 10, I provide in this paper a novel defence of heterogeneous constituencies that are constructed
through stratifed random sampling.
At the heart ofmy thesis lies a model of conflict management that emphasises the value of pluralisation and the importance
of breaking down rather than fostering the salience of deep-seated conflicts.
While geographic and other category-based constituencies crystallise and consolidate reinforcing cleavages, heterogeneous constituencies, I argue, stimulate the politicisation of new and potentially cross-cutting cleavages. The presence of cross-cutting cleavages enables representatives to engage in processes of accommodation and cooperation across group divisions, such as processes of bargaining and coalition-building, while remaining partial advocates of their constituents interests.
Furthermore, I connect this notion of conflict management to party democracy in PR systems and argue that multiple party affiliations can further contribute to the de-politicisation of deep-seated conflicts by blurring societal divisions.
The upshot is that stratified random constituencies with PR are a candidate for the institutional default in all contemporary democracies facing factionalist tendencies as well as the factionalist threats of majority tyranny and legislative gridlocks.