Winning Alone: The Electoral Fate of Independent Candidates Worldwide

Independent candidates are widely believed to influence the quality of representation through issues as fundamental to democracy as government accountability, responsiveness, and electoral turnout. Their impact, however, hinges on their electoral strength, which varies widely within and across countries. In order to explain this variation, this study examines which aspects of electoral systems affect independents the most and why. Based on a statistical analysis of 34 countries around the world between 1945 and 2003, this study finds that electoral systems influence the electoral strength of independent candidates by defining the opportunities for independents to compete for office (i.e., ballot access requirements), the degree to which politics is candidate centered versus partisan driven (i.e., majority/plurality rule, district magnitude, open-list PR, and democratic transitions), and the extent to which small vote getters win seats (i.e., district size and electoral thresholds). Accordingly, not only do independents influence the nature of representation, but so too do the ways in which electoral systems influence independent candidates.