Ignacio Lago
Biographic Data
| ID | 364033 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ignacio Lago |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ignacio |
| FAMILY NAME | Lago |
| SIGNATURE | LAGO I |
| AFFILIATIONS | Universitat Pompeu Fabra |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 234 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
The strategic determinants of legislative malapportionment in new democracies
Escenarios para la reforma del sistema de financiación de las comunidades autónomas en España: Entre los principios técnicos y las preferencias políticas
En este artículo se examina el sistema de financiación de las comunidades autónomas en España desde la economía y la ciencia política. Tras definir los principios básicos del federalismo fiscal y su relación con las preferencias políticas de los ciudadanos, discutimos los problemas del modelo vigente y sus posibles reformas en tres escenarios de federalismo débil, moderado y potente. El sistema de financiación autonómico en España se compara con …
The Oxford Handbook of Spanish Politics
This handbook examines Spanish politics and government since the transition to democracy. The volume studies the political history, institutional changes, bureaucratic decision-making, political behaviour, and foreign affairs of Spain. The introductory chapter provides an overview of the main themes of democratic Spain and discusses the end of Spanish exceptionalism. It also introduces Spanish politics to an international audience of scholars and…
Oxford Handbook of Spanish Politics
Public Administration and Its Problem-Solving Capacities
Spanish public administration belongs to the Rechtsstaat tradition in which the state is society’s driving force and relies on a procedural and legalistic system to engage with citizens. This chapter argues that this tradition has an impact on the state capacity, in particular in the coordination, delivery, and analytical functions of central government, whose role shifted towards coordination and regulation after the devolution of powers to the …
The glories of immigration: How soccer wins shape opinion on immigration
While there is a great deal of anecdotal evidence on the impact of soccer wins on attitudes toward immigrants and immigration, there is relatively little hard empirical evidence. It is expected that soccer stimulates more positive attitudes towards immigrants when it highlights immigration benefits rather than costs and increases exposure to famous members of an out-group. Individual-level data from the eight rounds of the European Social Survey …
Electoral coordination and party system institutionalization
A new theoretical development for examining the institutionalization of party systems is proposed in this article. We build on electoral coordination theories to disaggregate volatility into the vote transfers that occur between or towards parties that are in equilibrium (which we call endogenous volatility) and those that are not (exogenous volatility). The former captures accountability, and the latter reflects the number of voters who are not …
The psychological effect of electoral systems in founding elections
In this research note, I revisit the conventional wisdom about when the psychological effect of electoral systems is observed. I rely on data from the first presidential and legislative elections in 45 third- and fourth-wave presidential and semi-presidential regimes to show that the psychological effect of electoral systems manifests itself in the first election. The effective number of legislative parties is significantly higher than the effect…
Party Mobilization and Electoral Systems
How party strategies vary by electoral system remains largely unexplored in election studies. Using qualitative and quantitative data from Spanish national and European elections, we test how party strategies diverge between districted electoral systems and systems using a single national district. We use the number of visits to districts by the party leaders to determine if targeted party strategies are driven by district magnitude, the share of…
Turnout and social fractionalisation
Social fractionalisation has been omitted in most influential cross-sectional studies on turnout, and when it has been included, evidence is, at best, mixed. This article addresses this gap from two perspectives. First, using aggregated data from 22 countries we show that turnout is inversely related to ethnolinguistic fractionalisation, even after controlling for institutional, political and socioeconomic determinants. Second, we rely on data fr…
Gerrymandering in comparative perspective
Using data from the Electoral Integrity Project, we measure the level of gerrymandering according to country expert surveys in Lower House elections in 54 democracies from the second half of 2012 until the first half of 2015. We show that majoritarian systems are more prone to gerrymandering than mixed-member and above all in Proportional Representation (PR) systems. When majoritarian systems are employed in large countries, gerrymandering is exa…
Multi-Level Electoral Politics
National-level elections receive more attention from scholars and the media than elections at other levels, even though in many European countries the importance of both regional and European levels of government has grown in recent years. The growing importance of multiple electoral arenas suggests that scholars should be cautious about examining single levels in isolation. Taking the multi-level structure of electoral politics seriously require…
Accountability across Elections: Beyond the Second-Order Election Model
How do voters use elections as mechanisms of accountability in the multi-level systems in France, Germany, and Spain? The extent to which the voters attribute blame or credit for economic outcomes to the government at any one level depends on whether the voter believes that the government at that level plays an important role in shaping the economy. Also examined are voter opinions about corruption in government across all three levels. This is a…
Challenge or Consent? Understanding Losers’ Reactions in Mass Elections
The conditions under which losers are willing to challenge the results of elections remain an open question. Using data from the Electoral Integrity Project for 66 democratic and non-democratic countries in 2012 and 2013, we measure how parties or candidates react once votes have been cast and one of them is declared the winner. Do they accept or challenge the results? This measure allows us to examine the causal mechanisms that account for the s…
The Bright Side of the Economic Crisis: The Attribution of Political Responsibilities in Hard Times
We examine the impact of the current economic crisis on the accuracy of responsibility attribution between levels of government within states. Using individual-level data from Spain, we show that learning about responsibility attribution depends on the saliency of the issue (in our study, unemployment) and economic self-interest. The (unintended) positive consequence of economic crisis is that citizens are now more able to accurately attribute th…
Regulating Disinformation: Poll Embargo and Electoral Coordination
This article examines the political consequences of pre–Election Day poll restrictions. Our argument is that laws forbidding the publication of polling results hamper voters’ electoral coordination when the information environment is more complex. We rely on aggregated data from elections in 46 democracies to show that the number of wasted votes increases in countries with highly fragmented party systems when pre–Election Day polls are restricted…
Defining and measuring party system nationalization
In this paper, we propose a new measure of party system nationalization based on a minimalist definition of the phenomenon. A perfectly nationalized party system is a party system with only national parties or, in other words, without sub-national parties. Instead of the homogeneity of parties’ vote shares or the number of parties throughout the country, our measure captures the aspirations of parties to be national whose proxy is the proportion …
Strategic voting in proportional representation systems: Evidence from a natural experiment
Relying on data from a natural experiment in Spain, I produce an unbiased estimate of the extent to which strategic voting occurs in multi-member districts. I show that voters have fully adapted to the different incentives provided by distinctive electoral systems in Spain since the first election and also that they behave strategically only when the opportunity to do so is present. That is, contamination effects do not seem to exist when voting …
Forgetting to make votes count: The role of previous democratic experience
Winning and Competitiveness as Determinants of Political Support
Objectives. This study examines the impact of competitiveness, winning, and ideological congruence on evaluations of democratic principles, institutions, and performance. We posit that winning matters most. Individuals will hold favorable views toward democracy when it produces the outcomes they desire, independent of other contextual factors associated with elections. Methods. We use cross‐sectional multiple regression models to analyze survey d…
Coordination between electoral arenas in multilevel countries
This article shows the existence of a coordination dilemma in multilevel countries that hold elections for different parliaments, at different territorial levels and with different electoral rules. With evidence from Spain, the analysis identifies interaction or contamination effects between national and subnational electoral arenas that generate, just as in most mixed‐member electoral systems, a centrifugal force that increases the number of ele…
A general measure of district competitiveness
Electoral Coordination Strikes Again: The 2008 General Election in Spain
This paper analyses the results of the 2008 general election in Spain. Using individual and aggregate data, we show that in 2008 voters' behaviour does not differ much from the previous national election in 2004. This indicates a certain level of continuity since 1993, with the exception of 2000 when the conservative Partido Popular gained an absolute majority due to an unusually low turnout. The 2008 elections also confirm the crucial role playe…
The 2006 Regional Election in Catalonia: Exit, Voice, and Electoral Market Failures
This paper analyses the results of the 2006 autonomous election in Catalonia and their implications for Spanish politics. In accordance with the analytical framework provided by Hirschman (Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, Harvard University Press, 1970), and using individual and aggregated data, we show that demands shared by a significant number of voters were unsatisfied in this election, provoking an electoral market failure and a consequential rise …
Más votos y menos escaños: El Impacto Del Sistema Electoral en Las Elecciones Autonómicas Catalanas De 2003
En este artículo revisamos (1) los mecanismos electorales que explican las victorias en escaños, pero no en votos, de CiU en las dos últimas elecciones autonómicas catalanas y (2) las posibles reformas electorales que se pueden acometer. Nuestra principal conclusión es que las mayorías parlamentarias artificiales de CiU no tienen tanto que ver con la desviación del prorrateo como con la variación de las magnitudes de distrito o "efecto de varianz…
A general measure of district competitiveness
Winning and Competitiveness as Determinants of Political Support
Objectives. This study examines the impact of competitiveness, winning, and ideological congruence on evaluations of democratic principles, institutions, and performance. We posit that winning matters most. Individuals will hold favorable views toward democracy when it produces the outcomes they desire, independent of other contextual factors associated with elections. Methods. We use cross‐sectional multiple regression models to analyze survey d…
Coordination between electoral arenas in multilevel countries
This article shows the existence of a coordination dilemma in multilevel countries that hold elections for different parliaments, at different territorial levels and with different electoral rules. With evidence from Spain, the analysis identifies interaction or contamination effects between national and subnational electoral arenas that generate, just as in most mixed‐member electoral systems, a centrifugal force that increases the number of ele…
Forgetting to make votes count: The role of previous democratic experience
Defining and measuring party system nationalization
In this paper, we propose a new measure of party system nationalization based on a minimalist definition of the phenomenon. A perfectly nationalized party system is a party system with only national parties or, in other words, without sub-national parties. Instead of the homogeneity of parties’ vote shares or the number of parties throughout the country, our measure captures the aspirations of parties to be national whose proxy is the proportion …
The 2006 Regional Election in Catalonia: Exit, Voice, and Electoral Market Failures
This paper analyses the results of the 2006 autonomous election in Catalonia and their implications for Spanish politics. In accordance with the analytical framework provided by Hirschman (Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, Harvard University Press, 1970), and using individual and aggregated data, we show that demands shared by a significant number of voters were unsatisfied in this election, provoking an electoral market failure and a consequential rise …
Electoral coordination and party system institutionalization
A new theoretical development for examining the institutionalization of party systems is proposed in this article. We build on electoral coordination theories to disaggregate volatility into the vote transfers that occur between or towards parties that are in equilibrium (which we call endogenous volatility) and those that are not (exogenous volatility). The former captures accountability, and the latter reflects the number of voters who are not …
Challenge or Consent? Understanding Losers’ Reactions in Mass Elections
The conditions under which losers are willing to challenge the results of elections remain an open question. Using data from the Electoral Integrity Project for 66 democratic and non-democratic countries in 2012 and 2013, we measure how parties or candidates react once votes have been cast and one of them is declared the winner. Do they accept or challenge the results? This measure allows us to examine the causal mechanisms that account for the s…
Strategic voting in proportional representation systems: Evidence from a natural experiment
Relying on data from a natural experiment in Spain, I produce an unbiased estimate of the extent to which strategic voting occurs in multi-member districts. I show that voters have fully adapted to the different incentives provided by distinctive electoral systems in Spain since the first election and also that they behave strategically only when the opportunity to do so is present. That is, contamination effects do not seem to exist when voting …
Turnout and social fractionalisation
Social fractionalisation has been omitted in most influential cross-sectional studies on turnout, and when it has been included, evidence is, at best, mixed. This article addresses this gap from two perspectives. First, using aggregated data from 22 countries we show that turnout is inversely related to ethnolinguistic fractionalisation, even after controlling for institutional, political and socioeconomic determinants. Second, we rely on data fr…
Regulating Disinformation: Poll Embargo and Electoral Coordination
This article examines the political consequences of pre–Election Day poll restrictions. Our argument is that laws forbidding the publication of polling results hamper voters’ electoral coordination when the information environment is more complex. We rely on aggregated data from elections in 46 democracies to show that the number of wasted votes increases in countries with highly fragmented party systems when pre–Election Day polls are restricted…
Gerrymandering in comparative perspective
Using data from the Electoral Integrity Project, we measure the level of gerrymandering according to country expert surveys in Lower House elections in 54 democracies from the second half of 2012 until the first half of 2015. We show that majoritarian systems are more prone to gerrymandering than mixed-member and above all in Proportional Representation (PR) systems. When majoritarian systems are employed in large countries, gerrymandering is exa…
Electoral Coordination Strikes Again: The 2008 General Election in Spain
This paper analyses the results of the 2008 general election in Spain. Using individual and aggregate data, we show that in 2008 voters' behaviour does not differ much from the previous national election in 2004. This indicates a certain level of continuity since 1993, with the exception of 2000 when the conservative Partido Popular gained an absolute majority due to an unusually low turnout. The 2008 elections also confirm the crucial role playe…
The psychological effect of electoral systems in founding elections
In this research note, I revisit the conventional wisdom about when the psychological effect of electoral systems is observed. I rely on data from the first presidential and legislative elections in 45 third- and fourth-wave presidential and semi-presidential regimes to show that the psychological effect of electoral systems manifests itself in the first election. The effective number of legislative parties is significantly higher than the effect…
The Bright Side of the Economic Crisis: The Attribution of Political Responsibilities in Hard Times
We examine the impact of the current economic crisis on the accuracy of responsibility attribution between levels of government within states. Using individual-level data from Spain, we show that learning about responsibility attribution depends on the saliency of the issue (in our study, unemployment) and economic self-interest. The (unintended) positive consequence of economic crisis is that citizens are now more able to accurately attribute th…
Más votos y menos escaños: El Impacto Del Sistema Electoral en Las Elecciones Autonómicas Catalanas De 2003
En este artículo revisamos (1) los mecanismos electorales que explican las victorias en escaños, pero no en votos, de CiU en las dos últimas elecciones autonómicas catalanas y (2) las posibles reformas electorales que se pueden acometer. Nuestra principal conclusión es que las mayorías parlamentarias artificiales de CiU no tienen tanto que ver con la desviación del prorrateo como con la variación de las magnitudes de distrito o "efecto de varianz…
The glories of immigration: How soccer wins shape opinion on immigration
While there is a great deal of anecdotal evidence on the impact of soccer wins on attitudes toward immigrants and immigration, there is relatively little hard empirical evidence. It is expected that soccer stimulates more positive attitudes towards immigrants when it highlights immigration benefits rather than costs and increases exposure to famous members of an out-group. Individual-level data from the eight rounds of the European Social Survey …
Party Mobilization and Electoral Systems
How party strategies vary by electoral system remains largely unexplored in election studies. Using qualitative and quantitative data from Spanish national and European elections, we test how party strategies diverge between districted electoral systems and systems using a single national district. We use the number of visits to districts by the party leaders to determine if targeted party strategies are driven by district magnitude, the share of…
The strategic determinants of legislative malapportionment in new democracies
Más votos y menos escaños: El Impacto Del Sistema Electoral en Las Elecciones Autonómicas Catalanas De 2003
En este artículo revisamos (1) los mecanismos electorales que explican las victorias en escaños, pero no en votos, de CiU en las dos últimas elecciones autonómicas catalanas y (2) las posibles reformas electorales que se pueden acometer. Nuestra principal conclusión es que las mayorías parlamentarias artificiales de CiU no tienen tanto que ver con la desviación del prorrateo como con la variación de las magnitudes de distrito o "efecto de varianz…
The 2006 Regional Election in Catalonia: Exit, Voice, and Electoral Market Failures
This paper analyses the results of the 2006 autonomous election in Catalonia and their implications for Spanish politics. In accordance with the analytical framework provided by Hirschman (Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, Harvard University Press, 1970), and using individual and aggregated data, we show that demands shared by a significant number of voters were unsatisfied in this election, provoking an electoral market failure and a consequential rise …
Electoral Coordination Strikes Again: The 2008 General Election in Spain
This paper analyses the results of the 2008 general election in Spain. Using individual and aggregate data, we show that in 2008 voters' behaviour does not differ much from the previous national election in 2004. This indicates a certain level of continuity since 1993, with the exception of 2000 when the conservative Partido Popular gained an absolute majority due to an unusually low turnout. The 2008 elections also confirm the crucial role playe…
Coordination between electoral arenas in multilevel countries
This article shows the existence of a coordination dilemma in multilevel countries that hold elections for different parliaments, at different territorial levels and with different electoral rules. With evidence from Spain, the analysis identifies interaction or contamination effects between national and subnational electoral arenas that generate, just as in most mixed‐member electoral systems, a centrifugal force that increases the number of ele…
A general measure of district competitiveness
Winning and Competitiveness as Determinants of Political Support
Objectives. This study examines the impact of competitiveness, winning, and ideological congruence on evaluations of democratic principles, institutions, and performance. We posit that winning matters most. Individuals will hold favorable views toward democracy when it produces the outcomes they desire, independent of other contextual factors associated with elections. Methods. We use cross‐sectional multiple regression models to analyze survey d…
Strategic voting in proportional representation systems: Evidence from a natural experiment
Relying on data from a natural experiment in Spain, I produce an unbiased estimate of the extent to which strategic voting occurs in multi-member districts. I show that voters have fully adapted to the different incentives provided by distinctive electoral systems in Spain since the first election and also that they behave strategically only when the opportunity to do so is present. That is, contamination effects do not seem to exist when voting …
Forgetting to make votes count: The role of previous democratic experience
Defining and measuring party system nationalization
In this paper, we propose a new measure of party system nationalization based on a minimalist definition of the phenomenon. A perfectly nationalized party system is a party system with only national parties or, in other words, without sub-national parties. Instead of the homogeneity of parties’ vote shares or the number of parties throughout the country, our measure captures the aspirations of parties to be national whose proxy is the proportion …
Regulating Disinformation: Poll Embargo and Electoral Coordination
This article examines the political consequences of pre–Election Day poll restrictions. Our argument is that laws forbidding the publication of polling results hamper voters’ electoral coordination when the information environment is more complex. We rely on aggregated data from elections in 46 democracies to show that the number of wasted votes increases in countries with highly fragmented party systems when pre–Election Day polls are restricted…
The Bright Side of the Economic Crisis: The Attribution of Political Responsibilities in Hard Times
We examine the impact of the current economic crisis on the accuracy of responsibility attribution between levels of government within states. Using individual-level data from Spain, we show that learning about responsibility attribution depends on the saliency of the issue (in our study, unemployment) and economic self-interest. The (unintended) positive consequence of economic crisis is that citizens are now more able to accurately attribute th…
Multi-Level Electoral Politics
National-level elections receive more attention from scholars and the media than elections at other levels, even though in many European countries the importance of both regional and European levels of government has grown in recent years. The growing importance of multiple electoral arenas suggests that scholars should be cautious about examining single levels in isolation. Taking the multi-level structure of electoral politics seriously require…
Accountability across Elections: Beyond the Second-Order Election Model
How do voters use elections as mechanisms of accountability in the multi-level systems in France, Germany, and Spain? The extent to which the voters attribute blame or credit for economic outcomes to the government at any one level depends on whether the voter believes that the government at that level plays an important role in shaping the economy. Also examined are voter opinions about corruption in government across all three levels. This is a…
Challenge or Consent? Understanding Losers’ Reactions in Mass Elections
The conditions under which losers are willing to challenge the results of elections remain an open question. Using data from the Electoral Integrity Project for 66 democratic and non-democratic countries in 2012 and 2013, we measure how parties or candidates react once votes have been cast and one of them is declared the winner. Do they accept or challenge the results? This measure allows us to examine the causal mechanisms that account for the s…
Turnout and social fractionalisation
Social fractionalisation has been omitted in most influential cross-sectional studies on turnout, and when it has been included, evidence is, at best, mixed. This article addresses this gap from two perspectives. First, using aggregated data from 22 countries we show that turnout is inversely related to ethnolinguistic fractionalisation, even after controlling for institutional, political and socioeconomic determinants. Second, we rely on data fr…
Gerrymandering in comparative perspective
Using data from the Electoral Integrity Project, we measure the level of gerrymandering according to country expert surveys in Lower House elections in 54 democracies from the second half of 2012 until the first half of 2015. We show that majoritarian systems are more prone to gerrymandering than mixed-member and above all in Proportional Representation (PR) systems. When majoritarian systems are employed in large countries, gerrymandering is exa…
The psychological effect of electoral systems in founding elections
In this research note, I revisit the conventional wisdom about when the psychological effect of electoral systems is observed. I rely on data from the first presidential and legislative elections in 45 third- and fourth-wave presidential and semi-presidential regimes to show that the psychological effect of electoral systems manifests itself in the first election. The effective number of legislative parties is significantly higher than the effect…
Party Mobilization and Electoral Systems
How party strategies vary by electoral system remains largely unexplored in election studies. Using qualitative and quantitative data from Spanish national and European elections, we test how party strategies diverge between districted electoral systems and systems using a single national district. We use the number of visits to districts by the party leaders to determine if targeted party strategies are driven by district magnitude, the share of…
The Oxford Handbook of Spanish Politics
This handbook examines Spanish politics and government since the transition to democracy. The volume studies the political history, institutional changes, bureaucratic decision-making, political behaviour, and foreign affairs of Spain. The introductory chapter provides an overview of the main themes of democratic Spain and discusses the end of Spanish exceptionalism. It also introduces Spanish politics to an international audience of scholars and…
Oxford Handbook of Spanish Politics
Public Administration and Its Problem-Solving Capacities
Spanish public administration belongs to the Rechtsstaat tradition in which the state is society’s driving force and relies on a procedural and legalistic system to engage with citizens. This chapter argues that this tradition has an impact on the state capacity, in particular in the coordination, delivery, and analytical functions of central government, whose role shifted towards coordination and regulation after the devolution of powers to the …
The glories of immigration: How soccer wins shape opinion on immigration
While there is a great deal of anecdotal evidence on the impact of soccer wins on attitudes toward immigrants and immigration, there is relatively little hard empirical evidence. It is expected that soccer stimulates more positive attitudes towards immigrants when it highlights immigration benefits rather than costs and increases exposure to famous members of an out-group. Individual-level data from the eight rounds of the European Social Survey …
Electoral coordination and party system institutionalization
A new theoretical development for examining the institutionalization of party systems is proposed in this article. We build on electoral coordination theories to disaggregate volatility into the vote transfers that occur between or towards parties that are in equilibrium (which we call endogenous volatility) and those that are not (exogenous volatility). The former captures accountability, and the latter reflects the number of voters who are not …
Escenarios para la reforma del sistema de financiación de las comunidades autónomas en España: Entre los principios técnicos y las preferencias políticas
En este artículo se examina el sistema de financiación de las comunidades autónomas en España desde la economía y la ciencia política. Tras definir los principios básicos del federalismo fiscal y su relación con las preferencias políticas de los ciudadanos, discutimos los problemas del modelo vigente y sus posibles reformas en tres escenarios de federalismo débil, moderado y potente. El sistema de financiación autonómico en España se compara con …
The strategic determinants of legislative malapportionment in new democracies
Political science (24 works) · Law (19 works) · Politics (19 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (18 works) · Economics (17 works) · Law (16 works) · Democracy (14 works) · Political economy (14 works) · Public Administration (11 works) · Public Administration (8 works)