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Enhancing Democracy Through Legislative Redistricting

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Andrew Gelman  and
Gary King
Andrew Gelman
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Gary King
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Abstract

We demonstrate the surprising benefits of legislative redistricting (including partisan gerrymandering) for American representative democracy. In so doing, our analysis resolves two long-standing controversies in American politics. First, whereas some scholars believe that redistricting reduces electoral responsiveness by protecting incumbents, others, that the relationship is spurious, we demonstrate that both sides are wrong: redistricting increases responsiveness. Second, while some researchers believe that gerrymandering dramatically increases partisan bias and others deny this effect, we show both sides are in a sense correct. Gerrymandering biases electoral systems in favor of the party that controls the redistricting as compared to what would have happened if the other party controlled it, but any type of redistricting reduces partisan bias as compared to an electoral system without redistricting. Incorrect conclusions in both literatures resulted from misjudging the enormous uncertainties present during redistricting periods, making simplified assumptions about the redistricters' goals, and using inferior statistical methods.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 88 , Issue 3 , September 1994 , pp. 541 - 559
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1994

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