Guillotine effect
A guillotine effect is often used when the setting of an arithmetic value (a number or a quota) leads to a situation changing suddenly when this value is exceeded or not reached. Those affected by the guillotine effect lose the chance of being considered as mandate holders after an election or of financial benefits (in the form of exemption from payment obligations or receiving state subsidies). In a broader sense of the term, age limits can also act like a guillotine.
Case groups
elections
Consideration of votes according to proportional representation
An example of a guillotine effect are blocking clauses in elections according to proportional representation. The entry of a party or electoral community into the parliament of a regional authority is made dependent on the achievement of a certain proportion of the valid votes for the political association concerned. For example, parties that achieve 4.99 percent of the votes in a system with purely proportional representation (without the chance to win direct mandates) fail to get into parliament if the electoral law provides for a five percent hurdle . The consequence is that all candidates of the party concerned are not taken into account in the allocation of mandates. In the state election in Thuringia , which took place on October 27, 2019, it was not clear until November 7, 2019 that the FDP received 73 more votes in the election (= 0.0066 percent of the votes) than it received for moving into needed the Thuringian state parliament (5 percent of the vote).
Eligibility clauses affect voter behavior. Many voters believe that if they vote for their preferred party, x, they will give away their votes, as this party will not achieve the number of votes required for entry into the parliament. Corresponding predictions of the outcome of the election often act like a self-fulfilling prophecy . While in Austria the effectiveness of other effects that influence voter behavior is considered uncertain, the effectiveness of the guillotine effect is considered a fact there. Lists coming up, which are predicted that they will certainly not succeed in entering parliament, would be elected even fewer according to the forecast.
An impending “guillotine situation” can also lead to “endangered” parties receiving loan votes in the sense of a self-destructive prophecy , with the help of which they are supposed to overcome the threshold clause.
Consideration of votes in direct elections for holders of political offices
Many elections have a two-stage process: In the first ballot, more than two candidates stand for election; in a runoff election some time later, only the two candidates from the first round of voting who received the most votes will be considered. This often leads to the fact that voters in the first ballot do not give their actually preferred individual applicant their vote in order not to impair the chances of another candidate who appears to be “the lesser evil” and whom they trust to move into the second ballot.
As with the election of parties, the “guillotine” consists in the fact that “too few votes” (here: for an individual candidate in the first ballot) mean that he is not allowed to participate in the second ballot. If voters consider this election outcome to be likely, they often have the feeling that by choosing this candidate they are “giving away their vote”.
A similar effect (complete disregard of “too few” votes - in the extreme case one vote less than the winner; in the latter case, anyone who did not choose the runner-up is the “trigger of the guillotine” that makes him the loser) Parliamentary election systems with pure majority voting , in which exactly one candidate per constituency receives a mandate and all members of parliament in their constituency have received the most votes.
Exclusion of "too old" applicants for political office
In some federal states of the Federal Republic of Germany there is a maximum age that someone may not exceed who is running for the office of directly elected ( mayor ) . In 2011, on the day of the election, candidates in Baden-Württemberg , Bavaria , Lower Saxony , Rhineland-Palatinate , Saxony , Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia were not allowed to be older than 65 years, in Hesse not older than 67 years. The same was true in 2011 in some of the countries for district candidates . In the meantime, the age limit has been raised to 67 in some countries.
If the “critical” birthday of a possible applicant for the office of a municipal main administrative official lies within the corridor of possible elective election dates, the “guillotine” of excluding a potential candidate from the right to stand for election can be used in a targeted manner by the majority of the city or municipal council or the district council by setting an election date after this birthday. Not only incumbents are affected by this, since after the election there will definitely be a change in office if the incumbent cannot be elected, which increases the chances of success of the actual candidates.
Exemption limits in tax law
In the terminology of German tax law there is the term of the exemption limit . Exemption limits have the consequence that z. B. Although those who earn an income below the exemption limit do not have to pay income tax. However, if they exceed the exemption limit, then their income is fully taxable, including the previously untaxed amount below the exemption limit.
Up until 2011, there was also a guesswork-hatch effect in the granting of child benefit to parents of an adult daughter or an adult son in school or vocational training . Up until this year, German tax law stipulated that parents were only entitled to child benefit for this child if their taxable income did not exceed a certain amount that was set annually. In 2011, the amount of the “casualty” was € 8004 per year. If the child's income was € 8,005 or more, the parents completely lost their entitlement to child benefit for the reference year. Since 2012, however, only the status of the child has been taken into account in Germany, but no longer the amount of their income when checking eligibility.
The Federal Constitutional Court considers it to be constitutional if the legislature opts for the instrument of an exemption limit instead of an exemption, since "this regulation [...] considerably simplifies the implementation of the relevant norm by the tax authorities". The court does not use the term guillotine effect in the 2010 judgment. The proceedings before the BVerfG were triggered by a constitutional complaint from a father whose son had earned € 7,684.34 in 2005; the exemption limit for entitlement to child benefit was € 7,680 in 2005.
Origin of the term and criticism of its use
The term guillotine effect is linked to the act of beheading people using a guillotine or other killing devices. To the extent that when “guillotine effects” come into effect as a metaphor, it is not about the intention to kill people, the term is strictly speaking a hyperbola .
Kurt Reumann was the first to use the term guillotine effect in connection with the five percent clause in the Federal Republic of Germany .
Users of the term trigger the connotation that guillotine effects are "cruel" in that the lives of those affected by them change fundamentally when a threshold clause is applied or an exemption limit is exceeded. But actually mean z. B. 4.99 percent second votes in an election does not mean the end of the party concerned and not necessarily the end of the careers of their applicants for a parliamentary seat. In the majority of cases, parents who have to forego child benefit do not become “impoverished”, especially since in the case to be assessed by the BVerfG, the adult son was certified to have significantly relieved the family budget through the amount of his income.
literature
- Kurt Reumann: Is there a guillotine effect for the small parties? In: "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung". March 9, 1983
Individual evidence
- ^ Thuringian State Office for Statistics: State election 2019 in Thuringia - final result . 7th November 2019
- ↑ Stefanie Bersin: Popular surveys. Lending vote or guillotine effect? . Spiegel Online . September 21, 2002
- ↑ Hellin Jankowski: A survey picture that shouldn't actually exist. diepresse.com. October 11, 2017
- ↑ 2017 Bundestag election: How polls work - on journalists and voters . University of Hohenheim . 20th September 2017
- ↑ Maximilian Baßlsperger: Age limit for mayors . Rehm publishing house. August 8, 2011
- ↑ Lower Saxony State Returning Officer: Basics of Lower Saxony's local electoral system
- ↑ Karlsruhe confirms guesswork with child benefit . welt.de. August 12, 2010
- ↑ Child benefit for children of legal age . Kindergeld.org. January 21, 2019
- ↑ Federal Constitutional Court: Order of July 27, 2010 - 2 BvR 2122/09 ( online )