The following cartogram series provides a detailed look into the changed political landscapes in Germany following this year’s general election. While the previous maps gave an insight into the strongest party in each constituency, these maps give a clearer picture of the vote share distribution that also determines the constitution of parliament which follows a system of proportional representation. Continue reading
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Bundestagswahl 2017: Electoral cartograms of Germany
The re-election of Angela Merkel as chancellor of Germany in yesterday’s federal election (Bundestagswahl) came as little surprise. Yet the final result was still widely seen as a political earthquake. The extreme right ‘Alternative for Germany‘ (Alternative für Deutschland, AfD) entered the federal parliament (Bundestag) with 12.6% of the second vote (Zweitstimme) that determines the proportional distribution of seats (having gained 7.9% compared to the 2013 election). With 94 seats, the party has become the third largest after CDU (26.8%, 200 seats, having lost 7.4%) and SPD (20.5%, 153 seats, having lost 5.2%). FDP re-entered parliament with 10.7% of the second vote (up by 6.0%, 80 seats). Former opposition leader Die Linke went up by 0.6% to 9.2% (69 seats), followed by Grüne at 8.9% (67 seats, having gained 0.5%). CDU’s sister party in Bavaria, CSU, lost 1.2% and is at 6.2% (46 seats).
AfD’s rise is the most significant change in the political landscape which also becomes visible on the new electoral maps of this year’s election. The following two maps show the distribution of the largest party in the first and second vote. In the southern parts of east Germany (Saxony) AfD managed to win three constituencies with the first-past-the-post first vote, and also became the largest party in eight constituencies in the second vote that decides on each party’s proportional representation in parliament.
Apart from this change, the electoral landscape of the strongest party in each constituency remains similar to previous elections: SPD, despite their losses, remains strongest in the urban areas of north-, central- and western Germany and are stronger in the constituency vote, while CDU dominates rural regions and much of Southern Germany except for Bavaria where CSU is taking CDU’s role. Die Linke only becomes visible as a winner in East Germany, while the Green Party holds on to its only constituency seat in Berlin:
Unequal Elite: World University Rankings 2016/17
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Education and money undoubtedly go hand in hand. A closer look at the metrics that go into the creation of higher education rankings such as the Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings (THE WUR) proofs just the point that without adequate resources and funding global success can hardly be achieved. The following map which was created by analysing data of the 2016/17 World University Ranking data with regards to its spatial distribution of the most successful universities in this ranking. The map is a gridded cartogram which is reshaped to show national wealth, measured by gross domestic product. The land area in each country has been resized to reflect economic output. North America and Western Europe bugle to dominate this world map, while the entire continent of Africa virtually disappears. On this new world map, all the universities in the THE World University Rankings are plotted, with the larger, red dots representing world’s top 50 universities and the smaller circles representing the lower ranks:
Political Landscapes of the United Kingdom in 2017
How much has the United Kingdom changed following the second general election within two years, and following the referendums on independence in Scotland in 2014 and the membership of the European Union in 2016? Each poll appeared to have had a significant impact on the political debate and the next vote which never seemed far away. As such, the 2017 general election looks like the culmination of the preceding ballots where all of the previous debates got a more or less prominent mention during the electoral campaign. Ultimately this led to some significant changes in the political landscapes of the country with each corner of the United Kingdom being affected by these dynamics.
Politicians, spin doctors and commentators quickly aim to interpret the outcome according to their views. In contrast, the following series of maps showing some key statistics and data from the election results aims to provide a more neutral as well as more comprehensive look at the underlying geographies. It shows different angles on key characteristics such as winners and runners-up in each constituency, changes in votes, vote shares of the two largest parties, turnout and changes in turnout between the last two general elections.
In this feature, different cartographic techniques are used to show how the electoral landscape in the UK is shaped not only by physical space, but also by political dimensions as well as from the perspective of people. The conventional (land area) map is therefore complemented by a hexagon cartogram where each parliamentary constituency is represented by a hexagon (some changes in constituencies over the past decades are reflected in split and merged hexagons), and by a gridded population cartogram where each area is resized according to the number of people living in that area.
Each of the three maps therefore provides a unique insight into the diverse spatial patterns of politics that emerged from the 2017 general election. To fully understand the new political landscapes of the United Kingdom, only a combination of different perspectives as shown here can help to gain a more complete picture. Geography matters not only in its physical dimension, but just as much in its social and political spaces that are depicted in these maps.
Here is the ultimate cartographic wrap-up of the 2017 general election in 21 maps:
Conservative vote share
(click for larger and labelled version)
Labour vote share
(click for larger and labelled version)
Britain elects: The changes
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“Nothing has changed” was the infamous quote made by Theresa May during this year’s UK election campaign over a policy u-turn. This marked the beginning of a reverse of the Conservative support in the polls which eventually led to the changes that changed the political geography of the United Kingdom significantly when compared to the just as surprising result of the 2015 election. The following map uses the same approach as the previous map series showing the winning party in each constituency, but adds further detail to the picture by also highlighting how seats have changed between the last and this election:
Britain elects: The results (summer edition 2017)
The United Kingdom went to the polls…again. Following the general election in 2015 and the referendum on the country’s membership in the European Union in 2017, the British electorate had yet another chance to have their say about the country’s future. After the then prime minister David Cameron delivered referendum which he had promised to win the 2015 election, the British electorate voted for leaving the European Union by a small majority of 51.9% which led to Cameron’s resignation. Theresa May took over leadership of the Conservative party and became Prime Minister in July 2016. After first resisting calls for a general election, she eventually decided otherwise in the expectation of strengthening her conservative majority during the Brexit process. However, the election on June, 8th led to the opposite. The Conservative party lost its majority in parliament with the Labour party making significant gains. The following map series shows the result of the election from three perspectives. The conventional map (left) provides the most common perspective, while the hexagon-map gives a clearer picture of the distribution of parliamentary seats where each seat is represented by a hexagon (middle, changes in constituencies results in some hexagons being split). The gridded population cartogram (right) provides the most accurate depiction of how many people are represented by each party, as it gives each person in the UK an equal amount of space (while constituencies vary sometimes significantly in their population size):
