The Paradox of Redistricting: How Partisan Mapmakers Foster Competition but Disrupt Representation

The authors examine constituency changes induced by redistricting and ask three questions: What explains the amount of instability and uncertainty induced by redistricting? Does uncertainty affect legislators ’ career choices? How do these changes affect election outcomes? The authors show that partisan redistricting plans are able to produce significant instability between elections, especially for opposing-party incumbents. Their findings have important implications for representation: through redistricting, strategic actors can disrupt the stability that many theorists would consider paramount for the operation of a democratic republic. The authors show that the effects of redistricting go beyond the simple examination of changes in each district’s underlying partisanship