Electoral Systems and Party Systems

Abstract An electoral system is the most fundamental element of representative democracy, translating citizen's votes into representatives' seats. It is also the most potent practical instrument available to democratic reformers. This book describes and classifies the seventy electoral systems used by twenty-seven democracies — including those of Western Europe, Australia, Canada, the USA, Costa Rica, India, Israel, Japan, and New Zealand — for 384 national legislative and European Parliament elections between 1945 and 1990. Using comparative and statistical analyses of these systems, the author demonstrates the effect of the electoral formula used, the number of representatives elected per district, electoral thresholds, and of five other key features of electoral systems on the proportionality of the election outcome, the degree of multipartism, and the creation of majority parties. The author reveals that electoral systems are neither as diverse nor as complex as is often assumed. This book represents the most definitive treatment of the subject since Rae's classic study in 1967, based as it is on more accurate and comprehensive data (covering more countries and a longer timespan), and using stronger hypotheses and better analytical methods.