Electoral Engineering

ELECTORAL ENGINEERING ~ CHAPTER 1 ~ NORRIS 8/9/2003 5:09 PM
Electoral Engineering:
Voting Rules and Political Behavior
Pippa Norris
Harvard University
www.pippanorris.com
[email protected]
Synopsis: From Kosovo to Kabul, the last decade witnessed growing interest in ‘electoral
engineering’. Reformers have sought to achieve either greater government accountability
through majoritarian arrangements or wider parliamentary diversity through proportional
formula. Underlying the normative debates are important claims about the impact and
consequences of electoral reform for political representation and voting behavior. This study
compares and evaluates two broad schools of thought, each offering contrasting expectations.
One popular approach claims that formal rules define the electoral incentives facing parties,
politicians, and citizens. By changing the rules, rational choice institutionalism claims that we
have the capacity to shape political behavior among politicians and citizens. Reformers believe
that electoral engineering can solve multiple social problems, whether by mitigating ethnic
conflict, strengthening voter-party bonds, generating democratic accountability, or boosting
women’s representation. Alternative cultural modernization theories differ in their emphasis on
the primary motors driving human behavior, their expectations about the pace of change, and
also their assumptions about the ability of formal institutional rules to alter, rather than adapt
to, deeply embedded and habitual social norms and patterns of human behavior.
To consider these issues, this paper sets out the theoretical framework, derived from
the introduction to a new book ‘Electoral Engineering’ forthcoming with Cambridge University
Press, New York in Spring 2004. The book compares the consequences of electoral rules and
cultural modernization for many dimensions of political representation and voting behavior,
including issues of electoral behavior in patterns of party competition, the strength of social
cleavages and party loyalties, and levels of turnout, and questions of political representation in
the gender and ethnic diversity of parliaments, and the provision of constituency service.
Systematic evidence is drawn the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems based on surveys of
parliamentary and presidential contests held in over thirty countries ranging from the United
States, Australia and Switzerland to Peru, Taiwan and Ukraine. The book concludes that
formal rules do matter, with important implications for the choice of electoral systems.
Paper for Panel 34-6 ‘How Do Rules Matter? Electoral Systems and Voting Behavior’ at the
Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, 10.00-11.45am Sunday 31st
August 2003, Philadelphia.
1
Do Rules Matter? Structure versus culture

From Kosovo to Kabul, the last decade has witnessed growing interest in ‘electoral
engineering’. The end of the Cold War, the global spread of democracy, and new thinking
about development spurred this process. During the late 1980s and early 1990s the flowering of
transitional and consolidating third wave democracies around the globe generated a wave of
institution building. International agencies like the World Bank came to understand that good
governance was not a luxury that could be delayed while more basic social needs were being
met, like the provision of clean water, basic health care and schooling. Instead the establishment
of democracy was understood as an essential pre-condition for effective human development
and management of poverty, inequality and ethnic conflict1. The donor community recognized
that the downfall of many corrupt dictatorships in Latin America, Central Europe, Asia and
Africa created new opportunities for political development2. Subsequent histories show that the
process of deepening democracy and good governance has proved fraught with many
difficulties, with little change to many repressive regimes in the Middle East, only fragile and
unstable consolidation in Argentina and Venezuela, and even occasional reversions back to
authoritarian rule exemplified by Zimbabwe and Pakistan3.
International agencies have used a triple strategy to promote democracy. Institution
building has been one priority, by strengthening independent judiciaries and effective
legislatures designed to curb and counterbalance executive powers. Civic society has been
another, with attempts to nurture grassroots organizations, advocacy NGOs, and independent
media. But among all the strategies, attempts to establish competitive, free and fair elections
have attracted the most attention. Only the ballot box provides regular opportunities for the
public to select representatives, to hold governments to account, and to ‘kick the rascals out’,
where necessary. Electoral systems are commonly regarded as some of the most basic democratic
structures, from which much else flows. Elections are not sufficient by themselves for
representative democracy, by any means, but they are a necessary minimal condition. Views
differ sharply about the appropriate evaluative criteria but most agree that at minimum
elections must meet certain essential conditions to ensure democratic legitimacy. They should
be free of violence, intimidation, bribery, vote rigging, irregularities, systematic fraud, and
deliberate partisan manipulation. Contests should provide an unrestricted choice of competing
parties and candidates, without repression of opposition parties or undue bias in the
distribution of campaign resources and media access. Elections should use fair, honest, efficient
and transparent procedures from voter registration to the final vote tally. Parliamentary
representatives should reflect the society from which they are drawn and not systematically
exclude any minority group. And campaigns should generate widespread public participation4.
Where rulers have blocked, derailed or corrupted the electoral process in attempts to retain
power, as in Burma, Zimbabwe or Iraq, this has undermined their legitimacy and attracted
critical scrutiny.
Until the 1980s, international electoral assistance was fairly exceptional, applied only
in special cases, such as in the first transfer of power following decolonization or the end of civil
wars. Yet from the early 1990s onwards, international observers, technical aid experts, and
constitutional advisers played a leading role as dozens of transitional elections occurred
throughout Central and Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America. Attempts to deepen and
strengthen good governance have focused on the basic design of electoral systems, and more
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generally on issues of electoral administration, voter education, election observing, and party
capacity-building5. Elections played a particularly important role in attempts to manage ethnic
tensions in plural societies such as Bosnia-Herzegovina. Debates about electoral systems have
traditionally revolved around the desirability of the major ideal types. Majoritarian electoral
systems are designed to promote accountable single-party government, by awarding the greatest
representation to the two leading parties with the most votes. Proportional electoral systems aim
to generate inclusive and consensual power sharing, by producing parliaments that reflect the
vote shares of multiple parties. During the 1990s debates turned increasingly towards the pros
and cons of ‘combined’ (or ‘mixed’) electoral systems, incorporating features of each of the
major ideal types6.
Interest in electoral engineering has not been confined to ‘third wave’ democracies.
During the postwar era, electoral systems have usually proved relatively stable institutions in
most established democracies. Nevertheless occasional modifications to electoral law have
occurred, including minor adjustment to voting thresholds, electoral formulas, and suffrage
qualifications7. Moreover some long-standing democracies have implemented far more radical
reforms of the basic electoral system during the last decade. In the United Kingdom, the Blair
government radically overhauled the electoral system of first-past-the-post, with alternative
systems adopted at almost every level except for Westminster and local councils8. In 1993 New
Zealand, after more than a century of first-past-the-post, the nation switched to a mixed-
member proportional system, producing a sudden fragmentation of the two-party system9. In
1992 Israel introduced direct elections for the prime minister to create a stronger executive
capable of counterbalancing party fragmentation in the Knesset and overcoming the problems
of frequent government turnover10. The following year Italy changed. After prolonged debate
about the best way to overcome unstable party governments, and a deep crisis in the
parliamentary system, Italy adopted a combined electoral system where three-quarters of the
parliamentary seats were distributed by plurality vote in single member districts and the
remaining one-quarter as a proportional compensation for minor parties11. Venezuela, one of
Latin America’s oldest democracies, aiming to strengthen the independence of elected members
over the national party leadership, changed in 1993 from a closed list PR system for the
Chamber of Deputies to a combined system12. In March 1994, Japan moved from a Single
Non-Transferable Vote to a system combining PR seats with first-past-the-post single-member
districts, in the attempt to craft a competitive two-party, issue-oriented politics, and a cleaner,
more efficient government13. Beyond the basic electoral formula, many democracies have
overhauled electoral procedures by reforming the legal statutes and party rules to facilitate
positive action for women, improving the administrative process of electoral registration and
voting facilities, and revising the regulation of campaign finance and broadcasting14.
During the last decade, therefore, issues of effective democratic design have risen
sharply on the policy agenda in many nations. The first ‘founding’ contests held under any
revised rules may prove anomalous and unstable, as citizens and parties learn the ropes, but
their effects can be assessed more reliably after a decade of elections held under the revised
arrangements. Attempts at electoral engineering have commonly sought to achieve a balance
between greater democratic accountability through majoritarian systems or wider parliamentary
diversity through proportional systems. Underlying the long-standing normative debates are
certain important empirical claims about the consequences of electoral engineering for voting
choices and for political representation. Electoral reform is founded upon the principle that
altering the formal rules matters based on the assumption that certain desirable consequences
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for social and political engineering can be achieved through the public policy process. There is
certainly persuasive evidence that electoral rules have important mechanical effects as they help
to determine which candidates are elected to parliament and which parties enter government.
This is an essential function in representative democracies. Even if electoral rules had no other
impact, this still provides ample justification for their study. But do formal rules have important
psychological effects with the capacity to alter the behavior of political actors and citizens15? Far
less agreement surrounds this question.
To understand these issues, this book compares and evaluates alternative perspectives
offered by rational-choice institutionalism and cultural modernization theories. These broad
schools of thought shape the literature, each with multiple contributors. Each offers contrasting
expectations about the impact and the consequences of electoral engineering on human
behavior, one more optimistic, one more cautious. Each also reflects deeper divisions within the
social sciences. Both perspectives offer alternative interpretations about how far political actors
will respond to changes in the formal rules of the game, resting ultimately upon contrasting
visions of human behavior. Of course many other perspectives are possible, such as historical
institutionalism emphasizing the distinctive process of path-dependency in any nation. There
are also general cultural theories, which do not make any assumptions about processes of
societal development. The framework chosen as the focus in this book should not be regarded
as providing an exhaustive and definitive overview of the arguments. Nevertheless the two
approaches that are the selected focus of this study can be regarded as among the most pervasive
and important theories. Essentially rational-choice institutionalism assumes that formal
electoral rules have a substantial impact upon the strategic incentives facing politicians, parties
and citizens, so that changing the formal rules has the capacity to alter political behavior. Yet it
remains unclear how much formal rules and strategic incentives matter in comparison with
deep-rooted cultural ‘habits of the heart’ arising from the process of societal modernization; and
we know even less about how structure and culture interact. This, in a nutshell, is the central
puzzle to be unraveled at the heart of this book. Rules are thought to have multiple
consequences so this study focuses upon understanding their potential impact upon many
important dimensions of electoral behavior and political representation. The most important
aspects of voting behavior concern patterns of party competition, the strength of social cleavages
and party loyalties, and levels of electoral turnout. Political representation is compared by the
inclusion of women and ethnic minorities in elected office, and the provision of constituency
service.
The aim of this book is therefore to reintegrate two strands in the literature. One rich
and extensive set of studies has long sought to understand electoral systems through classifying
the formal rules, deducing certain consequences, and analyzing the evidence from aggregate
election results held under different systems. Another substantial literature has sought to
analyze how voters respond to the electoral choices before them, based on the evidence from
individual-level national surveys of the electorate, and more occasional experiments or focus
groups, often studied within each country or region in isolation from their broader institutional
context. What this study seeks to do is to reintegrate some of the core strands in these
literatures, so that we can explore how formal electoral rules (the independent variable) shape the
strategic behavior of political actors (both parties and politicians, as the intervening variables)
and how, in turn, the behavior of political actors affect voting choices (the dependent variable).
The study does not claim to be a comprehensive and exhaustive treatment of electoral systems
or voting behavior, but rather it seeks to open new questions and identify new challenges for
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further research that arise from combining these perspectives. The claim is made that the sum is
greater than the parts, and creative synthesis across the sub-fields of electoral systems and voting
behavior, even if difficult, can be a fruitful and illuminating path of inquiry. This introduction
first compares and clarifies the key assumptions made within each theoretical perspective then
summarizes the research design, comparative evidence, and overall plan of the book.
Rational-choice institutionalism and the calculus of rewards
The basic idea that formal rules determine political behavior is a popular approach to
understanding electoral laws, particularly common in rational choice institutionalism and
game-theoretic models, as well as implicit in the assumptions made within many legal, historical
and structural accounts of electoral systems. The core theoretical claim in rational-choice
institutionalism is that formal electoral rules generate important incentives that are capable of
shaping and constraining political behavior16. ‘Formal’ electoral rules are understood here as the
legislative framework governing elections, as embodied in official documents, constitutional
conventions, legal statutes, codes of conduct, and administrative procedures, authorized by law
and enforceable by courts. It is neither necessary nor sufficient for rules to be embodied in the
legal system to be effective; social norms, informal patterns of behavior, and social sanctions also
create shared mutual expectations among political actors. Nevertheless we focus here upon the
formal rules as most attention in the literature on electoral engineering has emphasized these as
core instruments of public policy17. The key distinction is that formal rules are open to
amendment by the political process, whether by legislation, executive order, constitutional
revision, judicial judgment, or bureaucratic decree. Although there is a ‘gray’ over-lapping area,
by contrast most social norms are altered gradually by informal processes such as social
pressures, media campaigns, and cultural value shifts located outside of the formal policy arena.
The account of rational choice institutionalism explored in this book rests upon a
series of claims, illustrated schematically in Figure 1.1:
1. Formal electoral rules shape the incentives facing political actors;
2. Political actors are rational vote-maximizers in pursuit of electoral office who respond
strategically to electoral incentives.
3. In particular, based on the formal rules, we hypothesize that:
3.1. According to the electoral threshold, parties decide whether to follow bridging or
bonding strategies,
3.2. According to the ballot structure, politicians calculate whether to offer
particularistic or programmatic benefits.
3.3. According to the ballot structure, parties choose whether to select socially
homogeneous or socially diverse legislative candidates;
4. Citizens respond to the alternative electoral strategies adopted by political actors, as
well as responding directly to electoral rules affecting their role as citizens, with
observable consequences evident in mass behavior;
5. Electoral engineering - changing the formal electoral rules - has the capacity to
generate major consequences by altering the strategic behavior of politicians, parties,
and citizens.
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Subsequent chapters compare systematic survey evidence to test whether formal rules do indeed
confirm to these expectations, as claimed. Before considering the data, what is the logic of this
argument?
[Figure 1.1 about here]
1. Electoral incentives
Rational-choice institutionalism is founded upon the premise that the rules adopted in
any political system have the capacity to shape the electoral rewards and punishments facing
political actors. That is to say, the theory assumes that the basic choice of either a proportional
or majoritarian electoral system, or more detailed matters such as the average size of electoral
districts, the type of ballot structure, or the use of statutory gender quotas, influence the
structure of opportunities for parties and individual politicians. To take a simple and
uncontroversial illustration, some countries have public financing of election campaigns, free
election broadcasting, and moreover legislative candidates are elected every four or five years on
the basis of closed party lists; within this context individual candidates have little incentive for
political fund-raising, and indeed they may have few opportunities to do this, even if they
wanted, because election financing may be strictly controlled. In other places there are frequent
elections, entrepreneurial candidates raise most funds on an individual basis, there are few or no
public subsidies covering the costs of election campaigns and limited party resources, political
advertising is commercially-priced and expensive, and rules controlling campaign expenditure
are lax. In such a context, candidates face every electoral incentive to devote much of their time
and energies to campaign fund-raising. In this regard, as in many others, formal electoral rules
are not neutral in their impact; instead they systematically benefit some while penalizing others.
2. Vote-maximizing political actors
The second premise of the theory assumes that political actors in representative
democracies are essentially vote-maximizers seeking office in the electoral marketplace. The idea
that politicians are only seeking public popularity is, of course, a drastic simplification given the
complex range of motivations driving the pursuit of power. Legislators may fail to follow this
logic because of many other priorities. Biographies suggest that politicians come in all shapes
and sizes. Elected representatives may prefer the cut-and-thrust drama of parliamentary debate
in the public spotlight to less-glamorous behind-the-scenes constituency casework. Ideologues
may opt for purity to fundamental principles rather than the ambulance-chasing pursuit of
public popularity (‘better red than dead’). Materialists may want to line their own pockets.
Philanthropists may be attracted to serve the public good. Status-seekers may enjoy the
seductive aphrodisiac of the Ministerial limo. Statespersons may seek to make their mark upon
the history books. Yet in all these cases the Darwinian theory predicts that politicians who are
not vote-maximizers, at least to some degree, will gradually become less common, because in
general they will be less successful in gaining election or re-election. This premise is empty of
content: it does not assume what particular strategies political actors will pursue to gain power,
merely that they will seek votes.
3.1 Party bridging or bonding strategies
If we accept these two premises as working assumptions or axioms they generate a
series of testable specific hypotheses about how certain formal electoral rules shape the
opportunities for politicians to garner votes.
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The first core hypothesis is that the electoral threshold will shape the inducements for
parties to campaign collectively using either bridging or bonding strategies. The theory that
parties are ‘masters of their fate’, so that they can actively reinforce or weaken party-voter
linkages, was developed by Przeworski and Sprague, and subsequently expanded by Kitschelt18.
But how does this process relate systematically to electoral rules? Majoritarian electoral systems
provide higher electoral hurdles, since parties need a simple plurality or a majority of votes in
each district to win. Under these rules, we theorize that successful parties will commonly adopt
‘bridging’ strategies designed to gather votes promiscuously and indiscriminately wherever
campaign support can be found among diverse sectors of the electorate19. Bridging parties seek
to create a broad coalition across diverse social and ideological groups in the electorate, typically
by focusing upon uncontroversial middle-of-the-road issues that are widely shared among the
public: the benefits of economic growth, the importance of efficient public services, and the
need for effective defense. These strategies bring together heterogeneous publics into loose,
shifting coalitions, linking different generations, faiths, and ethnic identities, thereby
aggregating interests and creating crosscutting allegiances. Bridging parties are highly permeable
and open organizations, characterized by easy-entrance, easy-exit among voters rather than by
fixed lifetime loyalties. This proposition suggests many important consequences, not least that
under majoritarian electoral rules, parties are likely to be centripetal socially and ideologically,
with competition clustered in the middle of the political spectrum20.
Alternatively proportional representation electoral systems provide lower hurdles to
office, based on a far smaller share of the electorate. Where there are lower electoral thresholds,
we hypothesize that parties will typically adopt bonding strategies. These appeals focus upon
gaining votes from a narrower home-base among particular segmented sectors of the electorate
– whether blue-collar workers, rural farmers, environmentalists, trade unionists, ethnic
minorities, older women, or Catholic church-goers. Bonding parties bring together citizens who
are homogeneous in certain important respects, whether sharing class, faith, or ethnic identities,
or bound together ideologically by common beliefs about capitalism and socialism,
environmentalism, or nationalism. Bonding parties are sticky organizations, promoting the
interests of their own members, and developing tightly knit social networks and clear one-of-us
boundaries. Such strategies are usually efficient for parties, since it is often easier to mobilize
niche sectors with specific social and ideological appeals that are distinctive to each party, rather
than trying to attract the mass public on consensual issues advocated by many parties. Party
systems under proportional rules are more likely to be centrifugal, with competition dispersed
throughout the ideological spectrum and issue space, rather than clustered closely around the
center-point21. Bonding parties maintain strong ties with social cleavages in the electorate and
enduring party loyalties. They are also more likely to be able to mobilize their supporters
through programmatic appeals, thereby maximizing turnout at the ballot box. One-of-us
campaigns reinforce party unity among ideologically motivated members, activists, and
politicians. This proposition predicts that the type of electoral rules will therefore have
important results for party campaign strategies and for voting behavior.
Through their bridging or bonding strategies, we assume that parties can either
reinforce or weaken the political salience of social and partisan identities. The linkages between
parties and citizens should therefore differ systematically according to the electoral threshold,
and therefore by the basic type of majoritarian, combined, or proportional electoral system. It is
not claimed that politicians have the capacity to create social cleavages. But the account assumes
that the initial adoption of certain electoral rules (for whatever reason) will generate incentives
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for parties to maintain, reinforce (and possibly exacerbate) the political salience of one-of-us
bonding, or alternatively to modify, downplay (and possibly erode) group consciousness by
encouraging catchall bridging. This is most important in plural societies divided by deep-rooted
ethnic conflict, exemplified by Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, or Israel/Palestine, if leaders can
heighten sectarian consciousness or alternatively moderate community divisions. The electoral
rules of the game should be regarded as one (although only one) of the critical influences
shaping the behavior of leaders and their followers.
In practice this distinction between bridging and bonding parties obviously involves
considerable over-simplification, as with any ideal type. Many parties blend both elements, as
complex organizations composed of different interests among party leaders, parliamentary
candidates and elected representatives, paid officers, grassroots members and more occasional
voters22. Case studies such as the British Labour party or the German SDP suggest that parties
are also capable of shifting type at different points of time, as they alternatively choose to
prioritize ideological purity or electoral popularity, rather than conforming strictly to fixed
categories. Despite these important limitations, some parties can be identified as ideal types at
both polar extremes, at least impressionistically, as well as recognizing the basic conceptual and
theoretical distinction. By comparing the strength of social cleavages, party loyalties, and
patterns of turnout evident in contests held under majoritarian, combined and proportional
electoral rules, this study can test how far there are indeed significant differences, as predicted
theoretically.
3.2 Particularistic or programmatic benefits
The second core hypothesis suggests that the ballot structure, determining how
electors can express their choices, is paramount in campaign strategies designed to secure
election23. Ballot structures can be classified into the following four categories based on the
choices facing citizens when they enter the voting booth:
Candidate-Ballots: In single member districts, citizens in each constituency cast a single
ballot for an individual candidate. The candidate winning either a plurality or majority of votes
in each district is elected. Through casting a ballot, electors indirectly express support for
parties, but they have to vote directly for a particular candidate. In this context, politicians have
a strong incentive to offer particularistic benefits, exemplified by casework helping individual
constituents and by the delivery of local services (‘pork’), designed to strengthen their personal
support within local communities24.
Preference-Ballots: In open-list multimember districts electors cast a ballot for a party,
but they can express their preference for a particular candidate or candidates within a party list.
Where citizens exercise a preference vote (otherwise known as an ‘open’ or ‘non-blocked’ vote),
this strengthens the chances that particular candidates from the list will be elected and therefore
changes their rank. Under these rules, politicians have a moderately strong incentive to offer
particularistic benefits, to stand out from rivals within their own party.
Dual-Ballots: In ‘combined’ (or ‘mixed’) electoral systems voters can cast separate
ballots in both single-member and multi-member districts, as exemplified by elections in Italy,
Germany and New Zealand.
Party-Ballots: Lastly in closed-list multimember districts, citizens cast a single ballot for
a party. Each party ranks the order of the candidates to be elected within their list, based on the
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decisions of the party selectorate, and the public cannot express a preference for any particular
candidate within each list. Closed-list multimember districts, where voters can only ‘vote the
ticket’ rather than supporting a particular candidate, are expected to encourage politicians to
offer programmatic benefits, focused on the collective record and program of their party, and to
strengthen cohesive and disciplined parliamentary parties25.
The ballot structures are therefore closely related to the basic type of electoral system,
although party-ballots can be used with both majoritarian and proportional systems. Other
secondary rules that may influence the incentives for constituency service concern the
centralization of the candidate selection processes within parties; the size of any multimember
districts; and any term limitations on legislators. Politicians have limited time and energies, and
in considering multiple demands vying for their attention, they have to decide among
alternative priorities. Where politicians face strong electoral incentives to stand out from other
rivals within their own party then they are expected to prioritize particularistic benefits offered
through constituency service, allowing elected members to claim credit for dealing with local
problems and community concerns. In this context, politicians will emphasize the delivery of
services and public goods (‘pork’) to their home district, as well as prioritizing contact with local
voters and party activists through their post-bags, community meetings, surgeries, and doorstep
canvassing. By contrast, closed list PR systems, where voters can only ‘vote the ticket’ rather
than supporting a particular candidate, generate few electoral incentives encouraging politicians
to offer constituency service. In this context, we can hypothesize that politicians will rationally
focus their efforts upon collective party appeals, typically based on their party’s retrospective
record in office or their prospective manifesto policies. Given accurate information about the
ballot structure, we theorize that successful vote-seeking politicians will rationally adopt
whichever particularistic or programmatic strategy is necessary for gaining and maintaining
office.
Of course some politicians may not conform to these expectations. Despite party
ballots, legislators may still engage in constituency service, because of tacit social norms,
informal rules within parliaments, or because some enjoy the intrinsic philanthropic rewards of
helping the public. Despite candidate ballots, given other personal ambitions, Westminster MPs
or US House Members may also prioritize the cut and thrust of legislative debate about the
nation’s affairs, or the glory and glamour of appearing in TV studios, while neglecting the more
prosaic matter of sorting out particular housing claims or welfare benefits with dusty
government bureaucracies26. Yet the Darwinian logic suggests that, if citizens reward
constituency service in candidate ballots, under these rules politicians who fail to behave
strategically will be less likely to be returned to parliament. Natural selection through the ballot
box means that over time the legislature will gradually become composed of politicians
pursuing more successful electoral strategies. These propositions can be examined
systematically by testing whether constituency service and voter contact with members does
indeed vary systematically under different ballot structures.
3.3 The diversity of parliamentary representatives
The third hypothesis suggests that the ballot structure also influences the diversity of
parliamentary bodies, by shaping the inducements for parties to select socially homogeneous or
socially diverse parliamentary candidates. Rational-choice institutionalism assumes that in
selecting candidates for parliament, parties will also act collectively in a vote-maximizing
manner, seeking popular standard-bearers. Yet when picking candidates, parties possess limited
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information about public preferences. To minimize electoral risks, as the default position, it is
rational for parties to re-select incumbents, and to choose new candidates that share similar
characteristics to representatives who have been elected in the past, thereby preserving the status
quo and creating a socially homogeneous parliament. Since many legislative elites are usually
disproportionately male, middle-aged professionals, such as lawyers, teachers and journalists, as
well as drawn from the predominant ethnic group in any society, it minimizes electoral risks to
select candidates with a similar social profile for future contests.
Yet this process may also be affected by electoral law, including the basic type of ballot
structure, as well as by the statutory adoption of gender or ethnic quotas, and the use of
reserved seats for women and ethnic minorities. Electoral rules can alter the balance of
incentives. Most obviously, statutory quotas create legal sanctions if parties fail to select a
minimum number of women or minority candidates. The basic type of ballot structure may be
important as well. Party ballots present voters with collective list of legislative candidates, and
parties risk an electoral penalty if they exclude any major social group. By contrast under
candidate ballots, each local party can pick their own contestant within each constituency,
without any collective accountability or electoral penalty for any overall social imbalance across
the whole party list. These propositions can be examined by seeing whether electoral rules are
consistently associated with the social diversity or homogeneity of parliamentary candidates.
4. The direct and indirect impact of rules upon citizens
How can we test these core hypotheses? This model assumes that formal electoral rules
(the independent variable) impact the behavior of rational politicians (the intermediate
variable). By shaping the strategies of political actors, we predict that rules exert an indirect
impact upon citizens (the dependent variable), as well as having the capacity to exert a direct
effect on the electorate. Despite their central importance in many rational-choice theories,
although we can make logically plausible deductions, we commonly lack directly observable
evidence of the electoral strategies adopted by political actors27. Before the contest, party
campaign tactics are often cloaked in official secrecy, like the battle plans of generals. Post-hoc
accounts of contests provided by party managers and politicians can be heavily colored by self-
serving post-hoc rationalizations (‘No, we never really tried to win California’). Proxy indicators
of campaign strategies can be found through analyzing patterns of campaign spending and
advertising, where reliable information is publicly available. Yet too often even this is absent,
especially where legal regulations are not enforced, or where disclosure of public accounts is
inadequate28. Through surveys or personal interviews it also remains difficult to establish
systematic cross-national evidence for patterns of constituency service among legislators (‘Sure, I
spend 30 hours a week on dealing with local case-work’), or the factors influencing the selection
of parliamentary candidates (‘We really choose the best candidate, irrespective of their race or
gender’). Nevertheless reliable evidence is widely available allowing us to document, compare,
and classify formal electoral rules, based on analysis of legal statutes, official electoral guidelines,
and written constitutions, as the independent variable. Moreover we can also analyze cross-
national surveys of voting behavior in the electorate, and also aggregate electoral results such as
the percentage of women in parliament or levels of electoral turnout, to measure the dependent
variables. If we can establish certain systematic pattern of electoral behavior and political
representation that are consistently associated with the type of electoral rules, then we can infer
the linkages between electoral rules, political actors, and voting behavior.
5. Reforming the formal electoral rules
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To recap the argument, given a few simple assumptions about rational motivations,
knowledge of the formal rule-based incentives should allow us to predict certain consistent
patterns of behavior. It follows that policy reforms that alter the formal rules – or electoral
engineering - should have the capacity to generate important consequences for political
representation and for voting behavior. As mentioned earlier, the international community has
become deeply engaged in attempts to generate free and fair elections in dozens of nations
around the globe, exemplified by the transitions following the collapse of the authoritarian
regime in Bosnia and Herzegovina, decolonization in East Timor, and the end of civil war in
Cambodia29. In established democracies, as well, beyond the basic electoral formula, debates
have also been common about the best way to overhaul electoral procedures. This includes
reforms to the legal statutes and party rules governing party eligibility and candidate
nomination, the administrative process of electoral registration and voting facilities, the
regulation of campaign finance and political broadcasting, and the process of election
management. Established democracies have introduced a range of reforms, whether switching
between d'Hondt and LR-Hare formula, adjusting the effective voting threshold for minor
parties to qualify for parliamentary representation, expanding the conditions of electoral
suffrage, or altering the size of their legislative assemblies30. In all these cases, it is assumed that
electoral reform has the capacity to overcome certain problems, such as the paucity of women in
elected office, the management of ethnic tensions, or civic disengagement. This account is
therefore worth investigating because it is theoretically important in the literature, but also
policy-relevant to real-world problems.
Rational-choice institutionalism generates certain important propositions that are
tested systematically in subsequent chapters. In particular, if the assumptions are correct, and
formal electoral rules do indeed shape the behavior of politicians, parties and citizens, then, all
other things being equal, systematic cross-national contrasts in voting behavior and in political
representation should be evident under different electoral rules. The impact of the basic type of
majoritarian, combined, and proportional electoral systems can be compared, along with
subsidiary legal rules such as the ballot structure, the use of statutory gender quotas, the
regulation of registration and voting facilities, and the employment of compulsory voting laws.
Chapters examine whether electoral rules are systematically related to many important
indicators, especially patterns of party competition, the strength of social cleavages and party
loyalties, levels of electoral turnout, the inclusion of women and ethnic minorities in
parliaments, and patterns of constituency service.
Cultural Modernization Theory and ‘Habits of the Heart’
The logic of rational-choice institutionalism is both powerful and attractive, with a
seductive elegance and a parsimonious Ockham’s razor capable of cutting through the swathe of
complexities in understanding human behavior. Formal legal rules embodied in written
constitutions, laws, and regulations can be carefully documented, exhaustively categorized,
precisely measured, and hence fruitfully compared across many nations. Yet of course it is
widely recognized that the rational calculus of rewards may have limited impact, for multiple
reasons. Deep-seated and habitual patterns of behavior may persist unaltered, frustrating the
dreams of electoral reformers. Political actors may be ill informed, blind, or unaware of the
potential consequences of institutional rules. Legislators may prioritize career goals such as the
achievement of programmatic policy goals, or rising up the greasy pole to higher office, over
immediate electoral rewards31. Rational-choice institutionalism can always be rescued by
11
stretching the notion of ‘career goals’ to cover many priorities for legislators beyond electoral
survival. But if so the danger is that any reward becomes equally rational, leading towards
empty tautologies with minimal predictive or analytical capacity. In the same way, parties may
determine their campaign strategies and tactics due to internal organizational structures,
factional power-struggles, and traditional tried-and-tested methods of campaigning, almost
irrespective of the calculation of any electoral benefits. And citizens may also fail to respond
rationally to the carrots and sticks designed by legal reformers. Strong party loyalists may ‘vote
the ticket’ in open list PR systems, supporting all party candidates listed on the ballot paper,
irrespective of their record of constituency service. Apathetic citizens may stay away from the
polls, even if registration and voting procedures are simplified32.
Alternative cultural modernization theories differ in their emphasis on the primary
motors driving human behavior, their expectations about the pace of change, and also their
assumptions about the ability of formal institutional rules to alter, rather than adapt to, deeply
embedded and habitual social norms and patterns of human behavior. While many assume that
cultural modernization matters, again it remains unclear how much it matters compared with
legal-institutional electoral rules. Cultural modernization theories, representing one of the
mainstream perspectives in voting behavior, share four basic claims (see Figure 1.2):
1. The process of societal modernization transforms the structure of society in
predictable ways. In particular, the shift from industrial to postindustrial societies
is associated with rising levels of human capital (education, literacy, and cognitive
skills).
2. Societal modernization has profound consequences for the political culture, with
new forms of citizen politics arising in post-industrial societies. The theory
predicts that there will be marked contrasts in the mass basis of electoral politics
evident in industrial and post-industrial societies, notably in the strength of social
identities and party loyalties, and patterns of electoral turnout.
3. The political culture is transmitted through the socialization process experienced in
early childhood and adolescence, including the acquisition of habitual social
norms and values. Political elites and citizens are driven primarily by affective
motivations, and by habitual ‘habits of the heart’, rather than by the strategic
calculation of rule-based rewards.
4. Electoral engineering has limited capacity to generate short-term changes in political
behavior, although reforms will probably have a cumulative impact in the longer
term as new generations grow up under different rules.
If these assumptions are correct, then systematic differences in political representation and mass
electoral behavior should be evident among societies at different levels of development,
especially contrast between industrial and postindustrial nations, even if countries share similar
electoral rules.
1. The process of societal modernization
Cultural modernization theories start from the premise that economic, cultural and
political changes go together in coherent ways, so that industrialization brings broadly similar
12
trajectories. Even if situation-specific factors make it impossible to predict exactly what will
happen in a given society, certain changes become increasingly likely to occur, but the changes
are probabilistic, not deterministic33. Modernization theories originated in the work of Karl
Marx, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim and these ideas were revived and popularized in the
late 1950s and early 1960s by Seymour Martin Lipset, Daniel Lerner, Walt Rostow, Karl
Deutsch, and Daniel Bell. Theories of cultural modernization were later developed most fully in
the work of Ronald Inglehart and Russell Dalton34. These accounts emphasize that mass
electoral behavior is profoundly influenced by the process of societal development, particularly
by rising levels of human capital in the transition from agrarian to industrial and then
postindustrial societies.
Modernization theories emphasize that traditional agrarian societies are characterized
by subsistence livelihoods largely based on farming, fishing, extraction and unskilled work, with
low levels of literacy and education, predominately agrarian populations, minimum standards of
living, and restricted social and geographic mobility. Citizens in these societies are strongly
rooted to local communities through ties of ‘ blood and belonging’, including those of kinship,
family, ethnicity and religion, as well as long-standing cultural bonds. The shift towards
industrial production leads towards a range of societal developments -- notably growing
prosperity and an expanding middle class, higher levels of education and literacy, the growth of
the mass media, and urbanization -- which in turn are believed to lay the social foundations for
democratic participation in the political system.
In the early 1970s, Daniel Bell popularized the view that after a certain period of
industrialization a further distinct stage of development could be distinguished, as a non-linear
process, in the rise of postindustrial societies35. For Bell the critical tipping point was reached
when the majority of the work force moved from manufacturing into the service sector,
generating profound social and economic shifts. These include the rise of a highly educated,
skilled and specialized workforce, the population shifts from urban to suburban neighborhoods
and greater geographic mobility including immigration across national borders, rising living
standards and growing leisure time, rapid scientific and technological innovation, the expansion
and fragmentation of mass media channels, technologies and markets, the growth of multi-
layered governance with power shifting away from the nation state towards global and local
levels, market liberalization and the expansion of non-profit social protection schemes, the
erosion of the traditional nuclear family, and growing equality of sex roles within the home,
family and workforce.
2. The impact of modernization on political culture
The account offered by Ronald Inglehart emphasized that societal developments have
profound consequences for political culture, in particular that postindustrial societies are
characterized by an extensive value shift, with important implications for the size of a new
citizen politics36. After World War II, post-industrial societies developed unprecedented levels of
prosperity and economic security, with rising standards of living fuelled by steady economic
growth, despite occasional cyclical downturns. Governments in these societies expanded the role
of the welfare state to provide greater social protection for the worst-off citizens; more recently,
contracting out services to the non-profit and private sectors, under state regulation. In
conditions of greater security, Inglehart theorizes, public concern about the material issues of
unemployment, healthcare, and housing no longer takes top priority. Instead in postindustrial
societies the public has given increasingly high priority to quality of life issues, individual
13
autonomy and self-expression, the need for environmental protection. Dalton theorizes that this
process has given rise to a new form of citizen politics, making greater demands for direct
participation in the policy-making process through activities such as petitions, protests and
demonstrations37.
Most importantly, the traditional party-voter loyalties, and the social identities upon
which these are founded, can be expected to erode in postindustrial societies, to be replaced by
more contingent patterns of party support based upon particular leaders, issues and events.
Many studies, discussed fully in chapters 5 and 6, have documented trends in partisan and
social dealignment occurring in many post-industrial societies. Growing levels of education and
cognitive skills, and the access this provides to a diverse range of information sources via the
mass media, are thought to play a particularly important role in transforming the basis of
individual voting behavior, representing a shift from the politics of loyalties towards the politics
of choice. Moreover, because the causes are essentially societal factors -- exemplified by changes
in educational levels, access to the mass media, and the decline of traditional political
organizations -- these processes are widely assumed to affect all post-industrial societies equally,
whether the Netherlands or Britain, the United States or Sweden, irrespective of the particular
electoral rules operating in each political system. If processes of societal modernization have
indeed shaped political cultures and patterns of electoral behavior, then, all other things being
equal, this should be evident by contrasts in voting behavior and political representation among
societies at different levels of human development, in particular we would expect to find substantial
differences between industrial and postindustrial societies.
3. The acquisition of enduring cultural values and the socialization process
Cultural modernization accounts are based upon traditional theories of socialization.
These assume that social and political values are gradually acquired during the formative years
in childhood and adolescence, due to early experiences in the home, school, community and
workplace, influenced by family, friends, teachers, neighbors, and colleagues. The formal rules
play a significant role in the acquisition of social norms and values during the formative years,
but in this theory once established, these stable patterns of human behavior are likely to persist
even if the institutions change. Cultural accounts emphasize that habitual patterns of electoral
behavior evolve slowly and incrementally, adapting new laws to existing social norms,
predominant practices, and enduring values. Society is regarded as the primeval ‘soup’ or base
from which the legal system arises as superstructure. In this view, for example, even if exactly
the same formal gender quota policies are implemented to generate positive action policies for
women in parliaments in Buenos Aires, Berlin, and Bogotá, the effect of these rules are likely to
vary in different contexts. In one society these laws may result in substantial gains for women
in elected office, yet in another the same regulations may exist on paper more than in practice.
Similar illustrations could be drawn concerning the failure of electoral laws governing
compulsory voting or party funding. What defeats these attempts at social engineering, skeptics
suggest, is the unwillingness of citizens and legal authorities to implement the statutes in
practice, the strength of tacit social norms and unwritten rules governing patterns of political
behavior, and the meaning and interpretation of any formal laws within a broader culture.
Hence, for example, the Single Transferable Vote system is used in Australia, Malta and
Ireland, and yet the effects of STV vary substantially in different countries38.
Cultural modernization theorists suggest that the political behavior of politicians and
citizens is shaped by multiple complex factors, especially by affective orientations towards the
14
predominant values, tacit norms, and attitudes in any society, rather than by any strategic
calculation of electoral rewards. Hence socio-psychological accounts emphasize that leaders
often have diverse motivations for pursuing a political career; some prioritize the need for
ideological purity, or the public-service role of legislative committee work, or the national
interest, rather than the simple pursuit of public popularity39. Along similar lines, the classic
‘Michigan’ social psychological studies of voting behavior, discussed fully in Chapter 5,
emphasize that citizens commonly know little about the government’s record, the party leaders,
or the policy platforms offered by each party40. Nevertheless many citizens do participate and in
this view they are guided by affective partisan identification, ideological shortcuts, and long-
standing ties between parties and social groups, based on class, ethnic, and regional identities.
Social-psychological studies emphasize that we should avoid generating post-hoc
rationalizations for human behavior that is, at heart, purely habitual and irrational.
4. The limits of electoral engineering
This account has important implications for understanding the pace of change
brought about through electoral engineering. The primary impact of any institutional reforms is
expected to be glacial and cumulative, as enduring social practices gradually adapt to the new
policies. In many older democracies, for example, when the suffrage qualification was first
expanded to women, the initial impact was a sharp fall in the overall level of electoral turnout.
This reform only brought women into the voting booths at the same rate as men many decades
later, once younger generations of women had gradually acquired the habit of voting41. At elite-
level, as well, cultural theories suggest that politicians who have acquired their habitual patterns
of legislative behavior under one set of rules will respond slowly to new conditions and
incentives, with the greatest impact upon the socialization process of younger cohorts of
legislators. As a result institutional reforms may take many years to become fully embedded
within parliamentary cultures. For example, although constituency service is strongly
entrenched within Anglo-American democracies, cultural modernization theories suggest that
the adoption of single-member districts in the Italian Chamber of Deputies or the Russian
Duma would not generate similar behavior in these parliaments, as predominant values,
ideological beliefs, and institutional customs are deeply rooted and socially determined.
Moreover in democratic systems successful parties and politicians are largely following social
tides and adapting to patterns of mass political behavior in the electorate, rather than
attempting to reshape them, still less to determine the strength of linkages between citizens and
parties.
Overall, therefore, these accounts suggest serious doubts about the more grandiose
claims of rational-choice institutionalism and the capacity of electoral reform for social
engineering. During earlier decades it was commonly thought that formal institutions of
representative government, like the Westminster parliament, could be uprooted from their
embedded institutional context and exported to newly independent countries undergoing
decolonization in Sub-Saharan Africa. The attempts usually failed42. Hence it has been argued
that rational-choice institutionalism has difficulty explaining the complicated, variegated, and
fluid patterns of Latin American politics by overemphasizing the electoral and legislative arenas,
by overestimating the importance of formal rules and institutions; by failing to explain the
origins of political crisis and change, and by neglecting the importance of political beliefs.
Moreover when considering issues of electoral reform, there is considerable evidence that
existing institutions matter as the starting point for any modifications, in an incremental
15
process, rather than starting de novo. Institutional imports may fail to flourish in alien soil,
such as the introduction of single member districts designed to change the behavior of
representatives in the Italian Chamber of Deputies or the Japanese Diet. For cultural
modernization theorists, incentives-based approaches sacrifice too much to the altar of
theoretical elegance, naively over-simplifying the multiple and messy reality of complex
motivations driving human behavior, as well as failing to recognize the embedded quality of
taken-for-granted institutional traditions and cultural norms43. Short-term mechanical fixes,
while sounding simple and attractive, can founder on the unintended consequences of
institutional reforms.
Comparing Electoral Rules.
Therefore debates in the literature on electoral systems and voting behavior can be
divided into alternative schools of thought, of which the two we have summarized provide
perhaps the most pervasive viewpoints. Scholars differ sharply about the democratic criteria that
electoral rules should meet, as well as the possible consequences that can flow from these
choices. What evidence is available to allow us to evaluate these theories? The most extensive
body of research on electoral systems, following seminal work by Maurice Duverger (1954) and
by Douglas Rae (1967)44, established systematic typologies of electoral systems and then
analyzed their consequences for a variety of macro-level phenomenon, either through formal
game-theoretic models or through inductive generalizations45. Electoral rules are typically
defined, operationalized, and classified, including variations in the electoral formula, assembly
size, and ballot structure. The outcome of elections conducted under different rules is then
compared using multiple indicators, such as patterns of vote-seat disproportionality, electoral
turnout, the proportion of women in parliament, or multiparty competition. Most attention
has focused on analyzing the results of national elections to the lower house of parliament,
although comparison have also been drawn with many other types of contest, including
elections to the European parliament, contrasts among state, regional or local contests within
one nation, as well as differences between presidential and parliamentary systems.
Invaluable insights are derived from pre-post ‘natural experiments’, comparing the
outcome in cases when the electoral system changes in one nation. In the early twentieth
century many countries in Western Europe shifted from majoritarian to proportional electoral
systems, while in this era a dozen American cities experimented with PR then abandoned this
project46. During the postwar era France shifted between majoritarian and proportional
elections47. During the 1990s major reforms were implemented in New Zealand, the UK, Israel,
Venezuela, Italy, and Japan, allowing pre-post comparisons in each nation, holding many other
factors constant48. Structural-institutional comparison has many advantages since the basic
features of electoral systems can be classified consistently around the world, or in a sequence of
elections over time, along with indicators about their consequences.
Yet at the same time this approach has serious limitations, as we know more about
what Duverger termed the ‘mechanical’ than the ‘psychological’ impact of electoral systems49.
The ‘mechanical’ focuses on the effects that flow directly from the electoral rules, and the
structural conditions in which such relationships vary in a consistent manner at macro-level,
exemplified by legal electoral thresholds that automatically exclude some minor parties from
parliamentary representation. By contrast, far less is known about the ‘psychological’ effects of
how the public, politicians, and parties respond to electoral rules, and hence the underlying
reasons for some of these relationships. For example, it is well established in the literature that
16
more women are usually elected to office under proportional than majoritarian electoral
systems, all other things being equal, a generalization confirmed in repeated studies50. Yet the
precise reasons for this pattern remain a matter of speculation. Many similar generalizations can
be drawn from the literature, such as the way that turnout is usually higher in proportional than
majoritarian systems, although exactly why this occurs has never been satisfactorily established.
Of course it could be argued that it is more important to identify this sort of regularity than it is
to understand the underlying reasons. Yet unless the causes are discovered any attempt at
practical electoral engineering may well fail under different conditions. In the well-known but
nevertheless true cliché, correlation does not mean causation, no matter its strength and
statistical significance. For all these reasons, despite the extensive body of literature, electoral
design remains more ‘art’ than ‘science’. To understand how electoral rules constrain social
expectations, structural comparisons need supplementing with individual-level survey analysis.
Comparing Electoral Behavior
The main alternative approach in electoral behavior has focused on understanding
how social norms, political attitudes, cognitive opinions, and cultural values shape patterns of
voting choice and party support. Studies have employed increasingly sophisticated research
designs, including cross-sectional post-election surveys representative of electors and
parliamentary elites, multi-wave campaign panel surveys, experimental methods, and content
analysis of the mass media and party platforms51. The literature on voting behavior based on
single nation election studies is flourishing and extensive, yet most research focuses upon
individual-level attitudes and behavior, necessarily taking for granted the context of the electoral
rules and the broader constitutional arrangements that operate within each country, an
approach which has come under increasing challenge in recent decades52.
Time-series trends
One traditional way to understand the impact of electoral rules would be to collect a
series of national election surveys to compare trends over time in countries using proportional,
combined, or majoritarian electoral systems. Time-series analysis has commonly been used to
compare the strength of cleavage politics and the erosion of partisan loyalties in a wide range of
advanced industrial societies53. Yet the available survey evidence on voting behavior is limited in
the consistency and length of the time-series data, and usually restricted in the range of
countries where election surveys have been conducted on a regular basis. Most series of national
election surveys started in established democracies only in the 1960s or 1970s, with the oldest
in the United States (1952), Sweden (1956), and Norway (1957), hindering our ability to
examine longer-term trends associated with societal modernization. Surveys repeated over
successive elections provide a continuous series of regular observations, sometimes for almost
half a century, but even so the precise wording and coding of many survey core items have often
been slightly amended over time, introducing inconsistencies into the series54. Even where
similar concepts shape the research traditions in voting behavior, and networks of data archives
are sharing national election surveys, nevertheless there are often significant differences among
different countries based on matters such as the precise question wording, coding conventions,
the order of the survey items within the questionnaire, fieldwork techniques, and sampling
procedures. The comparison of trends over time on matters such as partisan identification, issue
voting, or leadership popularity using similar but not identical questions within one country
often requires heroic assumptions, even more so when comparing a series of independent
national election studies conducted using different questionnaires in different nations55.
17
Case studies of reform

Another fruitful line of inquiry uses case studies to analyze changes over time in
countries where surveys were conducted ‘before’ and ‘after’ major electoral reforms were
implemented, such as in New Zealand and the UK, generating a prolific literature in these
nations. Aggregate election results, such as patterns of turnout or the proportion of women in
office, can also be compared in countries like France that have altered their electoral system
back and forth between proportional and majoritarian formula. The introduction of statutory
gender quotas in the selection of parliamentary candidates provides one such ‘natural
experiment’, as discussed in chapter 8. Still, many factors vary over successive elections in these
countries beyond changes in the electoral law, including the pattern of party competition, the
campaign efforts at voter mobilization, the popularity of the government, the party in
government, and the personality of particular party leaders. As a result it can prove difficult to
disentangle these separate effects from the role of the formal rules per se56. Moreover only a
handful of established democracies have experienced fundamental electoral reform during the
last decade, and even fewer have consistent before-and-after surveys, so it remains difficult to
generalize from the available survey evidence in specific countries such as New Zealand. The
comparison of the election immediately before and after reforms is also limited, because cultural
theories suggest any long-term shifts in party competition, in voting behavior, and in the
activities of elected representatives, may take many years, perhaps even decades, to become
established.
The Research Design and Comparative Framework
The research design adopted by this study is, at heart, extremely simple. If rational
incentive theories are accurate, and electoral rules do indeed have the capacity to shape the
behavior of politicians, parties and citizens, then, all other things being equal, this should
become evident in systematic cross-national differences in voting behavior and political
representation evident under different rules, notably contrasts among countries using
majoritarian, combined, and proportional electoral systems. Alternatively if processes of societal
modernization have shaped the political culture of nations, then, all other things being equal,
this should be evident by contrasts in voting behavior and political representation among
societies at different levels of human development, in particular between industrial and
postindustrial societies. To build upon this approach, subsequent chapters explore how far
electoral systems and societal modernization affect party competition (chapter 4), the strength
of social cleavages and partisan alignments (chapters 5 and 6), patterns of voting turnout
(chapter 7). At elite level, chapters analyze how far electoral rules and societal modernization
have the capacity to influence political representation, including the gender and ethnic diversity
of legislatures (chapters 8 and 9), as well as patterns of constituency service (chapter 10).
Data sources
The book uses multiple sources of data. The most important concerns survey research
drawn from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES). This project is based on an
international team of collaborators who have incorporated a special battery of survey questions
into the national election studies, based on a representative sample of the electorate in each
country. Data from each of the separate election studies was coordinated, integrated and
cleaned by the Center for Political Studies, Institute for Social Research, at the University of
Michigan57. The dataset is designed to facilitate the comparison of macro and micro-level
18
electoral data. Module 1 of the CSES (released in July 2002) used in this study allows us to
compare surveys of a representative cross-section of the electorate in 37 legislative and
presidential national elections in 32 countries. The geographic coverage includes countries
containing in total over 1.2 million inhabitants, or one fifth of the world’s population. The
focus on voters’ choices, the cross-national integration, and above all the timing of the data
collection (within a year following each of the elections), provide a unique opportunity to
compare voting behavior in a way that is not possible through other common sources of
comparative data such as the World Values Survey. Throughout the book, the national
elections under comparison are those held from 1996-2001 for the lower house of the national
parliament and for presidential contests. The definition and typology of electoral systems is
discussed in detail in the next chapter and the main contrasts among nations are illustrated in
Table 1.1.
[Table 1.1 about here]
Comparative framework
Many previous studies have commonly adopted a ‘most similar’ comparative
framework, seeking to consider patterns of electoral behavior within Western Europe, or post-
Communist Europe, or Latin America, or within the universe of established democracies. This
approach helps isolate the effects of different electoral rules from certain common historical
traditions, shared cultural values, or political experiences, but nevertheless it remains difficult to
generalize from any particular regional context, for example for any lessons derived from new
democracies in Latin America that might also hold in Central and Eastern Europe. This is
particularly problematic if one wants to test the effects of societal modernization and electoral
rules on voting behavior in both older and newer democracies. For example, Lijphart’s theory
claims that PR elections lead towards greater long-term democratic stability in deeply-divided
plural societies, yet this cannot be tested effectively if studies are limited to the comparison of
older democracies which have persisted uninterrupted in recent decades, rather than examining
the characteristics of a wide range of political systems that have, and have not, undergone major
regime change58.
Given these considerations, and the nature of the primary CSES dataset, the
comparative framework in this book adopts instead the ‘most different’ comparative
framework59. The study focuses upon how far certain patterns of voting behavior and political
representation are systematically related to either levels of societal modernization (in industrial
v. postindustrial societies) or to types of electoral systems (majoritarian, combined or
proportional). This approach also carries certain well-known difficulties, particularly the
familiar problem of too many variables and too few cases. Multiple contrasts can be drawn
among the countries under comparison, ranging from Australia, the United States and Sweden
to the Ukraine, Peru and Taiwan. As a result it remains difficult to establish whether the
outcomes can indeed be attributed to the selected factors under comparison (societal
modernization or the type of electoral rules), or if these relationships are spurious due to
omitted variables not included in our simple models, such as the role of economic inequality,
the history of military coups in Latin America, the legacy of Communism in Central and
Eastern Europe, or religious traditions in Asia. The ‘controls’ introduced into the multivariate
models can provide only rough proxies for a few of the multiple cross-national differences
among political systems around the world. The limited number of elections and countries
inevitably restricts the reliability of the generalizations that can be drawn from the study.
19
Survey-based research covering many different nations and cultures also encounters the familiar
problems of establishing equivalence, and whether responses to questions asked in each country,
for example items monitoring satisfaction with democracy in Belarus, Belgium and Peru, can be
treated as functionally-equivalent. Yet the comparison of a diverse range of countries facilitates
theory-building and testing in a way that is not possible with regionally-based studies.
This approach is particularly well suited to the societies included in the CSES survey
ranging from low or middle-income developing nations, such as Thailand, Mexico, Ukraine,
Belarus, and Romania (all with a per capita PPP GDP of less than $5000 in 1998), to some of
the most affluent societies in the world, including Switzerland, the United States and Japan
(with an equivalent per capita GDP of more than $30,000). The countries under comparison
have varied political systems, rates of human development, patterns of democratization, and
cultural traditions, all of which can be incorporated into explanations of patterns of electoral
behavior. Ethnically-homogeneous societies such as Poland, Norway and Britain are included,
as well as plural societies with multiple cleavages exemplified by Israel and Belgium. The length
of time that each country has experienced democratic institutions also varies considerably,
which can be expected to have an important impact upon electoral behavior and patterns of
party competition. While Australia and Sweden are long-established democracies, countries
such as Spain and Portugal consolidated within recent decades, while still others like the
Ukraine and Belarus remain in the ‘transitional’ stage, characterized by unstable and
fragmented opposition parties, ineffective legislatures, and limited checks on the executive60.
The historical experiences of democracy during the late twentieth century can be
compared using the mean score for each nation on the 7-point Gastil Index of democratization,
based on an annual assessments of political rights and civil liberties monitored by Freedom
House from 1972 to 2000. The Gastil scale is reversed so that a high score represents a more
consolidated democracy. Many indices attempt to gauge levels of democratization, each with
different strengths and weaknesses, but the measure by Freedom House provides annual
benchmarks over three decades61. The results of the comparison in Figure 1.3 show that just
over half the countries in the CSES dataset had a mean score on this index of 4.0 or above, and
all these seventeen nations can be classified as ‘established’, ‘consolidated’, or ‘older’
democracies. This includes Spain and Portugal, which were part of the ‘third-wave’ of
democratization starting in 197362. The other fifteen nations falling clearly well below the
overall mean of 4.1 are classified as ‘newer electoral democracies’ still experiencing the
transition, at different levels of consolidation. Some like South Korean, Hungary, the Czech
Republic and Mexico have gone a long way down the road towards establishing stable
democratic institutions. Others, including Ukraine and Belarus, ranked at the bottom of the
scale, currently lack many political rights and civil liberties commonly taken for granted in
older democracies, although they hold competative elections contested by more than one party.
Belarus, in particular, has deeply-flawed elections, with opposition leaders silenced, intimidated
and even imprisoned by the government of President Lukashenko. The nations in the CSES
dataset can be categorized by this classification in almost equal numbers as either older or newer
democracies. The sample in the CSES dataset reflects this rough balance, with 53% of
respondents drawn from older democracies (28,800) while the remaining 47% are living in
newer democracies (25,600).
20
The countries using proportional electoral systems have slightly higher levels of per
capita GDP and also smaller populations (see Table 1.2) but with similar levels of education,
urbanization, or average life expectancy. PR countries are rated as slightly more democratic
today than countries using majoritarian systems, and with a stronger record of democratic
consolidation during the last thirty years (see Table 1.3).
[Tables 1.2 and 1.3 about here]
Some of the main contrasts between nations, and the relationship between economic
and political development, are illustrated in Figure 1.4. The level of societal modernization is
measured by the United National Development Program (UNDP) 1998 Human Development
Index, combining indicators of longevity, educational attainment, and standard of living. The
level of democratization is gauged by the mean score on the Gastil Index of political rights and
civil liberties from 1972 to 2000, as already discussed. Most of the established democracies are
clustered in the top right-hand corner, as the most developed societies as well. The newer
democracies in Latin America and post-Communist Central Europe, as well as the countries of
Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, are clustered in the lower-left hand corner. The distribution of
types of electoral systems used for the lower house of parliament (discussed in detail in the next
chapter) shows that these are spread throughout all levels of human and democratic
development.
[Figures 1.4 and 1.5 about here]
There are a number of important limitation of the dataset for our purposes. The first
concerns the range of countries, in particular those using majoritarian electoral systems for
legislative elections. All these cases are drawn from the Anglo-American democracies, which
restricts the direct comparison of how majoritarian systems work in parliamentary elections in
developing societies such as India, Jamaica, or Malawi. Nevertheless comparisons can be drawn
with majoritarian electoral systems used for presidential elections in developing nations,
including Chile, Lithuania, and Peru, which greatly expands the range of societies within this
category. In this approach, we assume that there is sufficient similarity between voting in
parliamentary and presidential elections, so that the electoral systems can be compared across
both types of contest. Now it is always possible that certain features of the type of office mean
that there are important contrasts between these types of elections, for example if presidential
elections generate more personal appeals based on the character and experience of the
candidates whereas parliamentary elections encourage more programmatic party campaigns63. A
simple comparison of the typical election campaigns fought in Western European parliamentary
elections and the United State presidential races lends some superficial plausibility to such an
argument. Yet it remains unclear whether this assumption is supported by the systematic
empirical evidence; in the United States, for example, the national party conventions used for
nominating the presidential candidate and for endorsing the party platform may make the
presidential races more programmatic, partisan and nationally issue-oriented than the mid-term
Congressional elections, which are often fought on the personal record and experience of
particular candidates in each district, with little capacity of the presidential candidate or party to
exert any national ‘coat-tails’64. In countries such as Brazil where party politics tends to be
personalistic and clientalistic rather than programmatic, with weak national party organizations
and minimal party discipline in the legislature, campaigning based on personal appeals may be
equally evident in both Presidential and Congressional elections65. From systematic cross-
national election research it remains unclear whether any apparent differences in presidential
21
and parliamentary elections are due to the nature of the office per se, or the type of electoral
system used in these contests. Further research, with an expanded range of countries under
Module II of the CSES survey, will eventually allow us to test these sort of propositions more
fully, as well as any systematic contrasts between presidential and parliamentary elections.
Where there are good reasons to suspect from the literature that the level of office will probably
make a significant difference – for example in the lower levels of electoral turnout common in
second-order legislative elections – we can test for this by classifying countries into presidential
and parliamentary executives then adding this factor to the analytical models to see whether this
does indeed matter. But we can only follow this strategy by comparing both presidential and
parliamentary elections within our comparative framework.
The comparative framework for the CSES dataset remains limited in another
important respect. The countries that collaborated in the project reflect those that regularly
fund national election surveys, with a network of scholars and experienced market research
companies, and their geographical distribution is uneven. Figure 1.5 maps the 32 countries
included in Module 1 of the CSES dataset and this highlights the lack of coverage of much of
the developing world, especially in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Much existing research on
electoral systems and electoral administration is based upon analysis of established democracies
with a long tradition of national elections, including the Anglo-American countries, Western
Europe, and Scandinavia. Yet it is unclear how far generalizations can be drawn more widely
from these particular contexts, and during the last decade much has been learnt much about the
impact of electoral systems in newer democracies. The focus on comparative electoral behavior
has been spurred by broader intellectual developments, particularly the breakdown of the old-
fashioned tripartite ‘Cold War’ framework that used to divide the globe into advanced
industrialized nations, Communist states, and developing societies. A revival of interest in the
study of political institutions and the role of the state has also swept through the discipline in
recent years66. This process has also been encouraged by the globalization of political science
and the wider availability of social and political survey data in many developing countries. To
compensate for the limited geographic coverage of the CSES, and to provide a more systematic
worldwide comparison of parliamentary and presidential elections, as in previous work, this
study also utilizes multiple datasets, drawing upon sources provided by the World Bank, the
United Nations, International IDEA, and the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Where relevant, the
book also draws upon other suitable public opinion surveys for time-series and cross-national
data67.
The Plan of the Book
Debates about electoral reform have often produced conflict about means (what
would be the effects on party fortunes of alternative systems?) but even more fundamentally
about ends (what is the primary objective of the electoral system?). To examine these issues, we
need to analyze what consequences flow from the adoption of alternative electoral rules.
Chapter 2 goes on to classify and describe the main institutional variations in
electoral systems that can be expected to influence voting behavior and political representation.
The chapter defines the key terms and classifies the major differences among electoral systems,
with illustrations drawn from the nations included in the CSES dataset. The chapter develops a
typology classifying the major families of electoral systems worldwide, and presents tables
summarizing the detailed features of the electoral systems used for the elections to the lower
house of parliament and for presidential elections in the CSES nations under comparison.
22
Chapter 3 considers the normative arguments underlying debates about electoral

reform, comparing visions of ‘adversarial’ versus ‘consensus’ democracy. Institutional reform is
often regarded as the fix for many endemic problems associated with the process of democratic
consolidation and good governance, whether the lack of accountability of public officials,
failures of an effective opposition in parliament, the splintering of fragmented party systems,
eroding electoral participation, conflict arising from deep-seated ethnic cleavages, the paucity of
women in elected office, or general problems of public confidence in government and the
policy process. Argument about these issues produced growing awareness that taken-for-
granted electoral rules are not neutral: instead the way that votes translate into seats means that
some groups, parties, and representatives are systematically ruled into the policymaking process,
while some are systematically ruled out. We need to understand and clarify the normative
claims and evaluative criteria concerning the consequences that flow from electoral rules for
political representation and voting behavior before we can consider the empirical evidence.
The consequences for voting behavior
Chapter 4 considers how electoral rules influence party systems. The starting point
for the analysis is Duverger’s famous claim that, in a law-like relationship, plurality elections in
single-member districts favor a two-party system while simple-majority and proportional
systems lead towards multipartyism68. The accuracy of these claims has attracted considerable
debate in the literature69. The underlying reasons for this relationship are believed to be partly
mechanical, depending upon the hurdles that plurality systems create for minor parties,
especially those such as the Greens with widely dispersed support. Proportional formula with
large district magnitudes and low vote thresholds, exemplified by elections to the Israeli
Knesset, lower the barriers to entry into elected office faced by minor parties. There is
considerable evidence that this correlation holds in many established democracies, although
there are some important exceptions, and debate continues to question the causal direction of
the relationship. It is usually assumed that electoral systems are ‘given’, as fairly stable
institutions in most established democracies, and that party systems are therefore constrained by
the existing electoral rules, such as the way that third parties are systematically penalized in the
United States. Yet the interpretation of the direction of causality may be reversed; historically
countries already highly factionalized by multiple social cleavages may well adopt electoral
systems facilitating and perpetuating multi-partyism. This chapter examines how far
‘Duverger’s Law’ applies in different countries worldwide, comparing the major families and
types of electoral systems by measures of the effective number of electoral and parliamentary
parties and measures of proportionality.
Chapter 5 analyzes the major traditional social cleavages in the countries under
comparison and explores the classic debate in electoral behavior about how far class and
religious cleavages continue to predict patterns of voting behavior. Modernization theories
suggest that in many postindustrial societies, class and religious identities -- the traditional
foundations of the mass basis of party politics in the postwar era -- are no longer capable of
generating stable affective party loyalties70. If traditional voter-party bonds are fraying in these
societies, this could have important political consequences, by boosting electoral volatility, the
proportion of late-deciders, more split ticket voting, and potential support for minor parties
and protest parties71. If theories are correct in linking processes of societal modernization to
social and partisan dealignment, then social class and religion should play a less important role
in structuring voting behavior in affluent postindustrial societies than in less-developed,
23
industrialized nations. Given different cultural legacies, historical traditions, and social
structures, we also expect to find considerable differences in the role of class and religion in
structuring voting behavior in post-Communist and developing societies. By contrast, rational-
choice institutionalism suggests that the strength of cleavage politics is closely related to the type
of electoral system, particularly levels of electoral thresholds, so that the ties of class and religion
will prove a stronger predictor of voting choices in proportional systems with lower thresholds.
Chapter 5 therefore (i) examines the influence of social class, religiosity, and other social
cleavages on voting choice in the range of countries under comparison; (ii) compares how far
this pattern is systematically related to levels of societal modernization; and (iii) analyzes how
far these relationships vary according to the type of electoral system.
Building upon this foundation, Chapter 6 considers the impact of party loyalties
upon voting choice, contrasting institutional and cultural modernization explanations for
patterns of party identification in the electorate. Classic ‘Michigan’ theories of electoral
behavior suggested that most citizens in Western democracies were anchored over successive
elections, and sometimes for their lifetimes, by long-standing affective party loyalties. Theories
of cultural modernization suggest that over time rising levels of education and cognitive skills
have gradually reduced dependence upon these long-standing party attachments, replacing the
politics of loyalties with the politics of choice. If modernization theories are essentially correct,
then party and social identities can be expected to prove strong influences upon voting behavior
in industrialized societies, while these attachments would have faded somewhat in affluent
postindustrial nations. By contrast, rational incentive-based accounts suggest that the
institutional environment determines the rewards for adopting bridging or bonding campaign
appeals. In particular, rational-choice institutionalism suggests that electoral thresholds shape
the behavior of parties and candidates directly, and therefore, all other things being equal, the
strength of partisan identification in the electorate.
Chapter 7 proceeds to consider the reasons why levels of electoral turnout vary among
the countries under comparison, and how far this is influenced by the institutional or cultural
context. Previous studies have commonly found that the type of electoral formula shapes
participation, with proportional representation systems generating higher voter participation
than majoritarian or plurality elections72. This pattern seems well supported by the evidence in
established democracies, although the exact reasons for this relationship remain unclear73.
Strategic explanations focus on the differential rewards facing citizens under alternative electoral
arrangements. Under majoritarian systems, such as First-Past-the-Post used for the House of
Commons in Westminster and the United States Congress, supporters of minor and fringe
parties with geographic support dispersed widely but thinly across the country, like the Greens,
may feel that casting their votes will make no difference to who wins in their constituency, still
less to the overall composition of government and the policy agenda. The ‘wasted votes’
argument is strongest in safe seats where the incumbent party is unlikely to be defeated. In
contrast PR elections with low vote thresholds and large district magnitudes, such as the party
list system used in the Netherlands, increase the opportunities for minor parties with dispersed
support to enter parliament even with a relatively modest share of the vote, and therefore
increases the incentives for their supporters to participate. Cultural theories offer alternative
reasons for differential patterns of turnout, emphasizing the role of rising levels of education
and cognitive skills. Building on my previous book, Democratic Phoenix, this chapter seeks to
understand the reasons for differential pattern of electoral turnout in more depth.
24
The consequences for political representation

Beyond the mass electorate, the selection of electoral rules is also believed to have
important consequences for political representation. Chapter 8 considers the classic issue of the
barriers to women in elected office and how far this process is influenced by cultural traditions
and by electoral rules. These factors are not the only ones that influence opportunities for
elected office, by any means, but a substantial literature suggests that these are among the most
important at national-level. It is well known that more women usually win office under party-
ballots than under candidate-ballots, despite some important exceptions to this rule74. Moreover
in recent years many positive action policies have been used to boost the number of women in
office, including the use of reserved seats and statutory gender quotas applying by law to all
parties in a country, as well as voluntary gender quotas implemented in rule books within
particular parties. In some cases positive action policies have had a decisive effect on women’s
representation, whereas elsewhere they have generated only meager gains. This chapter analyzes
the reasons for this phenomenon, and how far formal rules interact with the political culture,
especially in societies where traditional attitudes towards sex roles prevail so that women are still
perceived as fulfilling their primary roles only as wives and mothers.
Chapter 9 then outlines and presents evidence for how electoral systems influence the
election of ethnic minority representatives and parties. One of the most influential accounts in
the literature has been provided by the theory of ‘consociational’ or ‘consensus’ democracy
developed by Arend Lijphart which suggests that nations can maintain stable governments
despite being deeply divided into distinct ethnic, linguistic, religious or cultural communities75.
Majoritarian electoral systems, like First-Past-the-Post, systematically exaggerate the
parliamentary lead for the party in first place, with the aim of securing a decisive outcome and
government accountability, thereby excluding smaller parties from the division of spoils. By
contrast, proportional electoral systems lower the hurdles for smaller parties, maximizing their
inclusion into the legislature and ultimately into coalition governments. Consociational theories
suggest that proportional electoral systems are therefore most likely to facilitate accommodation
between diverse ethnic parties and groups, making them more suitable for new democracies
struggling to achieve legitimacy and stability in plural societies. These are important claims that,
if true, have significant consequences for agencies seeking to promote democratic development
and peacekeeping. Yet critics suggest that by appealing only to a small ethnic base, PR systems
can actually reinforce ethnic cleavages, so that majoritarian systems are preferable because they
provide incentives for politicians to appeal across ethnic lines76. The chapter breaks down the
predominant ethnic majority and minority populations in the countries under comparison and
tests the central propositions about the effects of electoral systems on differences in minority-
majority support for the political system.
Chapter 10 analyzes the impact of constituency service. Rational-choice
institutionalism suggests that elected representatives are more likely to be responsive and
accountable to electors, offering particularistic benefits to cultivate a personal vote, where they
are directly elected using candidate-ballots. One classic argument for First-Past-the-Post is that
single member territorial districts allow citizens to hold individual MPs, not just parties, to
account for their actions (or inactions). It is argued that this provides an incentive for
constituency service, maintains MPs independence from the party leadership, and ensures that
representatives serve the needs and concerns of all their local constituents, not just party
stalwarts. Candidates can also be expected to emphasize personalistic appeals under preference-
25
ballots. These are used in multimember constituencies where candidates compete for votes with
others within their own party, exemplified by the Single Transferable Vote in Ireland, the
Single Non-Transferable Vote used for two-thirds of the districts in Taiwan, and the use of
open list PR where voters can prioritize candidates within each party, such as in Belgium, Peru
and Denmark77. By contrast, party labels and programmatic benefits are likely to be given
greater emphasis in campaigns where there are party-ballots, such as in Israel or Portugal, since
all candidates on the party ticket sink or swim together. This chapter examines whether there is
good evidence supporting the claim that citizens living under candidate-ballot and preference-
ballot systems generally know more about parliamentary candidates and have more contact with
elected representatives - and can therefore hold them to account more effectively - than those
living under party-ballot systems.
Finally Chapter 11 recapitulates the theoretical arguments and summarizes the major
findings documented throughout the book. The conclusion considers the implications for
understanding the impact of electoral rules on voting choices and political representation, the
lessons for the process of electoral engineering, and the consequences for the democratization
process worldwide.
26
Table 1.1: The elections under comparison

Majoritarian Combined Proportional
electoral systems electoral systems electoral systems
(14 elections) (10 elections) (15 elections)
Legislative Legislative Legislative
Australia (1996) Germany (1998) (l,c) Belgium (1999)
Britain (1997) Hungary (1998) (l,c) Czech Republic (1996)
Denmark (1998)
Canada (1997) Japan (1996) (l,c)
Iceland (1999)
United States (1996) Korea, Republic of (2000) (c)
Israel (1996)
Presidential Mexico (1997) (c)
Netherlands, The (1998)
Belarus (2001) New Zealand (1996) (l,c)
Norway (1997)
Chile (1999) Russia (1999) (l)
Peru (2000)
Israel (1996) (i) Taiwan (1996) (c)
Poland (1997)
Lithuania (1997) Thailand (2001) (c)
Portugal (2002)
Mexico (2000) Ukraine (1998) (l)
Romania (1996)
Peru (2000) Slovenia (1996)
Romania (1996) Spain (1996, 2000)
Russia (2000) Sweden (1998)
Taiwan (1996) Switzerland (1999).
United States (1996)
Note: The year of the election included in the CSES dataset Module I is listed in parenthesis.
Under combined electoral systems the election study collected either the candidate vote (c), the
party list vote (l), or both (l,c).
(i) The elections in Israel are for the Prime Minister not President. For the classification of
electoral systems see Chapter 2.
27
Table 1.2: Social indicators

Type of N. HDI GDP ($) Education Urban Life % GNP Total
electoral Nations (%) Pop. (%) expectancy from Pop.
system for (years) services
lower house
Majoritarian 5 .898 18,891 94.6 80.2 75.9 62.4 78m
Combined 11 .824 11,791 79.0 71.9 72.0 55.4 59m
Proportional 16 .872 19,059 85.1 74.9 75.8 58.4 14m
Total 32 .861 16,687 84.6 75.0 74.5 57.6 39m
Note: Comparisons among the 32 nations included in the CSES dataset.
Electoral system: The countries are classified by the electoral system used for the lower house of
parliament. For the classification of electoral systems see Chapter 2. For the list of nations see
Table 1.1.
HDI: Countries are classified based on the 1998 rankings of the Human Development Index.
GDP: Mean per capita Gross Domestic Product measured in Purchasing Power Parity US
Dollars, 1998.
Education: Gross educational enrollment ratio in1998
% Urban population, 2000
Average life expectancy (years), 1997.
% Gross National Product from the service sector
Total population (in millions), 1997.
Sources: All the social and economic indicators are derived from the United Nations
Development Programme. 2000. Human Development Report 2000. NY: Oxford University
Press. www.undp.org
28
Table 1.3: Political indicators

Type of electoral N. Nations Level of democratization Mean level of
system democratization 1972-2000
1999-2000
Majoritarian 5 5.9 5.0
Combined 11 5.7 3.5
Proportional 16 6.4 4.5
Total 32 6.1 4.2
Levels of democratization: The 32 nations included in the CSES dataset are classified based on
the annual ratings provided by Freedom House from 1972 to 2000. Countries are classified
according to the most recent (1999-2000) ratings, and also the combined mean score for
political rights and civil liberties in Freedom House’s annual surveys from 1972-2000. The 7-
point Gastil Index is reversed for ease of interpretation so that it ranges from low levels of civil
liberties and political rights (coded 1) to high levels of civil liberties and political rights (coded
7). For details see Freedom of the World. www.freedomhouse.org
Nations: The countries are classified by the electoral system used for the lower house of
parliament. For the classification of electoral systems see Chapter 2. For the list of nations see
Table 1.1.
29
Figure 1.1: The rational-choice institutionalism model
A1.Formal electoral rules generate incentives
A2.Rational motivations:
Political actors respond to incentives
H3.1.According to the electoral H3.2.According to the ballot H3.3.According to the ballot

threshold, parties adopt bridging structure, parties adopt socially structure, politicians emphasize
or bonding strategies diverse or homogeneous programmatic or particularistic
candidates benefits
Indirect effects of rules
4.Citizens respond rationally
5.Reforming the formal rules has Direct effects of rules

the capacity to alter political
behavior at mass and elite levels
30
Figure 1.2: The cultural modernization model
1.Societal modernization:
Distribution of human capital
(education & cognitive skills)
2.Political culture:
The predominant norms, values
and beliefs in any society will
vary with levels of modernization
3.Socialization process
Leads to acquisition of
predominant norms and values
4.Limits of electoral engineering to

generate short-term changes in
political behavior
31
Figure 1.3: Societies by length of democratization
Australia
Canada
Denmark
Iceland
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Sweden
Switzerland
Older democracies
United States
Belgium
Britain
Japan
Germany
Portugal
Israel
Spain
Thailand
Mexico
Korea Rep
Peru
Hungary
Poland
Chile
Taiwan
Slovenia
Newer electoral democracies
Lithuania
Czech Rep
Ukraine
Russia
Romania
Belarus
0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0
Note: The mean scores on the 7-point Gastil Index of political rights and civil liberties, 1972-
2000, based on annual assessments by Freedom House, with the scores reversed so that 1 = least
democratic and 7 = most democratic. Source: Calculated from Freedom House ‘Freedom of the
World’. www.freedomhouse.org
32
Figure 1.4: Societies by level of development
.950
US
Jap
Ger
Sp NZ
.900
Isr
Slov Por
SKor
.850 Czech
Chil
Human Development Index, 1998
Pol
Electoral family
.800 Lith
Bela Mex
Proportional
Rus
Combined
.750 Ukr Thai
Peru Majoritarian
.700 Rsq = 0.8116

1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Mean level of democratization, 1972-2000
Notes:
Human Development Index 1998: All countries are classified based on the 1998 rankings of the
Human Development Index from the United Nations Development Programme. 2000.
Human Development Report 2000. NY: Oxford University Press. www.undp.org
Mean level of democratization: Societies are classified based on the annual ratings provided by
Freedom House from 1972 to 2000. The Gastil Index is classified according to the combined
7-point mean score for political rights and civil liberties (reversed) from Freedom House’s
1972-2000 annual surveys Freedom of the World. www.freedomhouse.org
For the classification of electoral systems see Chapter 2.
33
Figure 1.5: The countries included in Module I of the CSES dataset
Countries
in the CSES Module 1
Excluded (159)
Included (32)
34
1
For one of the clearest arguments for this thesis see Amartya Sen. 1999. Development as
Freedom. New York: Anchor Books.
2
See Thomas Carothers. 1999. Aiding Democracy Abroad: The Learning Curve. Washington
DC: Carnegie Endowment.
3
For an annual assessment of the state of democracy and changes worldwide see Freedom
House. Freedom in the World. See www.freedomhouse.org.
4
See for example the other procedural requirements discussed by Robert Dahl. 1971. Polyarchy:
Participation and Opposition. New Haven: Yale University Press. See also the discussion in
Robert A. Pastor. 1999. ‘The role of electoral administration in democratic transitions:
Implications for policy and research.’ Democratization. 6 (4): 1-27; Shaheen Mozaffar and
Andreas Schedler. 2002. ‘The comparative study of electoral governance.’ International Political
Science Review. 23(1): 5-28.
5
See Thomas Carothers. 1999. Aiding Democracy Abroad: The Learning Curve. Washington
DC: Carnegie Endowment. Chapter 6. Giovanni Sartori suggested the idea that these reforms
could be understood as ‘constitutional engineering’. 1994. Comparative Constitutional
Engineering: An Inquiry Into Structures, Incentives, and Outcomes. New York: Columbia
University Press.
6
Matthew Soberg Shugart and Martin P. Wattenberg. Eds. 2001. Mixed-Member Electoral
Systems: The Best of Both Worlds? New York: Oxford University Press.
7
Andrew McLaren Carstairs. 1980. A Short History of Electoral Systems in Western Europe.
London: George Allen and Unwin; Stephano Bartolini and Peter Mair. 1990: Identity,
Competition and Electoral Availability. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp.154-5;
Serge Noiret. Ed. 1990. Political Strategies and Electoral Reforms: Origins of Voting Systems in
Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft; C. Boix.
1999. ‘Setting the rules of the game: The choice of electoral systems in advanced democracies.’
American Political Science Review. 93 (3): 609-624.
8
UK reforms include the introduction of the Additional Member system for the Scottish
Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, and the London Assembly; the Supplementary Vote for the
London Mayor; the Regional Party List system for European elections; and the Single
Transferable Vote for the Northern Ireland Assembly. For details see Robin Blackburn, 1995.
The Electoral System in Britain. New York: St. Martin's Press; Patrick Dunleavy and Helen
Margetts. 1995. 'Understanding the dynamics of electoral reform.' International Political Science
Review 16(1): 9-30; Patrick Dunleavy and Helen Margetts. 2001. ‘From majoritarian to
pluralist democracy? Electoral reform in Britain since 1997.’ Journal of Theoretical Politics
13(3): 295-319. For updates see also The Electoral Reform Society. www.electoral-
reform.org.uk
9
R. Mulgan. 1995. ‘The democratic failure of single-party government: The New Zealand
experience.’ Australian Journal of Political Science. 30: 82-96; Jonathan Boston, Stephen Levine,
Elizabeth McLeay, and Nigel S. Roberts. 1996. New Zealand Under MMP: A New Politics?
Auckland: Auckland University Press; Jack Vowles, Peter Aimer, Susan Banducci and Jeffrey
35
Karp. 1998. Voters’ Victory? New Zealand’s First Election under Proportional Representation.
Auckland: Auckland University Press; Michael Gallagher. 1998. ‘The political impact of
electoral system change in Japan and New Zealand, 1996.’ Party Politics. 4(2): 203-228; Keith
Jackson and Alan McRobie. 1998. New Zealand Adopts Proportional Representation. Aldershot:
Ashgate.
10
Abraham Diskin and Hanna Diskin. 1995. 'The Politics of Electoral Reform in Israel.'
International Political Science Review 16(1): 31-46; Reuvan Y. Hazan. 1996. ‘Presidential
parliamentarism: Direct popular election of the Prime Minister, Israel's new electoral and
political system.’ Electoral Studies. 15(1): 21-37; Yossi Beilin. 1996. ‘An Accident Named The
Direct Election to Prime Minister’ in Gideon Doron. Ed. The Electoral Revolution, Tel Aviv:
Hakibutz Hameuchad Publishing House (in Hebrew); David Nachmias and Itai Sened. 1998.
‘The Bias of Pluralism: The Redistributional Effects of the New Electoral Law in Israel's 1996
Election.’ In Asher Arian and Michael Shamir. Eds. Election in Israel - 1996, Albany: SUNY
Press; Reuvan Y. Hazan and Abraham Diskin. 2000. ‘The 1999 Knesset and prime ministerial
elections in Israel.’ Electoral Studies. 19(4): 628-637; Asher Arian and Michael Shamir. 2001.
‘Candidates, parties and blocs: Israel in the 1990s.’ Party Politics 7(6): 689-710.
11
Mark Donovan. 1995. 'The Politics of Electoral Reform in Italy' International Political
Science Review 16(1): 47-64; Richard S. Katz. 1996. ‘Electoral Reform and the Transformation
of Party Politics in Italy.’ Party Politics 2: 31-53; Richard S. Katz. 2001. ‘Reforming the Italian
electoral law, 1993.’ In Matthew Soberg Shugert and Martin P. Wattenberg. Eds. 2002. Mixed-
Member Electoral Systems: The Best of Both Worlds? Oxford: Oxford University Press.
12
S. Ellner. 1993. ‘The deepening of democracy in a crisis setting: political reform and the
electoral process in Venezuela.’ Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs. 35(4): 1-42;
Brian F. Crisp and Juan Carlos Rey. 2000. ‘The sources of electoral reform in Venezuela.’ In
Matthew Soberg Shugert and Martin P. Wattenberg. Eds. 2002. Mixed-Member Electoral
Systems: The Best of Both Worlds? Oxford: Oxford University Press.
13
T. Sakamoto. 1999. ‘Explaining electoral reform - Japan versus Italy and New Zealand.’ Party
Politics. 5 (4): 419-438; David W. F. Huang. 1996. ‘Electoral reform is no panacea: An
assessment of Japan’s electoral system after the 1994 reform.’ Issues & Studies 32(10): 109-139;
Gary Cox, F.M. Rosenbluth, and M. F Thies. 1999. ‘Electoral reform and the fate of factions:
The case of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party.’ British Journal of Political Science. 29: 33-56;
Otake Hideo. Ed. 1998. How Electoral Reform Boomeranged: Continuity in Japanese
Campaigning Style. Tokyo: Japan Center for International Exchange; Margaret McKean and
Ethan Scheiner. 2000. ‘Japan’s new electoral system: la plus ca change…’ Electoral Studies 19
(4): 447-477.
14
For more details see the Administration and Cost of Elections Project (ACE).
www.aceproject.org
15
The original distinction between the ‘mechanical’ and ‘psychological’ effects of electoral
systems was made by Maurice Duverger. 1954. Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity
in the Modern State. New York: Wiley.
16
Anthony Downs. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper and Row.
36
17
We put aside, for the moment, any consideration concerning ‘informal’ electoral rules, which
can be understood as those widely shared tacit social norms and conventions governing electoral
behavior within any particular culture, enforced by social sanction. These are more properly
understood, as discussed later within cultural modernization theories, as ‘social norms’ rather
than informal institutions. This definition also excludes more ambiguous cases, such as party
rulebooks that are enforced by internal committees within particular party organizations rather
than by court of law, although there is a gray dividing line as these cases may be relevant for
legal redress. For a discussion of the meaning of ‘rules’ see J. M. Carey. ‘Parchment, equilibria,
and institutions.’ Comparative Political Studies 33 (6-7): 735-761.
18
Adam Przeworski and John Sprague. 1986. Paper Stones: A History of Electoral Socialism.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; Herbert Kitschelt. 1994. The Transformation of
European Social Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Herbert Kitschelt. 1995.
The Radical Right in Western Europe. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press;
Herbert Kitschelt. 1993. ‘Class-Structure and Social-Democratic Party Strategy.’ British Journal
of Political Science 23 (3): 299-337; Herbert Kitschelt. 2000. ‘Linkages between citizens and
politicians in democratic polities.’ Comparative Political Studies 33 (6-7): 845-879. See also
Thomas Koelble. 1992. ‘Recasting social democracy in Europe: A nested games explanation for
strategic adjustment in political parties.’ Politics and Society. 20: 51-70.
19
The distinction between ‘bridging’ and ‘bonding’ parties is derived from the literature on
social capital, as originally applied to social groups and associations. See Robert D. Putnam.
Democracies in Flux. New York: Oxford University Press. P. 11. The term ‘bridging party’ is
similar to the use of the term ‘catch-all’ developed by Kirchheimer, except that these concepts
carry different normative baggage. See Otto Kirchheimer. 1966. ‘The Transformation of
Western European Party Systems.’ In Political Parties and Political Development, Eds. J. La
Palombara and M. Weiner Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
The electoral system may also prove important for the development of ‘cartel’ parties, but this
debate about party financing and organization is not addressed centrally in this study. See,
however, Richard S. Katz and Peter Mair. 1995. ‘Changing Models of Party Organization and
Party Democracy: The emergence of the cartel party.’ Party Politics 1(1): 5-28; Richard S. Katz
and Peter Mair. 1996. ‘Cadre, Catch-all or Cartel? A Rejoinder.’ Party Politics. 2(4): 525-534.
20
Gary Cox. 1990. ‘Centripetal and centrifugal incentives in electoral systems.’ American
Journal of Political Science. 34: 903-35.
21
Gary Cox. 1990. ‘Centripetal and centrifugal incentives in electoral systems.’ American
Journal of Political Science. 34: 903-35.
22
Pippa Norris. 1995 ‘May's Law of Curvilinearity Revisited: Leaders, Officers, Members and
Voters in British Political Parties.’ Party Politics 1(1): 29-47.
23
For a discussion see John Carey and Matthew Soberg Shugart. 1995. ‘Incentive to cultivate a
personal vote: A rank-ordering of electoral formulas.’ Electoral Studies 14(4): 417-440.
24
See the discussion in Bruce E. Cain, John A. Ferejohn, and Morris P. Fiorina. 1987. The
Personal Vote: Constituency Service and Electoral Independence. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press.
37
25
John Carey and Matthew Soberg Shugart. 1995. ‘Incentive to cultivate a personal vote: A
rank-ordering of electoral formulas.’ Electoral Studies 14(4): 417-440.
26
Pippa Norris. 1997. ‘The Puzzle of Constituency Service.’ The Journal of Legislative Studies
3(2): 29-49; Vernon Bogdanor. Ed. 1985. Representatives of the People? Parliamentarians and
Constituents in Western Democracies. Aldershott, Hants: Gower Publishing Company.
27
See the discussion in Robert Rohrschneider. 2002. ‘Mobilizing versus chasing: how do
parties target voters in election campaigns?’ Electoral Studies. 21 (3): 367-382.
28
Michael Pinto-Duschinsky. 2002. ‘Overview.’ Handbook on Funding of Parties and Election
Campaigns. Stockholm: International IDEA.
29
B. Scholdan. 2000. ‘Democratisation and electoral engineering in post-ethnic conflict
societies.’ Javnost-The Public 7 (1): 25-40.
30
See Arend Lijphart, 1994. Electoral Systems and Party Systems. Oxford: Oxford University
Press. Appendix B.
31
David J. Samuels. 2002. Ambition, Federalism and Legislative Politics in Brazil. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
32
Stephen Knack. 2001. ‘Election-day registration: The Second Wave.’ American Politics
Research. 29(1): 65-78; M.D. Martinez and D. Hill. 1999.’Did motor voter work?’ American
Politics Quarterly. 27(3): 296-315.
33
For a more detailed treatment of modernization theory see Ronald Inglehart and Pippa
Norris. 2003. Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change Worldwide. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
34
Daniel Lerner. 1958. The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East. New
York: Free Press; Seymour Martin Lipset. 1959. ‘Some Social Requisites of Democracy:
Economic Development and Political Legitimacy.’ American Political Science Review 53: 69-
105; Seymour Martin Lipset. 1960. Political Man: The Social Basis of Politics. New York:
Doubleday; Walt W. Rostow. 1952. The Process of Economic Growth. New York: Norton; Walt
W. Rostow. 1960. The Stages of Economic Growth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press;
Karl W. Deutsch. 1964. ‘Social mobilization and political development.’ American Political
Science Review. 55: 493-514; Daniel Bell. 1999. The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture
in Social Forecasting. New York: Basic Books; Seymour Martin Lipset, Kyoung-Ryung Seong
and John Charles Torres. 1993. ‘A comparative analysis of the social requisites of democracy.’
International Social Science Journal. 45(2): 154-175.
35
Daniel Bell. 1999. The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting. New
York: Basic Books. (1st edition 1973)
36
For the key texts see Ronald Inglehart. 1977. The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and
Political Styles Among Western Publics. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press; Ronald
Inglehart. 1990. Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society. Princeton, N.J: Princeton
University Press; Ronald Inglehart. 1997. Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural,
Economic and Political Change in 43 Societies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press;
38
Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris. 2003. Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change
Worldwide.
37
For an extended argument along these lines, see Russell Dalton. 2002. Citizen Politics. 3rd
Edition. New York: Chatham House.
38
Shaun Bowler and Bernard Grofman. Eds. 2000. Elections in Australia, Ireland and Malta
under the Single Transferable Vote: Reflections on an Embedded Institution. Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan Press.
39
For social psychological accounts of leadership see, for example, Alexander L. George. 1998.
Presidential Personality and Performance. Boulder, CO: Westview Press; James David Barber.
1992. The Presidential Character. Englewood Cliffs, NJ; Stanley Renshon. 1996. The
Psychological Assessment of Presidential Candidates. New York: New York University Press;
Donald Searing. 1994. Westminster’s World: Understanding Political Roles. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
40
Angus Campbell, Philip Converse, Warren E. Miller and Donald E. Stokes. 1960. The
American Voter. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. For recent work in the tradition of the
Michigan school see Warren Miller and J. Merrill Shanks. 1996. The New American Voter.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
41
Carol Christy. 1987. Sex Differences in Political Participation: Processes of Change in Fourteen
Nations. New York: Praeger.
42
Douglas C. North. 1990. Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; S. Whitefield. 2002. ‘Political cleavages and post-
communist politics.’ Annual Review of Political Science. 5: 181-200.
43
K. Weyland. 2002. ‘Limitations of rational-choice institutionalism for the study of Latin
American politics.’ Studies in Comparative International Development 37 (1): 57-85; See also V.
Bunce. 2000. ‘ Comparative democratization - Big and bounded generalizations.’ Comparative
Political Studies. 33 (6-7): 703-734.
44
Maurice Duverger. [Orig.1954] 1964. Political Parties London: Methuen; Douglas Rae.
1967. The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws. [1971 Rev. Ed.] New Haven: Yale University
Press.
45
See, for example, Enid Lakeman. 1974. How Democracies Vote. London: Faber and Faber;
Dieter Nohlen. 1996. Elections and Electoral Systems. Delhi: Macmillan; Vernon Bogdanor and
David Butler, Eds. 1983. Democracy and Elections. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press;
Bernard Grofman and Arend Lijphart, Eds. 1986. Electoral Laws and their Political
Consequences. New York: Agathon Press; Rein Taagepera and Matthew S. Shugart. 1989. Seats
and Votes: The Effects and Determinants of Electoral Systems. New Haven: Yale University Press;
Dieter Nohlen. 1996. Elections and Electoral Systems. Delhi: Macmillan; Andrew Reeve and
Alan Ware. 1992. Electoral Systems: A Comparative and Theoretical Introduction. London and
New York: Routledge; Pippa Norris. 1997. ‘Choosing Electoral Systems.’ International Political
Science Review 18(3): 297-312. David Farrell. 1997. Comparing Electoral Systems. London:
Prentice Hall/Harvester Wheatsheaf; Gary Cox. 1997. Making Votes Count. New York and
London: Cambridge University Press; Richard Katz. 1997. Democracy and Elections. Oxford:
39
Oxford University Press; Andrew Reynolds and Ben Reilly. 1997. The International IDEA
Handbook of Electoral System Design. Stockholm: International Institute for Democracy and
Electoral Assistance.
46
In the U.S. this originated with the Progressive Movement in the early 20th Century and PR
was eventually adopted by two-dozen cities, including Boulder Colorado, Cincinnati Ohio, and
Cambridge, Massachusetts, before being abandoned everywhere except for Cambridge. See
Douglas Amy. 1996. ‘The Forgotten History of the Single Transferable Vote in the United
States.’ Representation. 34(1). For Western Europe, see Andrew McLaren Carstairs. 1980. A
Short History of Electoral Systems in Western Europe. London: George Allen and Unwin; Dennis
Pilon. 2002. Renewing Canadian Democracy: Citizen Engagement in Voting System Reform.
Ontario: Law Commission of Canada/Fair Vote Canada.
47
The French adopted PR in 1945, moving back to the majoritarian 2nd ballot system in 1958
under the de Gaulle’s Fifth French Republic to avoid party fragmentation. In 1986, in a bid to
split the right, President Francois Mitterrand moved the adoption of PR nationally. Two years
later parliament voted to return to the country's traditional majoritarian double ballot. See
Andrew Knapp.1987. ‘Proportional but Bipolar: France’s Electoral System in 1986.’ West
European Politics, 10(1): 89-114; Byron Criddle. 1992. ‘Electoral Systems in France.
Parliamentary Affairs, 45 (1):108-116; Patricia L. Southwell.1997. ‘Fairness, Governability, and
Legitimacy: The Debate Over Electoral Systems in France.’ Journal of Political and Military
Sociology, 25:163-185.
48
On electoral reform, for Britain see Lord Jenkins. 1998. The Report of the Independent
Commission on the Voting System. London: Stationery Office. Cm 4090-1; Pippa Norris 1995.
‘The Politics of Electoral Reform in Britain.’ International Political Science Review 16(1): 65-78;
Ron Johnston and Charles Pattie. 2002. ‘Campaigning and split-ticket voting in new electoral
systems: the first MMP elections in New Zealand, Scotland and Wales.’ Electoral Studies 21 (4):
583-600. For New Zealand see Jonathan Boston, Stephen Levine, Elizabeth McLeay, and Nigel
S. Roberts. 1996. New Zealand Under MMP: A New Politics? Auckland: Auckland University
Press; Jack Vowles, Peter Aimer, Susan Banducci and Jeffrey Karp. 1998. Voters’ Victory? New
Zealand’s First Election under Proportional Representation. Auckland: Auckland University Press.
For Israel see Reuven Y. Hazan. 1996. ‘Presidential Parliamentarism: Direct Popular Election of
the Prime Minister, Israeli's New Electoral and Political System.’ Electoral Studies 15(1): pp. 21-
37. For Japan see Otake Hideo. Ed. 1998. How Electoral Reform Boomeranged: Continuity in
Japanese Campaigning Style. Tokyo: Japan Center for International Exchange; Takayuki
Sakamoto. 1999. ‘Explaining Electoral Reform: Japan versus Italy and New Zealand.’ Party
Politics. 5(4): 419-438.
49
Maurice Duverger. 1954. Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the Modern
State. New York: Wiley.
50
Pippa Norris. 1985. ‘Women in European Legislative Elites.’ West European Politics 8(4): 90-
101; Wilma Rule. 1987. ‘Electoral Systems, Contextual Factors and Women's
Opportunity for Election to Parliament in Twenty-Three Democracies.’ Western Political
Quarterly 40:477- 486; Wilma Rule. 1994. ‘Women's Under-representation and Electoral
Systems.’ PS: Political Science and Politics 4:689-692; Richard Matland. 1998. ‘Enhancing
40
Women’s Political Participation: Legislative Recruitment and Electoral Systems. In Women in

Parliament: Beyond Numbers. Edited by Azza Karam. Stockholm: IDEA.
51
For overviews see Kathleen Knight and Michael Marsh. 2002. ‘Varieties of election studies.’
Electoral Studies. 21 (2): 161-168; Jacques Thomassen. 1994. ‘The intellectual history of
election studies.’ European Journal of Political Research 25:239–245.
52
John Curtice. 2002. ‘The state of election studies: mid-life crisis or new youth?’ Electoral
Studies. 21 (2): 161-168.
53
This approach is exemplified by Mark Franklin, Tom Mackie, Henry Valen, et al. 1992.
Electoral Change: Responses to Evolving Social and Attitudinal Structures in Western Countries.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Russell J. Dalton and Martin Wattenberg. Eds. 2001.
Parties without Partisans. New York: Oxford University Press.
54
See, for example, the appendix in Ivor Crewe and Anthony Fox. 1995. The British Electorate
1963-92. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
55
For an example of this approach, examining trends in the British Election Study 1964-1997,
see Geoffrey Evans and Pippa Norris. Eds. 1999. Critical Elections. London: Sage. Yet there are
often major inconsistencies in the starting and ending dates for analyzing trends, for example
Russell Dalton uses regression models to compare trends in partisan identification in many
OECD nations using the available series of national election studies that start in 1952 in the
US, but three decades later in Iceland. See Table 2.1 in Russell J. Dalton. ‘The Decline of Party
Identification’ in Russell J. Dalton and Martin P. Wattenberg. Parties without Partisans. New
York: Oxford University Press.
56
See, for example, Jack Vowles. 2002. ‘Offsetting the PR effect? Party mobilization and
turnout decline in New Zealand, 1996-99.’ Party Politics. 8 (5): 587-605
57
It should be noted that the CSES dataset includes election surveys in Hong Kong, but these
were dropped to facilitate consistent comparison across independent nation-states. The data set
used in this study is based on the 31 July 2002 release of Module 1. The dataset also merged
two separate election studies for Belgium-Walloon and Belgium-Flemish and these were merged
for analysis. Full details are available at www.umich.edu/~nes/cses.
58
Matthis Bogaards. 2000. ‘Then uneasy relationship between empirical and normative types in
consociational theory.’ Journal of Theoretical Politics. 12(4): 395-423.
59
For a discussion of these alternative approaches see Todd Landman. 2000. Issues and Methods
in Comparative Politics. London: Routledge. Chapter 2.
60
Although Thomas Carothers suggests that even the use of the term ‘transitional democracies’
is misleading as it can suggest a teleological view of democratic progress for many countries
which have elections but which have experienced little substantial political change beyond these
contests during the last decade. See Thomas Carothers. 2002. ‘The End of the Transition
Paradigm.’ Journal of Democracy 13(1): 5-21.
61
For a discussion of these alternative indices see G.L. Munck and J. Verkuilen. 2002.
‘Conceptualizing and measuring democracy - Evaluating alternative indices.’ Comparative
Political Studies 35 (1): 5-34. See also David Beetham. Ed. 1994. Defining and Measuring
41
Democracy. Sage; David Beetham. 2001. International IDEA Handbook of Democracy Assessment.
NY: Kluwer.
62
Samuel P. Huntington. 1993. The Third Wave. University of Oklahoma Press.
63
For a discussion of these issues see Mathew Soberg Schugart and John Carey. 1992. Presidents
and Assemblies: Constitutional Design and Electoral Dynamics. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
64
See, for example, Gary C. Jacobson. 2001. The Politics of Congressional Elections. New York:
Longman.
65
D. J. Samuels. 2000. ‘Concurrent elections, discordant results: Presidentialism, federalism,
and governance in Brazil.’ Comparative Politics 33 (1); D. J. Samuels. 2000. ‘The gubernatorial
coattails effect: federalism and congressional elections in Brazil.’ Journal of Politics 62 (1): 240-
253; Scott Mainwaring. 1997. ‘Multipartism, robust federalism, and Presidentialism in Brazil.’
In Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin America. Eds. Scott Mainwaring and Matthew Soberg
Shugart. New York: Cambridge University Press; Barry Ames. 2001. The deadlock of democracy
in Brazil. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
66
Douglas C. North, Douglas, C. 1990. Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic
Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; James March and Johan Olsen. 1989.
Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics. New York: Free Press.
67
Alternative sources of time-series and cross-national survey data that are available include the
American National Election Study, the World Values Survey (WVS), the International Social
Survey Programme (ISSP), and the 15-nation Eurobarometer.
68 Maurice Duverger. 1954. Political Parties, Their Organization and Activity in the Modern
State. New York: Wiley. Pp217,239.
69 Douglas W. Rae 1967. The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws. New Haven: Yale
University Press [1971 revised ed.]; William H. Riker. 1976. ‘The number of political parties:
A reexamination of Duverger’s law.’ Comparative Politics 9: 93-106; William H. Riker.1982.
‘The two-party system and Duverger’s Law: an essay on the history of political science.’
American Political Science Review 76: 753-766; William H. Riker. 1986. ‘Duverger’s Law
Revisited.’ In Electoral Laws and Their Political Consequences, ed. Bernard Grofman and Arend
Lijphart. New York: Agathon Press, Inc; Maurice Duverger. 1986. ‘Duverger’s Law: forty years
later.’ In Electoral Laws and their Political Consequences. Ed. Bernard Grofman and Arend
Lijphart. New York: Agathon Press; Arend Lijphart, 1994. Electoral Systems and Party Systems.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
70
Mark Franklin, Tom Mackie, Henry Valen, et al. 1992. Electoral Change: Responses to
Evolving Social and Attitudinal Structures in Western Countries. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. See, however, Geoffrey Evans. Ed. 1999. The Decline of Class Politics? Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
71
Ivor Crewe and David Denver. Eds. 1985. Electoral Change in Western Democracies: Patterns
and Sources of Electoral Volatility. New York: St. Martin's Press; Russell J. Dalton, Scott C.
Flanagan, Paul A. Beck, and James E. Alt. Eds. 1984. Electoral Change in Advanced Industrial
42
Democracies: Realignment or Dealignment? Princeton: Princeton University Press; see also Russell
J. Dalton and Martin P. Wattenberg. Eds. 2001. Parties without Partisans. New York: Oxford
University Press.
72
G. Bingham Powell. 1986. ‘American Voter Turnout in Comparative Perspective.’ American
Political Science Review. 80(1): 17-43; Robert W.Jackman. 1987. ‘Political institutions and
voter turnout in industrialized democracies.’ American Political Science Review. 81: 405-423;
Robert W. Jackman and Ross A. Miller. 1995. ‘Voter turnout in industrial democracies during
the 1980s.’ Comparative Political Studies. 27: 467:492. Andre Blais and A. Dobrzynska. 1998.
‘Turnout in electoral democracies.’ European Journal of Political Research. 33(2):239-261; A.
Ladner and H. Milner. 1999. ‘Do voters turn out more under proportional than majoritarian
systems? The evidence from Swiss communal elections.’ Electoral Studies 18(2): 235-250.
73
See the discussion in André Blais and A. Dobrzynska. 1998. ‘Turnout in electoral
democracies.’ European Journal of Political Research. 33(2):239-261.
74
Pippa Norris. 1985. ‘Women in European Legislative Elites.’ West European Politics 8(4): 90-
101; Wilma Rule. 1987. ‘Electoral Systems, Contextual Factors and Women's Opportunity for
Election to Parliament in Twenty-Three Democracies.’ Western Political Quarterly 40: 477-
486; Wilma Rule. 1994. ‘Women's Under-representation and Electoral Systems.’ PS: Political
Science and Politics 4:689-692; Wilma Rule and Joseph Zimmerman, eds. 1994. Electoral
Systems in Comparative Perspective: Their Impact on Women and Minorities. Westport:
Greenwood.
75
Arend Lijphart and Bernard Grofman, Eds. 1984. Choosing an Electoral System: Issues and
Alternatives. New York: Praeger; Arend Lijphart. 1984. Democracies. New Haven: Yale
University Press; Arend Lijphart. 1986. ‘Degrees of Proportionality of Proportional
Representation Formulas.’ In Electoral Laws and Their Political Consequences. Ed. Bernard
Grofman and Arend Lijphart. New York: Agathon Press; Arend Lijphart. 1991. ‘Constitutional
Choices for New Democracies.’ Journal of Democracy 2:72-84; Arend Lijphart. 1991.
‘Proportional Representation: Double Checking the Evidence.’ Journal of Democracy 2:42-48;
Arend Lijphart. 1994. Electoral Systems and Party Systems: A Study of Twenty-Seven Democracies,
1945-1990. New York: Oxford University Press; Arend Lijphart. 1995. ‘Electoral Systems.’ In
The Encyclopedia of Democracy, ed. Seymour Martin Lipset. Washington D.C.: Congressional
Quarterly Press; Arend Lijphart. 1999. Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and
Performance in 36 Countries. New Haven: Yale University Press.
76
Donald L. Horowitz. 1991. A Democratic South Africa? Constitutional Engineering in a
Divided Society. Berkeley: University of California Press; Ben Reilly. 2001. Democracy in
Divided Societies: Electoral Engineering for Conflict Management. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
77
See, for example, Bernard Grofman, Sung-Chull Lee, Edwin A. Winckler and Brian Woodall.
Eds. 1997. Elections in Japan, Korea and Taiwan under the Single Non-Transferable Vote: The
Comparative Study of an Embedded Institution. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
43

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ELECTORAL ENGINEERING ~ CHAPTER 1 ~ NORRIS 8/9/2003 5:09 PM

Do Rules Matter? Structure versus culture

Case studies of reform

Chapter 3 considers the normative arguments underlying debates about electoral

The consequences for political representation

Table 1.1: The elections under comparison

Table 1.2: Social indicators

Table 1.3: Political indicators

Figure 1.1: The rational-choice institutionalism model

A1.Formal electoral rules generate incentives

H3.1.According to the electoral H3.2.According to the ballot H3.3.According to the ballot

Indirect effects of rules

4.Citizens respond rationally

5.Reforming the formal rules has Direct effects of rules

Figure 1.2: The cultural modernization model

4.Limits of electoral engineering to

Figure 1.3: Societies by length of democratization

0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0

Figure 1.4: Societies by level of development

.700 Rsq = 0.8116

Mean level of democratization, 1972-2000

Figure 1.5: The countries included in Module I of the CSES dataset

Women’s Political Participation: Legislative Recruitment and Electoral Systems. In Women in

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