Contextual Determinants of Electoral System Choice - Ãbo Akademi

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Table 5.9. Country size and electoral system choice in democracies. Correlation analysis,Spearman’s rho.Independent variableElectoral system choiceCountry size .441**N 63Note: ** = significant at the 0.01 levelPossible threshold values over which patterns of electoral system choice changesradically are sought for in table 5.10. The table shows that no such threshold valueexists. Plurality systems constitute more than half of all systems chosen indemocratic countries with less than one million people – as population sizeincreases, the share of plurality systems declines drastically. The five majoritysystems that have been adopted in democracies are quite evenly distributedbetween the categories. Mixed and proportional systems are frequent among largercountries.Table 5.10. Country size and electoral system choice in democracies. Threshold values.Population Plurality % Majority % Mixed % PR (N) %(N)(N)(N)0 – 10 000 1 50.0 1 50.0 0 0.0 0 0.010 000 – 100 000 6 66.7 1 11.1 2 22.2 0 0.0100 000 – 1 million 12 70.6 0 0.0 1 5.9 4 23.51 – 10 millions 6 35.3 1 5.9 4 23.5 6 35.310 – 100 millions 2 11.8 2 11.8 7 41.2 6 35.3100 m – 1 billion 0 0.0 0 0.0 1 100 0 0.0Total N 27 42.9 5 7.9 15 23.8 16 25.4Nauru and Tuvalu are the only democratic countries with less than 10 000 citizensat the moment of electoral system choice. Nauru adopted AV in 1968 and Tuvaluchose SMP-BV ten years later. Among countries with a population ranging from10 000 to 100 000, nine electoral systems chosen under democratic circumstancesare observed. Seven of these are majoritarian – three cases in the Pacific and fourcases in the Caribbean. Seychelles and Monaco adopted mixed systems in 1976and 2002 respectively. No PR system has been chosen among democratic countriesin this category. In the third category with population figures ranging from 100 000to one million, four PR cases are identified: Iceland 1959, Malta 1964, Guyana162
1966, and Cyprus 1981. Suriname adopted mixed-coexistence in 1975 – all othercases in this category are plurality systems. Among countries with more than onebut less than ten million people, six cases of proportional as well as pluralitysystems of totally 17 are observed. The proportion of plurality systems incomparison with PR decreases still more in the fifth category, plurality havingbeen adopted only in the Philippines (1946 and 2001). France introduced TBM in1958 and again in 1988. Mixed systems are most popular, having been chosen ine.g. Venezuela 1993, Thailand 1997 and Madagascar 1998.Five of totally six PR choices in the fifth category are observed in countries with apopulation between ten and 50 million people. There is, consequently, only oneproportional choice (France in 1986) among those six democratic cases with apopulation ranging from 50 to 100 millions. Half of all cases, i.e. three (Italy 1993,Thailand 1997 and the Philippines 1998) of totally six, among countries with 50 to100 million people are mixed systems, whereas France and the Philippines adoptedmajoritarian systems in 1988 and 2001 respectively. The only case in the sixthcategory – the Japanese electoral reform in 1994 – belongs to the family of mixedsystems.Thus, we may conclude that mixed electoral systems are also popular among verylarge democracies. The overall pattern that was observed in the total data sample iseven clearer among democracies. Plurality systems dominate among smallcountries, whereas PR is more frequent in middle-sized and rather large countries.Among very large countries, however, PR is quite rare at the expense of foremostmixed systems. By using majoritarian and mixed systems with single-memberdistricts, an element of geographical accountability is maintained in populouscountries. As for the rest, however, it seems dubious that country size reallyexplains electoral system choice, since rational motives for the observed patternare lacking. The continuous variable is used in the multivariate analyses.5.3 Party System Structure5.3.1 Party System Structure – Democracies and Non-democraciesIn order to detect a possible link between party system structure and electoralsystem choice, cases of electoral system change are compared to cases of non-163
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Krister LundellContextual Determina
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CONTEXTUAL DETERMINANTS OF ELECTORA
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CIP Cataloguing in PublicationLunde
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at Åbo Akademi University, the Fac
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3.2 Explanations of Electoral Syste
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9. CONCLUSION 2239.1 The Rational P
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politics. Both approaches bear rele
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electoral system choice as an epoch
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1.2 The Importance of Electoral Sys
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Within the range of democratic inst
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will depend on the specific cleavag
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Before describing different voting
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2.1.1 Ballot StructureThe ballot st
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formula, and the variety of elector
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ather be regarded as a characterist
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2.2.1 Plurality Systems2.2.1.1 Sing
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mixture of BV and PBV. In my classi
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Weaver 1984: 198-199). CV implies t
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total election, often pull out of t
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disadvantage is that it presupposes
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parties and minority groups. Furthe
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simultaneously avoiding disproporti
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and Blais. They also agree that the
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Whether one formula applies or not
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difficult. Even an independent comb
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attention to all three main dimensi
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(national, regional and local lists
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The degree of proportionality also
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variables: ethnic and cultural dive
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smallest category, representing 15
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democracies. 12 Nevertheless, the g
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(Vanuatu) are represented by merely
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3. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKIn this cha
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ecognition of opposing views in the
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systems. If we reformulate the ques
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the rules, the lack of knowledge is
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not. Consequently, their analysis c
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proportional electoral systems. He
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groups as possible, to avoid attemp
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associated with certain features an
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also called electoral engineering.
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(2002: 14). Public opinion, often e
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Similar reform societies were estab
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systematically favor or disfavor ce
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interests based on ascriptive commu
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argues, both majorities and minorit
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A more popular form of recognizing
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Among the three basic majoritarian
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politics. When universal suffrage w
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and no electoral threshold in order
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threatened to change the current el
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inadequate since electoral systems
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electoral reform is likely to occur
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main advocates of proportional repr
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whereas majoritarian systems prevai
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The rational learning model sees po
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3.2.4.1 Colonial LegacyColonial leg
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Different colonial powers administe
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The Australian and American colonia
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epresented the “wave of the democ
Page 123 and 124: The second wave of democratization
Page 125 and 126: parliamentary elections, particular
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Page 129 and 130: measure of ethnic and cultural dive
Page 131 and 132: medium size. The other 40 per cent
Page 133 and 134: size and electoral systems, two str
Page 135 and 136: that have previously held general e
Page 137 and 138: The association between party syste
Page 139 and 140: democratization process. Neverthele
Page 141 and 142: The occurrence of list PR in former
Page 143 and 144: Third, an electoral system must exi
Page 145 and 146: Three matters are of interest in co
Page 147 and 148: according to Lijphart’s definitio
Page 149 and 150: 3.3.3.2 Territorial OrganizationA n
Page 151 and 152: to the whole territory. Countries a
Page 153 and 154: or non-existence of an ‘additiona
Page 155 and 156: subset of the world’s countries,
Page 157 and 158: Concerning data on party system fra
Page 159 and 160: 22). 30 Nevertheless, the coded yea
Page 161 and 162: (1) free and fair elections of the
Page 163 and 164: (e.g. 1984; 1990). The index is bas
Page 165 and 166: standards and Mauritius was democra
Page 167 and 168: Table 5.1. Ethnic and cultural frag
Page 169 and 170: Table 5.4. Ethnic and cultural frag
Page 171 and 172: values. Each integer of the logarit
Page 173: is also quite large, and therefore
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Page 179 and 180: small standard deviation values ind
Page 181 and 182: samples with changes to mixed syste
Page 183 and 184: a consequence of the party system t
Page 185 and 186: eplace plurality systems with mixed
Page 187 and 188: former British colonies did not inh
Page 189 and 190: Table 6.2. Colonial legacy and elec
Page 191 and 192: impact on the dependent variable wh
Page 193 and 194: (1993). All these countries adopted
Page 195 and 196: On the basis of figure 2.1 in secti
Page 197 and 198: their electoral systems. Bulgaria a
Page 199 and 200: as a general determinant of institu
Page 201 and 202: The average population size among c
Page 203 and 204: Only two federal states chose elect
Page 205 and 206: any major role. Regional diffusion,
Page 207 and 208: Plurality systems dominate the thir
Page 209 and 210: inherit the plurality system but al
Page 211 and 212: popular system between 1945 and 199
Page 213 and 214: presidential countries. Only Lebano
Page 215 and 216: legislative bodies are distinguishe
Page 217 and 218: legislative relations should also t
Page 219 and 220: etween independent and dependent va
Page 221 and 222: least 90 cases. Notwithstanding, as
Page 223 and 224: Table 8.1. Patterns of diffusion an
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other systems returns little to exp
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extent but the coefficient is small
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territorial organization and chambe
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there are only two (Gabon and Vanua
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the rational perspective, since it
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9. CONCLUSIONThis study is a contri
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shows that countries having adopted
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doubt that electoral systems affect
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The third variable within the cultu
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9.4 Final RemarksThe impact of the
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APPENDIX IClassification of countri
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Sri Lanka - SMP 1948The Constitutio
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Laos - SMP-BV 1953Laos achieved ful
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Greece - List PR 1958After having a
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Madagascar - Super-mixed 1960The 19
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Iran - SMP-BV 1963In 1963, Iran ado
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Polyarchy dataset between 1960 and
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Morocco - SMP 1970The 1970 Constitu
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APPENDIX IICountry (year of elector
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Country Democracy Electoral system
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Country Democracy Electoral system
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APPENDIX IIICountry (year of electo
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Country Colonial Regional Form of T
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Country Colonial Regional Form of T
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APPENDIX IVParty system fragmentati
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Proportional systems - change from
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REFERENCESAhmed, Nizam. 2001. “Ba
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Blais, André and R. K. Carty. 1987
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Duverger, Maurice. 1984. “Which I
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Hartmann, Christof. 1999b. “Cote
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Koch, Christian. 2001. “Kuwait”
Page 287 and 288:
Lijphart, Arend. 2002. “The Wave
Page 289 and 290:
Norris, Pippa. 1995. “Introductio
Page 291 and 292:
Riker, William H. 1982. “The Two-
Page 293 and 294:
Taagepera, Rein and Matthew S. Shug
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Why have countries in different par
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