Contextual Determinants of Electoral System Choice - Ãbo Akademi

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Principe – did not adopt electoral provisions until the 1990s. Indonesia inheritedlist PR from the Netherlands; Suriname, however, preferred a mixed electoralsystem. All colonies of the United States, i.e. the Philippines, the Federated Statesof Micronesia, Marshall Islands and Belau, inherited the plurality formula whenindependence was attained. The Americans administered their colonies much in thesame way as the British, which probably explains the pattern. Western Samoainherited the plurality method from New Zealand. Belgium transferred list PR toCongo (-Kinshasa) and Rwanda – Burundi, the third Belgian colony, adoptedSMP. Somalia inherited list PR from Italy, whereas Libya prefered SMP. Nauruinherited AV from Australia – Papua New Guinea, however, rejected AV in favorof SMP when independence was declared. Namibia, the only colony of SouthAfrica, adopted list PR a few years before South Africa introduced the samesystem. East Timor, the youngest independent country of the world, adopted thesame electoral system as Indonesia applies, i.e. list PR.Of the former Soviet states, more than half chose another electoral system thanTBM. Notwithstanding, it is noteworthy that Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan,Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan retained the old electoral system afterindependence was attained. Only one of the countries that declared independencefrom the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, namely Bosnia-Herzegovina, adopted the same electoral system (in 1996) that simultaneouslyexisted in Yugoslavia, i.e. list PR.In table 6.2, the correlation between electoral system choice on the one hand andBritish, French and Soviet legacy on the other is separately given. These resultsmust be interpreted with cautiousness, because the variables are categorical.Nevertheless, it provides an idea of what to expect in the multivariate analyses. 40Despite observing only first choices of electoral systems in the analysis above, thetotal population is now paid attention to. All former British colonies (and French aswell as Soviet colonies separately) that adopted their first electoral systems withinten years after the end of the colonial rule are compared to all other cases. A fourthvariable that regards all former colonies is also included.40 In multivariate logistic regression analysis, a nominal dependent variable with three or several categories does notconstitute any problem, because each category is compared to all other categories separately.176
Table 6.2. Colonial legacy and electoral system choice. Correlation analysis, Spearman’s rho.Independent variablesElectoral system choiceBritish colonial legacy .354**French colonial legacy .284**Soviet colonial legacy -.073Colonial legacy, all cases .415**N 268Note: ** = significant at the 0.01 levelBoth British and French colonial legacy correlate positively with electoral systemchoice, indicating that the former colonies are associated with majoritariansystems, plurality in particular. The coefficient for French legacy is not muchlower than that of British legacy, although the importance of British legacy ismuch more emphasized in the literature. Soviet legacy does not correlate with thedependent variable. The variable that observes all former colonies produces thestrongest correlation. This result does not come as a surprise, because two thirds ofall cases are either British or French colonies. Accordingly, the bivariate analysessuggest that there is a relationship between both British and French legacy on theone hand and electoral system choice (majoritarian systems) on the other. Adiscussion on which variables should be included in the multivariate analyses isprovided in chapter 8.6.1.2 Colonial Diffusion – Democratic CountriesIn this section, colonial legacy in democratic countries is analyzed. Of the 105countries in the previous sample, only 34 were democratic when they adopted theirfirst electoral systems as independent nations. 23 of these have inherited theirelectoral systems from the colonial powers, i.e. approximately the same share ofinherited systems as in the previous sample of both democracies and nondemocracies.The number of former colonies with regard to each colonial power is given in table6.3. Roughly two thirds of all democratic cases are former British colonies. 41 Allfour American colonies were democratic when independence was declared. The41 The total number of cases is 35, because Vanuatu is coded as both a British and a French colony.177
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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
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The second wave of democratization
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parliamentary elections, particular
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parliamentary or presidential gover
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measure of ethnic and cultural dive
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medium size. The other 40 per cent
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size and electoral systems, two str
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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 and 174: is also quite large, and therefore
Page 175 and 176: 1966, and Cyprus 1981. Suriname ado
Page 177 and 178: significant. 36 The large standard
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: former British colonies did not inh
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
Page 225 and 226: other systems returns little to exp
Page 227 and 228: extent but the coefficient is small
Page 229 and 230: territorial organization and chambe
Page 231 and 232: there are only two (Gabon and Vanua
Page 233 and 234: the rational perspective, since it
Page 235 and 236: 9. CONCLUSIONThis study is a contri
Page 237 and 238: 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
Page 283 and 284:
Hartmann, Christof. 1999b. “Cote
Page 285 and 286:
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
Page 295:
Why have countries in different par
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