Contextual Determinants of Electoral System Choice - Ã bo Akademi

adopted mixed systems. The Philippines reintroduced SMP three years after havingchosen mixed-corrective. 42 The remaining three plurality systems were chosen inmicrostates, all of which are former American colonies. The average populationsize among countries that adopted proportional systems is way below the averageof all 20 cases, the mean values being 5.7 and 24 million people respectively.Concerning the level of party system fragmentation, a significant difference wasobserved between democracies that have changed from plurality to mixed or PRsystems and democracies with plurality systems in general. The fragmented partysystems in Thailand, the Philippines and Japan prior to electoral system changecontribute largely to this pattern. However, these countries are also very large interms of population. This leads to the question whether size or party systemstructure is the more important variable. Both factors may, of course, also haveinfluenced the choice of electoral systems.In addition to Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia and Belau,which all inherited the plurality system from the United States, another threecountries in this sample chose their first electoral system after having been underforeign rule. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania did not, however, adopt the Sovietelectoral system. A strong relationship between regional diffusion and electoralsystem choice is observed. All proportional systems have been adopted as aconsequence of imitation, whereas only two mixed, one majority, and no pluralitysystem qualify as processes of regional diffusion. The chi-square value issignificant at the 0.01 level. Patterns of diffusion comprise eleven of those 20electoral systems adopted by democracies during the fourth epoch. No patternappears with regard to form of government and electoral system choice.The findings among democracies resemble those in the total population. None ofthe independent variables is of great importance during the first period. All in all,however, diffusion is related to four of ten cases. Almost every electoral systemchoice during the second period is related to some kind of diffusion. Eight caseswere inherited, mostly from the United Kingdom, and three choices, allproportional ones, were inspired by neighboring countries. The British influence isalso discernable with regard to other institutions: former colonies did not only42 Actually to the electoral law, a mixed system is still applied. However, the magnitude of the nationwideconstituency was reduced from 52 to merely 5 seats prior to the 2001 elections, which means that the Philippinoelectoral system is practically a plurality system (at the end of 2003). The number of single-member districts is 209.196