Contextual Determinants of Electoral System Choice - Ã bo Akademi

legislative relations should also take varying degrees of dominance and balance ofpower into consideration. However, the macroscopic approach includingobservations as of 1945 pose limits on such classifications.To all intents and purposes, no relationship exists between territorial organizationand electoral system; neither is there a connection between chamber structure andthe dependent variable. The only discernable pattern concerning territorialorganization is that three federal democracies of totally four have chosen pluralitysystems. Two of these have probably inherited not only the electoral system butalso the federal system from the United States. As for chamber structure, there is adiminutive tendency towards the combination of bicameralism andproportional/mixed systems as well as unicameralism and plurality systems in thetotal data sample, and an opposite tendency to combine bicameralism withplurality, and unicameralism with PR in democracies. Nevertheless, the connectionis rather weak. Again, the categorization is not as accurate as in Lijphart’s (1999)characterization of Westminster and consensus democracies. In addition tounicameral assemblies, the former may also be characterized by bicameralism witha dominant lower house. The reservation above also applies here.However, as mentioned earlier, the concepts of majoritarian and consensusdemocracy are not very appropriate in this context, because the present studyconsists of considerably more non-democracies than democracies. By way ofconclusion, the influence of political institutions on electoral system choice islimited. Although some political institutions may be dependent on otherinstitutions within the constitutional framework, the choice of electoral systemdoes not seem to be affected by other institutional choices.205