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Agathon Series on Representation, Volume 1: Electoral Laws and Their Political Consequences
The aim of this book is to provide an overview of recent research on electoral laws and their political consequences by scholars who have helped shape the field. After several decades of virtual neglect (except for Douglas Rae's seminal work), the comparative study of electoral systems is undergoing a lively revival. In the past five years, over a dozen books on electoral systems have been written by scholars from many nations and from many disciplines (see reviews of a number of these in Lijphart, Political geography, long moribund, is undergoing a remarkable renaissance (see reviews in Grofman, Taylor, Gudgin, and Johnston, this volume). Social choice theorists have begun to link axiomatic criteria for representative systems to practical political issues in choosing an election system (see especially Brams and Fishburn, Fishburn, this volume). In the United States, sparked in large part by the efforts of the section on Representation and Electoral Systems of the American Political Science Association, the history of American electoral experimentation with proportional representation, weighted voting, and limited voting is being rediscovered (see Grofman Weaver, this volume).
This renewed scholarly attention to the study of electoral systems is long overdue. The late Stein Rokkan wrote in 1968, "Given the crucial importance of the organization of legitimate elections in the development of the mass democracies of the twentieth century, it is indeed astounding to discover how little serious effort has been invested in the comparative study of the wealth of information available . The long past neglect of electoral systems by social scientists is especially surprising since election rules not only have important effects on other elements of the political system, especially the party system, but also offer a practical instrument for political engineers who want to make changes in the political system. Indeed, Sartori aptly characterizes electoral systems as the most specific manipulative instrument of politics .
Part 1. The Effect of Election Type on Political 1. Duverger's Law Revisited 2. The Influence of Electoral Faulty Laws or Faulty Method? 3. Duverger's Forty Years Later 4. Intraparty Preference Voting 5. Thinking About the Length and Renewability of Electoral Terms
Part II. Evaluating the Impact of Electoral Proportional and Semiproportional Systems Case 6. Proportionality by Non-PR Ethnic Representation in Belgium, Cyprus, Lebanon, New Zealand, West Germany and Zimbabwe 7. Australian Experience with Majority-Preferential and Quota-Preferential Systems 8. The Rise, Decline and Resurrection of Proportional Representation in Local Governments in the United States 9. The Limited Vote and the Single Nontransferable Lessons from the Japanese and Spanish Examples 10 Degrees of Proportionality of Proportional Representation Formulas Part III. Evaluating the Impact of Electoral Plurality 11. The Geography of A Review of Recent Findings 12. Social Choice and Plurality-like Electoral Systems 13. The Effect of At-Large Versus District Elections in U.S. Municipalities 14. The Nonpartisan Ballot in the United States 15. Ballot Format in Plurality Partisan Elections 16. Cross-Endorsement and Cross-Filing in Plurality Partisan Elections
Part IV. 17. Whatever Happened To The Reapportionment Revolution In The United States? 18. Constituency Redistribution In Britain 19. Districting Choices Under The Single-Transferable Vote.
This renewed scholarly attention to the study of electoral systems is long overdue. The late Stein Rokkan wrote in 1968, "Given the crucial importance of the organization of legitimate elections in the development of the mass democracies of the twentieth century, it is indeed astounding to discover how little serious effort has been invested in the comparative study of the wealth of information available . The long past neglect of electoral systems by social scientists is especially surprising since election rules not only have important effects on other elements of the political system, especially the party system, but also offer a practical instrument for political engineers who want to make changes in the political system. Indeed, Sartori aptly characterizes electoral systems as the most specific manipulative instrument of politics .
Part 1. The Effect of Election Type on Political 1. Duverger's Law Revisited 2. The Influence of Electoral Faulty Laws or Faulty Method? 3. Duverger's Forty Years Later 4. Intraparty Preference Voting 5. Thinking About the Length and Renewability of Electoral Terms
Part II. Evaluating the Impact of Electoral Proportional and Semiproportional Systems Case 6. Proportionality by Non-PR Ethnic Representation in Belgium, Cyprus, Lebanon, New Zealand, West Germany and Zimbabwe 7. Australian Experience with Majority-Preferential and Quota-Preferential Systems 8. The Rise, Decline and Resurrection of Proportional Representation in Local Governments in the United States 9. The Limited Vote and the Single Nontransferable Lessons from the Japanese and Spanish Examples 10 Degrees of Proportionality of Proportional Representation Formulas Part III. Evaluating the Impact of Electoral Plurality 11. The Geography of A Review of Recent Findings 12. Social Choice and Plurality-like Electoral Systems 13. The Effect of At-Large Versus District Elections in U.S. Municipalities 14. The Nonpartisan Ballot in the United States 15. Ballot Format in Plurality Partisan Elections 16. Cross-Endorsement and Cross-Filing in Plurality Partisan Elections
Part IV. 17. Whatever Happened To The Reapportionment Revolution In The United States? 18. Constituency Redistribution In Britain 19. Districting Choices Under The Single-Transferable Vote.
352 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1986
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 11, 2024
https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/electoral-laws-and-their-political-consequences-eds-bernard-grofman-and-arend-lijphart/
This is a collection of no less than 18 essays on electoral laws by the top-ranked political scientists of the day (early 1980s, published in 1986). All but one of the authors is male; all but one of the authors is white. The third chapter is a reflection by Maurice Duverger on “Duverger’s law”, first proposed by him forty years earlier, which pointed out (though in terms that are disputed) that majoritarian electoral systems tend to go with strong two-party political systems, whereas proportional electoral systems tend to go with multi-party political systems.
The thing about Duverger’s ‘law’ is that it’s obviously true except when it isn’t. Majoritarian systems don’t always lead to concentration around two alternatives – Canada and India, and even the UK to an extent, have seen the two-party system rise and fall and rise again. And nobody ever mentions Malta, which despite having a proportional election system very similar to Ireland’s, has a rigid binary political divide – the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party between them have won literally every parliamentary seat since independence sixty years ago.
In general I found that the arguments here were largely in issues that I considered in my 20s, soon after the book was published, and a lot of it seemed very old-fashioned. There is a lot more experience of democratic systems now than there was in 1985, given that we have had an end to single-party politics in most of Eastern Europe, and the debate between whether proportional or majoritarian systems are better is basically over, after the failure of the 2011 referendum in the UK and the Trudeau government’s decision not to proceed with reforms in Canada in 2015. There’s also a lot of discussion of peculiar US electoral practices that the rest of the world is unlikely to copy.
Still, there were a couple of chapters that really stood out. One, by Gordon E. Baker, looked at the revolution in reapportionment in the US, and made the point that the shift to insisting on numerically equal populations in each state’s Congressional districts, plus various other contradictory court findings, has actually made it more difficult rather than easier to draw fair boundaries. Forty years on, I fear that this hasn’t changed. And Peter Mair has a lucid paper on gerrymandering in Ireland with multi-member constituencies and the Single Transferable Vote.
However, there’s also a crashingly unreadable review of (then) recent literature compiled by Taylor, Gudgin and Johnston (who were all capable of much better); and the most annoying thing about my 2003 reprint is that the OCR’ed typesetting has been poorly edited and the placement of the letter ‘f’ is irritatingly off-centre in the words “of” and “if”.
This is a collection of no less than 18 essays on electoral laws by the top-ranked political scientists of the day (early 1980s, published in 1986). All but one of the authors is male; all but one of the authors is white. The third chapter is a reflection by Maurice Duverger on “Duverger’s law”, first proposed by him forty years earlier, which pointed out (though in terms that are disputed) that majoritarian electoral systems tend to go with strong two-party political systems, whereas proportional electoral systems tend to go with multi-party political systems.
The thing about Duverger’s ‘law’ is that it’s obviously true except when it isn’t. Majoritarian systems don’t always lead to concentration around two alternatives – Canada and India, and even the UK to an extent, have seen the two-party system rise and fall and rise again. And nobody ever mentions Malta, which despite having a proportional election system very similar to Ireland’s, has a rigid binary political divide – the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party between them have won literally every parliamentary seat since independence sixty years ago.
In general I found that the arguments here were largely in issues that I considered in my 20s, soon after the book was published, and a lot of it seemed very old-fashioned. There is a lot more experience of democratic systems now than there was in 1985, given that we have had an end to single-party politics in most of Eastern Europe, and the debate between whether proportional or majoritarian systems are better is basically over, after the failure of the 2011 referendum in the UK and the Trudeau government’s decision not to proceed with reforms in Canada in 2015. There’s also a lot of discussion of peculiar US electoral practices that the rest of the world is unlikely to copy.
Still, there were a couple of chapters that really stood out. One, by Gordon E. Baker, looked at the revolution in reapportionment in the US, and made the point that the shift to insisting on numerically equal populations in each state’s Congressional districts, plus various other contradictory court findings, has actually made it more difficult rather than easier to draw fair boundaries. Forty years on, I fear that this hasn’t changed. And Peter Mair has a lucid paper on gerrymandering in Ireland with multi-member constituencies and the Single Transferable Vote.
However, there’s also a crashingly unreadable review of (then) recent literature compiled by Taylor, Gudgin and Johnston (who were all capable of much better); and the most annoying thing about my 2003 reprint is that the OCR’ed typesetting has been poorly edited and the placement of the letter ‘f’ is irritatingly off-centre in the words “of” and “if”.
January 26, 2023
3.75/5
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews