Election

Choosing Electoral Systems: Proportional, Majoritarian and Mixed Systems Pippa Norris (Harvard University) For Contrasting Political Institutions special issue of the International Political Science Review Vol 18(3) July 1997: 297-312. edited by Jean Laponce and Bernard Saint-Jacques In the past, electoral systems have usually proved one of the most stable democratic institutions. Minor tinkering with the rules and regulations concerning the administration of elections has been common, including amendments to the laws governing election broadcasts, financial disclosure, or constituency redistricting. In the post-war period countries have occasionally switched electoral formulas between d'Hondt and LR-Hare, adjusted the effective threshold for election, and expanded their assembly size (Lijphart, 1994). Yet until recently wholesale and radical reform of the basic electoral system --meaning the way votes are translated into seats -- has been relatively rare. The most significant exception to this rule is France, which has vacillated between proportional and majoritarian systems. In their classic work on electoral cleavages Lipset and Rokkan (1967) described the party system in Western Europe in the 1960s as "frozen" in the mould established at the turn of the century with the enfranchisement of the working class. In a similar way, until recently electoral systems in liberal democracies seemed set in concrete. The parties in government generally favored and maintained the status quo from which they benefited. The critical voices of those parties or out-groups systematically excluded from elected office rarely proved able to amend the rules of the game. This stability suggests that electoral systems are inherently conservative. Nevertheless institutions have the capacity to experience a radical breakdown following shocks to their external environment. In Krasner’s model of 'punctuated' equilibrium, institutions are characterized by long periods of stasis, which are