Electoral Systems: A Primer for Decision Makers

Abstract

Electoral systems do not simply reflect voter preferences, social cleavages, or the political party configuration of a given society. All electoral systems shape and reshape these features. The choice of one electoral system or another involves a decision about what goals decision-makers wish to foster. The present article enumerates six possible goals of electoral systems and then explains how various systems foster or derogate from these goals. In all cases of electoral-system choice, there are tradeoffs. A system may fulfill one objective but make it difficult to attain another. Clarity of objective and attention to the details of system choice are, therefore, necessary.

Votes, Money and Violence: Political Parties and Elections in Sub-Saharan Africa

“…And not just in Africa. Distribution requirements for presidential elections have been suggested for presidential elections in Bosnia (International Crisis Group 1999) and are used in Indonesia (Horowitz 2003). Constituency pooling has been recommended for the election of the European Parliament (Bogaards 2004b).…”

“…Rather, the menu of choice is between electoral systems that promote aggregation of socio-cultural divisions; facilitate the political translation of ethnic differences; or block the political organization of socio-cultural cleavages. The way in which social cleavages are politically organized, or not, has important implications for ethnic-conflict management and democratic consolidation (see lijphart 1977Horowitz , 1994Horowitz , 2003. Third, any discussion of electoral reform should go beyond the main types of electoral system (plurality, majority, proportional representation) and their variants.…”

Crisis of governance in South Sudan: electoral politics and violence in the world's newest nation

“…2. For arguments about the conflict-mitigating and conflict-generating influence of electoral systems, see, for instance, Horowitz (2003) and Reilly & Reynolds (2000).…”

Non-discriminatory Rules and Ethnic Representation: The Election of the Bosnian State Presidency

“…Instead, the integrationalist school proposes that strong political power-holders are elected by electoral rules that empower those politicians with a conciliating program -which have best chances to be supported by different communal groups (Horowitz 1985(Horowitz , 2003Reilly 2001). …”