The New Zealand electoral referendum and general election of 1993

Rational, reverential or experimental? The politics of electoral reform in Oceania

“…Testing our hypotheses is not straightforward here because a referendum took the decision out of the hands of the parties, and because neither the National nor Labour parties adopted a formal position during the referendum campaigns (Levine and Roberts 1994). The decision to trigger such reform, however, was not in their interests.…”

Influences on Citizens' Electoral System Preferences: A Comparative Study of Britain and New Zealand

“…For example, a vote for AV was positively correlated with support for greater citizen involvement in the political process (Clarke et al, 2013), a stance often advocated by the post-materialist left. Also, campaigns by the business community against MMP in New Zealand, due to concern over its impact on the stability of economic policy (Levine and Roberts, 1994), may have connected ideological positions and electoral system preferences in voters' minds. We believe these explanations can be applicable to other cases of electoral system referendums beyond the specific contexts of Britain and New Zealand.…”

“…In the literature on the use of popular referendums to settle constitutional issues, an increasing number of studies has been devoted specifically to referendums on electoral systems, particularly in the wake of such votes taking place in New Zealand in 1992 -1993 (Levine and Roberts, 1994;Nagel, 1994;Vowles, 1995;Vowles and Lamare, 1996;Aimer and Miller, 2002) and in the UK in 2011 (Whiteley et al, 2012;Clarke et al, 2013;Curtice, 2013;Vowles, 2013). Whereas the conventional approach to electoral reform focuses on the rational interests and strategic interactions of political elites (Boix, 1999;Benoit, 2004;Colomer, 2005), instances of entrusting the decision to maintain or overhaul extant electoral rules to ordinary voters have prompted more scholars to examine factors that influence individual attitudes towards electoral systems.…”

Enthusiasm and entropy: New Zealand's experience with proportional representation

“…In particular, the commission preferred MMP over bo± the existing first-past-the-post (or 'plurality') system and other options because it 'ensures fairness between political parties'; 'is likely to provide a more efjectiue Parliament'; 'has advantages in terms of voter participation'; 'offers to Maori... the opportunity to elect... candidates who reflect the Maori viewpoint'; and would be 'likely to provide more efjectiue representation of and influence for, other minority and special interest groups'. 1 The Royal Commission had conceded that MMP made 'coalition or minority Governments ... more likely', but questioned whether ' efjectiue government' (one of its ten criteria for evaluating electoral systems) would be prejudiced by such a result. On ±e contrary, the commission argued that 'governments remain at least as effective, and.possibly more so if proportionality results in the adoption of more consistent, consultative and broadly supported policies'.…”