The field of elections and electoral systems, and particularly electoral reform, has exhibited tremendous growth and cross-national appeal over the last two decades. However, beyond an increased knowledge of voting rules and their consequences for political representation, little attention has been devoted to the question of why electoral systems have recently undergone substantial change in several liberal democracies. This book addresses several new approaches to electoral reform. First, the scope of the study of electoral reform has been expanded. Second, contrary to previous studies of electoral reform, the conviction that the determinants of reform can be explained by one single approach has been replaced by a belief in a more comprehensive framework for analysis. Third, we move beyond political parties (acting in parliament and government) as the most significant source of electoral reform. Fourth, a focus on the determinants of electoral reform allows us to include motivations and objectives of electoral reform. A final advancement in the study of electoral reform is the inclusion of countries other than ‘established’ democracies. This book was published as a special issue of West European Politics.

Institutions 'matter' to electoral reform advocates and political scientists - both argue that variation in electoral institutions affect how elected officials and citizens behave. Change the rules, and citizen engagement with politics can be renewed. Yet a look at the record of electoral reform reveals a string of disappointments. This book examines a variety of reforms, including campaign finance, direct democracy, legislative term limits, and changes to the electoral system itself. This study finds electoral reforms have limited, and in many cases, no effects. Despite reform advocates' claims, and contrary to the 'institutions matter' literature, findings here suggest there are hard limits to effects of electoral reform. The explanations for this are threefold. The first is political. Reformers exaggerate claims about transformative effects of new electoral rules, yet their goal may simply be to maximize their partisan advantage. The second is empirical. Cross-sectional comparative research demonstrates that variation in electoral institutions corresponds with different patterns of political attitudes and behaviour. But this method cannot assess what happens when rules are changed. Using examples from the US, UK, New Zealand, Australia, and elsewhere this book examines attitudes and behaviour across time where rules were changed. Results do not match expectations from the institutional literature. Third is a point of logic. There is an inflated sense of the effects of institutions generally, and of electoral institutions in particular. Given the larger social and economic forces at play, it is unrealistic to expect that changes in electoral arrangements will have substantial effects on political engagement or on how people view politics and politicians. Institutional reform is an almost constant part of the political agenda in democratic societies. Someone, somewhere, always has a proposal not just to change the workings of the system but to reform it. The book is about how and why such reforms disappoint. Comparative Politics is a series for students, teachers, and researchers of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu. The Comparative Politics series is edited by Professor David M. Farrell, School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin, and Kenneth Carty, Professor of Political Science, University of British Columbia.

Elections lie at the heart of democracy, and this book seeks to understand how the rules governing those elections are chosen. Drawing on both broad comparisons and detailed case studies, it focuses upon the electoral rules that govern what sorts of preferences voters can express and how votes translate into seats in a legislature. Through detailed examination of electoral reform politics in four countries (France, Italy, Japan, and New Zealand), Alan Renwick shows how major electoral system changes in established democracies occur through two contrasting types of reform process. Renwick rejects the simple view that electoral systems always straightforwardly reflect the interests of the politicians in power. Politicians' motivations are complex; politicians are sometimes unable to pursue reforms they want; occasionally, they are forced to accept reforms they oppose. The Politics of Electoral Reform shows how voters and reform activists can have real power over electoral reform.

How elites influenced major electoral reform in the emerging democracy of Indonesia

The topic of electoral reform is an extremely timely one. The accelerated expansion of the number of new democracies in the world generates increasing demand for advice on the choice of electoral rules; at the same time, a new reformism in well established democracies seeks new formulae favouring both more representative institutions and more accountable rulers. The Handbook of Electoral System Choice addresses the theoretical and comparative issues of electoral reform in relation to democratization, political strategies in established democracies and the relative performance of different electoral systems. Case studies on virtually every major democracy or democratizing country in the world are included.

Defining Democracy reveals the history of a little-known experiment in urban democracy begun in New York City during the Great Depression and abolished amid the early Cold War. For a decade, New Yorkers utilized a new voting system that produced the most diverse legislatures in the city's history and challenged the American two-party structure. Daniel O. Prosterman examines struggles over electoral reform in New York City to clarify our understanding of democracy's evolution in the United States and the world.

This book presents a new democratic theory of election reform, using the tradition of political realism to interrogate and synthesize findings from global elections research and voting theory. In a world of democratic deficits and uncivil societies, political researchers and reformers should prioritize creating smarter ballots before smarter voters. Many democracies’ electoral systems impose a dilemma of disempowerment which traps voters between the twin dangers of vote-splitting and “lesser evil” choices, restricting individual expression while degrading systemic accountability. The application of innovative conceptual tools to comparative empirical analysis and previous experimental results reveals that ballot structure is crucial, but often overlooked, in sustaining this dilemma. Multi-mark ballot structures can resolve the dilemma of disempowerment by allowing voters to rank or grade multiple parties or candidates per contest, thereby furnishing democratic citizens with a broader array of options, finer tools of expression, and stronger powers of accountability. Innovative proposals for ranking and grading ballots in both multi-winner and single-winner contests, including referendums, are offered to provoke further experimentation and reform—a process that may help the cause of democratic elections’ relevance and survival.