E
LECTORAL
E
NGINEERING
~ C
HAPTER
1 ~ N
ORRIS
8/9/2003
5:09
PM
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generally on issues of electoral administration, voter education, election observing, and party
capacity-building
5
. Elections played a particularly important role in attempts to manage ethnic
tensions in plural societies such as Bosnia-Herzegovina. Debates about electoral systems have
traditionally revolved around the desirability of the major ideal types. Majoritarian electoral
systems are designed to promote accountable single-party government, by awarding the greatest
representation to the two leading parties with the most votes. Proportional electoral systems aim
to generate inclusive and consensual power sharing, by producing parliaments that reflect the
vote shares of multiple parties. During the 1990s debates turned increasingly towards the pros
and cons of ‘combined’ (or ‘mixed’) electoral systems, incorporating features of each of the
major ideal types
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.
Interest in electoral engineering has not been confined to ‘third wave’ democracies.
During the postwar era, electoral systems have usually proved relatively stable institutions in
most established democracies. Nevertheless occasional modifications to electoral law have
occurred, including minor adjustment to voting thresholds, electoral formulas, and suffrage
qualifications
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. Moreover some long-standing democracies have implemented far more radical
reforms of the basic electoral system during the last decade. In the United Kingdom, the Blair
government radically overhauled the electoral system of first-past-the-post, with alternative
systems adopted at almost every level except for Westminster and local councils
8
. In 1993 New
Zealand, after more than a century of first-past-the-post, the nation switched to a mixed-
member proportional system, producing a sudden fragmentation of the two-party system
9
. In
1992 Israel introduced direct elections for the prime minister to create a stronger executive
capable of counterbalancing party fragmentation in the Knesset and overcoming the problems
of frequent government turnover
10
. The following year Italy changed. After prolonged debate
about the best way to overcome unstable party governments, and a deep crisis in the
parliamentary system, Italy adopted a combined electoral system where three-quarters of the
parliamentary seats were distributed by plurality vote in single member districts and the
remaining one-quarter as a proportional compensation for minor parties
11
. Venezuela, one of
Latin America’s oldest democracies, aiming to strengthen the independence of elected members
over the national party leadership, changed in 1993 from a closed list PR system for the
Chamber of Deputies to a combined system
12
. In March 1994, Japan moved from a Single
Non-Transferable Vote to a system combining PR seats with first-past-the-post single-member
districts, in the attempt to craft a competitive two-party, issue-oriented politics, and a cleaner,
more efficient government
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. Beyond the basic electoral formula, many democracies have
overhauled electoral procedures by reforming the legal statutes and party rules to facilitate
positive action for women, improving the administrative process of electoral registration and
voting facilities, and revising the regulation of campaign finance and broadcasting
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.
During the last decade, therefore, issues of effective democratic design have risen
sharply on the policy agenda in many nations. The first ‘founding’ contests held under any
revised rules may prove anomalous and unstable, as citizens and parties learn the ropes, but
their effects can be assessed more reliably after a decade of elections held under the revised
arrangements. Attempts at electoral engineering have commonly sought to achieve a balance
between greater democratic accountability through majoritarian systems or wider parliamentary
diversity through proportional systems. Underlying the long-standing normative debates are
certain important empirical claims about the consequences of electoral engineering for voting
choices and for political representation. Electoral reform is founded upon the principle that
altering the formal rules matters based on the assumption that certain desirable consequences
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