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Electoral Engineering: Electoral Rules and Voting Choices
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E
LECTORAL
E
NGINEERING
~ C
HAPTER
1 ~ N
ORRIS
8/9/2003
5:09
PM
4
for social and political engineering can be achieved through the public policy process. There is certainly persuasive evidence that electoral rules have important mechanical effects as they help to determine which candidates are elected to parliament and which parties enter government. This is an essential function in representative democracies. Even if electoral rules had no other impact, this still provides ample justification for their study. But do formal rules have important psychological effects with the capacity to alter the behavior of political actors and citizens
15
? Far
less agreement surrounds this question.
To understand these issues, this book compares and evaluates alternative perspectives
offered by rational-choice institutionalism and cultural modernization theories. These broad schools of thought shape the literature, each with multiple contributors. Each offers contrasting expectations about the impact and the consequences of electoral engineering on human behavior, one more optimistic, one more cautious. Each also reflects deeper divisions within the social sciences. Both perspectives offer alternative interpretations about how far political actors will respond to changes in the formal rules of the game, resting ultimately upon contrasting visions of human behavior. Of course many other perspectives are possible, such as historical institutionalism emphasizing the distinctive process of path-dependency in any nation. There are also general cultural theories, which do not make any assumptions about processes of societal development. The framework chosen as the focus in this book should not be regarded as providing an exhaustive and definitive overview of the arguments. Nevertheless the two approaches that are the selected focus of this study can be regarded as among the most pervasive and important theories. Essentially rational-choice institutionalism assumes that formal electoral rules have a substantial impact upon the strategic incentives facing politicians, parties and citizens, so that changing the formal rules has the capacity to alter political behavior. Yet it remains unclear how much formal rules and strategic incentives matter in comparison with deep-rooted cultural ‘habits of the heart’ arising from the process of societal modernization; and we know even less about how structure and culture interact. This, in a nutshell, is the central puzzle to be unraveled at the heart of this book. Rules are thought to have multiple consequences so this study focuses upon understanding their potential impact upon many important dimensions of electoral behavior and political representation. The most important aspects of voting behavior concern patterns of party competition, the strength of social cleavages and party loyalties, and levels of electoral turnout. Political representation is compared by the inclusion of women and ethnic minorities in elected office, and the provision of constituency service.
The aim of this book is therefore to reintegrate two strands in the literature. One rich
and extensive set of studies has long sought to understand electoral systems through classifying the formal rules, deducing certain consequences, and analyzing the evidence from aggregate election results held under different systems. Another substantial literature has sought to analyze how voters respond to the electoral choices before them, based on the evidence from individual-level national surveys of the electorate, and more occasional experiments or focus groups, often studied within each country or region in isolation from their broader institutional context. What this study seeks to do is to reintegrate some of the core strands in these literatures, so that we can explore how formal electoral rules (the independent variable) shape the strategic behavior of political actors (both parties and politicians, as the intervening variables) and how, in turn, the behavior of political actors affect voting choices (the dependent variable). The study does not claim to be a comprehensive and exhaustive treatment of electoral systems or voting behavior, but rather it seeks to open new questions and identify new challenges for
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E
LECTORAL
E
NGINEERING
~ C
HAPTER
1 ~ N
ORRIS
8/9/2003
5:09
PM
4
for social and political engineering can be achieved through the public policy process. There is
certainly persuasive evidence that electoral rules have important mechanical effects as they help
to determine which candidates are elected to parliament and which parties enter government.
This is an essential function in representative democracies. Even if electoral rules had no other
impact, this still provides ample justification for their study. But do formal rules have important
psychological effects with the capacity to alter the behavior of political actors and citizens
15
? Far
less agreement surrounds this question.
To understand these issues, this book compares and evaluates alternative perspectives
offered by rational-choice institutionalism and cultural modernization theories. These broad
schools of thought shape the literature, each with multiple contributors. Each offers contrasting
expectations about the impact and the consequences of electoral engineering on human
behavior, one more optimistic, one more cautious. Each also reflects deeper divisions within the
social sciences. Both perspectives offer alternative interpretations about how far political actors
will respond to changes in the formal rules of the game, resting ultimately upon contrasting
visions of human behavior. Of course many other perspectives are possible, such as historical
institutionalism emphasizing the distinctive process of path-dependency in any nation. There
are also general cultural theories, which do not make any assumptions about processes of
societal development. The framework chosen as the focus in this book should not be regarded
as providing an exhaustive and definitive overview of the arguments. Nevertheless the two
approaches that are the selected focus of this study can be regarded as among the most pervasive
and important theories. Essentially rational-choice institutionalism assumes that formal
electoral rules have a substantial impact upon the strategic incentives facing politicians, parties
and citizens, so that changing the formal rules has the capacity to alter political behavior. Yet it
remains unclear how much formal rules and strategic incentives matter in comparison with
deep-rooted cultural ‘habits of the heart’ arising from the process of societal modernization; and
we know even less about how structure and culture interact. This, in a nutshell, is the central
puzzle to be unraveled at the heart of this book. Rules are thought to have multiple
consequences so this study focuses upon understanding their potential impact upon many
important dimensions of electoral behavior and political representation. The most important
aspects of voting behavior concern patterns of party competition, the strength of social cleavages
and party loyalties, and levels of electoral turnout. Political representation is compared by the
inclusion of women and ethnic minorities in elected office, and the provision of constituency
service.
The aim of this book is therefore to reintegrate two strands in the literature. One rich
and extensive set of studies has long sought to understand electoral systems through classifying
the formal rules, deducing certain consequences, and analyzing the evidence from aggregate
election results held under different systems. Another substantial literature has sought to
analyze how voters respond to the electoral choices before them, based on the evidence from
individual-level national surveys of the electorate, and more occasional experiments or focus
groups, often studied within each country or region in isolation from their broader institutional
context. What this study seeks to do is to reintegrate some of the core strands in these
literatures, so that we can explore how formal electoral rules (the independent variable) shape the
strategic behavior of political actors (both parties and politicians, as the intervening variables)
and how, in turn, the behavior of political actors affect voting choices (the dependent variable).
The study does not claim to be a comprehensive and exhaustive treatment of electoral systems
or voting behavior, but rather it seeks to open new questions and identify new challenges for
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