19
significant predictor of the other two attitudes, although each of the other three
electoral system variables is important, in different ways. Seeing parties as necessary
is shaped by having a more proportional system, and by a larger assembly and a lower
voter/representative ratio; viewing elected representatives as knowledgeable is shaped
by much the same elements. All three of these attitudes about the political system are,
in turn, strong predictors of satisfaction with democracy, as we would expect. The
importance of voters seeing the last election as having been conducted fairly is the
largest effect, and is about equal in importance to the other two attitudes combined.
Overall, then, the path analysis presented in Figure 3 provides additional support
for the argument that electoral systems affect levels of voter satisfaction with
democracy, and in this instance we have evidence of the nature of the linkage between
these two sets of variables. The slightly disappointing result for our intra-party
variable may partially be due to our reduced sample size (given that we had to
exclude three countries used in the analysis in the previous section), but in large part it
most likely reflects the much stronger affects of the more commonly used electoral
system measures, particularly disproportionality and assembly size. Nevertheless, the
results do show that the intra-party nature of the electoral system has an impact on
popular perceptions of electoral fairness and via that to satisfaction with democracy
(and, remember, this was the most important of our three linkage variables in Figure
3). While this analysis provides further support for the argument that the ‘macro’
measure of systemic proportionality is the most important electoral system feature,
there are also grounds for arguing that the ‘micro’ aspects of electoral systems—in
this case the intra-party dimension affected particularly by the ballot structure—have
a role to play, and our analysis in Table 3 shows that this role is far from being
insignificant.
5. Conclusion
With the mushrooming of new democracies over the past few decades, electoral
engineering has become big business. On an ever-increasing basis, political scientists
are invited to comment on the design of new electoral systems; indeed, this has also
included consideration of fundamental reform of electoral systems in established
democracies (Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Israel, the UK, etc.). While few today would
demur from Richard Katz’s contention that the answer to the question which electoral
system is ‘best’ depends on ‘who you are, where you are, and where you want to go’
Convention