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The Pattern of Electoral Rules in the United States: a Deviant Case among the Industralized Democracies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Arend Lijphart
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THE UNITED STATES IS THE WORLD'S SECOND LARGEST DEMOcracy (after India) and the largest of the older well-established democracies, with a very long and uninterrupted history of free elections. For this reason, it can be argued that the American democratic example has been and, should be an important model for other countries to follow. This article will focus on one important aspect of the American democratic system - the pattern of electoral rules - and it will emphasize the striking differences between the American electoral process and that of most other democracies. This contrast obviously affects the applicability of the American model to other countries that may be in the process of revising their electoral rules: because the United States is a deviant case in almost all respects, it presents clear alternatives to the more common attern but also dternatives that are so radical that they may ge difficult to transplant. The democracies with which the American pattern of electoral systems will be compared and contrasted are the 20 countries which, Me the United States, have been democratic without interruption for a relatively long time, that is, since approximately the end of the Second world War: the four large West European countries (Great Britain, France, West Germany, and Italy), the five Nordic countries (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Iceland), the Benelux countries (the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg), Ireland, Switzerland, Austria, and five countries outside Europe (Canada, Israel, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand).

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Article
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , 01 January 1985 , pp. 18 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1985

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References

1 See Lijphart, Arend, Democracies: Patterns of Majoritarian and Consensus Government in Twenty‐one Countries, New Haven, Yde University Press, 1984, pp. 37–40 Google Scholar.

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9 See Butler, David and Ranney, Austin, (eds), Referendums: A Comparative Study of Practice and Theory, Washington, D.C., American Enterprise Institute, 1978 Google Scholar.

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11 Powell, Richard Jr. Rose, G. Bingham, ‘Voting Turnout in Thirty Democracies: Partisan, Legal, and Socio‐Economic Influences’, in (ed.), Electoral Participation: A Comparative Analysis, Beverly Hills, Sage, 1980, pp. 6–10 Google Scholar.

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14 Arnold, op. cit., Table 3.

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16 Karnig, Albert K. and Walter, B. Oliver, ‘Municipal Elections: Registration, Incumbent Success, and Voter Participation’, Urban Data Service Report, Vol. 8, No. 8, 08 1976, Table 8Google Scholar.

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21 Lijphart, Democracies, pp. 150–54.

22 Weaver, Leon, ‘Semi‐Proportional and Proportional Representation Systems in the United States’, in Lijphart, Arend and Grofman, Bernard (eds.), Choosing an Electoral System: Issues und Alternatives, New York, Praeger, 1984, Chapter 19Google Scholar.

23 Lijphart, Arend, ‘Advances in the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems’, World Politics, Vol. 36, No. 3, 04 1984, pp. 427–30, 435.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 Arend Lijphart, ‘A Survey of the Field of Electoral Systems Research: Strengths and Weaknesses’, paper presented at the annual meeting of the Japan Election Studies Association, Tokyo, 12–13 May, 1984.

25 2nd ed., New York, Facts on File, 1982. For the House elections from 1946 to 1980, the most convenient source is Ornstein, Norman J., Mann, Thomas E., Malbin, Michael J., and Bibby, John F., Vital Statistics on Congress, 1982, Washington, D.C., American Enterprise Institute, 1982, pp. 38–9Google Scholar.

26 Grofman, Bernard, Lijphart, Arend, McKay, Robert B., and Scarrow, Howard A., (eds), Representation and Redistricting Issues, Lexington, Mass., Lexington Books, 1982 Google Scholar.

27 This article is a revised version of a paper presented at the symposium on ‘Sistemas electorales comparados con especial referencia a nivel local’, convened by the Consejo Supremo Electoral, Caracas, Venezuela, 16–19 July, 1984. A Spanish version will be included in the proceedings of the symposium to be published by the Consejo Supremo Electoral. I wrote the paper while I was a Fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and I should like to express my gratitude for the Fund’s support. I should also like to thank Bernard Grofman, Samuel H. Kernell, and Eugene C. Lee for their valuable advice.