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Advances in the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Arend Lijphart
Arend Lijphart
Affiliation:
University of California
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Abstract

The twelve books under review, written by scholars representing many different disciplines and nationalities, are proof that the comparative analysis of electoral systems has made significant progress in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It is still not a well-developed field, but it has clearly become a less underdeveloped one. Renewed interest in research on electoral systems has been stimulated by major changes in election rules—usually in the direction of proportional representation—that have been adopted in several countries, and by a vigorous debate on electoral reform in countries that now rely mainly on the plurality method. The United States is the principal deviant case. Two election systems frequently serve as models for electoral reform: the Irish single transferrable vote and the West German additional-member system.

Type
Review Articles
Information
World Politics , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , April 1984 , pp. 424 - 436
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1984

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References

1 Rae, , The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967Google Scholar; rev. ed., 1971).

2 Rokkan, , “Elections: Electoral Systems,” in Sills, David L., ed., International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (New York: Macmillan, Free Press, 1968), Vol. V, 6–21, at 17.Google Scholar

3 Sartori, , “Political Development and Political Engineering,” in Montgomery, John D. and Hirschman, Albert O., eds., Public Policy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968), Vol. XVII, 261–98, at 273.Google Scholar

4 Duverger, , Political Parties: Their Organization and Activity in the Modern State, trans, by Barbara, and North, Robert (New York: Wiley, 1963), 217.Google Scholar

5 Rae (fn. 1), 42–43, 185–88.