Explaining the Design and Redesign of Electoral Systems

Abstract

Electoral institutions are often regarded as ‘sticky’ in the sense that they are difficult to change. However, relatively little attention has been given to the factors that shape them in the early stages of their development or the ways in which they evolve. A number of democratic countries made changes to their electoral laws in the 1990s, belying the view that ‘fundamental changes are rare and arise only in extraordinary situations’.1 Yet the large-scale rewriting of electoral laws in post-communist Europe between 1989 and 1991 was certainly a phenomenon not witnessed since the adoption of proportional representation across most of Western Europe from the late nineteenth century. Moreover, most countries in the post-communist region altered their electoral laws to some degree after the initial ‘founding’ elections had given the population a political choice for the first time in decades. Even where it failed, electoral reform was on the political agenda of new elites. Political actors generally found it ‘worthwhile to take the risk of launching a new process of bargaining and political change’.2