The politics of electoral system choice in a context of democratization. Electoral reform and institutional change in the French Third Republic (1870–1940)

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article contributes to the field of democratization studies and provides new perspectives for understanding electoral system choice, in the context of fundamental political reforms and unprecedented changes during the Third Republic in France (1870–1940). Using a multi-methodology approach, on an analysis of parliamentary debates of the three electoral laws that (re)established the uninominal voting system in 1875, 1889 and 1927, the factors that determine this choice against a changing political and institutional background are examined. We question how political actors used the new democratic institutions created by the constitutional law of 1875 and the electoral system to secure their position and their influence in the new political regime. Our empirical study shows that the actors’ configurations supporting the uninominal voting system changed according to the political context. Political incumbents try to safeguard their power with the electoral system choice, but electoral reforms do not always achieve the desired objectives. Electoral reforms appear as a strategic element driven by electoral interests and institutional implications. The democratization process is subjected to the ambivalence of actors in relation to the uninominal voting system. There is a confusion in what democratization is, and between what would be consistent with democratic reforms, what is republican and what is not.