Electoral Systems

Electoral systems can be conceptualized in both a broad and a narrow sense. Although there is a tendency to understand the term for descriptive purposes as encompassing everything relating to the electoral process, including suffrage, electoral administration, and, recently, also electoral behavior, for analytical reasons, a narrow concept is preferable. Correspondingly, electoral systems are the mode by which voters express their political preferences through votes and according to which votes are transformed into parliamentary seats or executive offices. This narrow concept is usually applied when electoral systems are regarded as instruments for shaping party systems.

Institutionalists, among them the most reputed experts on electoral systems, ascribe great significance to the latter as the most fundamental element of representative democracy, especially important for the functioning of the political system. Sociologists, however, argue that political systems and party systems are, to a far greater degree, dependent on societal factors, such as the structure and deepness of social cleavages, the level of development, political culture, and historical paths. In contrast to conceptualizing the issue in sharp alternatives, it seems more reasonable to consider both approaches and to look at electoral systems as an independent and a dependent variable in relation to party systems and contextual factors. Furthermore, the choice or design of electoral systems is made by political parties along with their preferences, and the effects of electoral systems are influenced by the structure of the party system itself. [Page 207]Certainly electoral systems exert, as Maurice Duverger stated, mechanical effects on the political representation as well as psychological effects, as a voter's choice is influenced by earlier decisions. But the formation and changes of party systems are far too complex to be understood by a traditional linearcausal treatment of their dependence on electoral systems. Their effects largely depend on contextual factors, which play an important role in the understanding of why the same electoral system in different countries goes along with different party systems. While the causal relationship between electoral systems and party systems is maintained, contextual factors, which differ from country to country, can be said to be co-determinant. It is worthwhile to add that the proper party system is likely to constitute a very significant factor determining not only the choice but also the effects of an electoral system.