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The Handbook of Electoral System Choice

  • Book
  • © 2004

Overview

Editors:
  1. Josep M. Colomer

    1. Higher Council of Scientific Research, Barcelona, Spain

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Table of contents (31 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxii
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  2. Introduction

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1
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    2. The Strategy and History of Electoral System Choice

      • Josep M. Colomer
      Pages 3-78

  4. Western Europe

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 177-177
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    2. Western Europe: General Overview

      • Josep M. Colomer
      Pages 179-208

    3. France: Reform-mongering Between Majority Runoff and Proportionality

      • Gerard Alexander
      Pages 209-221

    4. Germany: Partisan Engineering of Personalized Proportional Representation

      • Marcus Kreuzer
      Pages 222-236

    5. Italy: Lofty Ambitions and Unintended Consequences

      • Diego Gambetta, Steven Warner
      Pages 237-252

    6. Spain: from Civil War to Proportional Representation

      • Josep M. Colomer
      Pages 253-264

    7. Sweden: Introducing Proportional Representation from Above

      • Leif Lewin
      Pages 265-278

    8. Switzerland: Introducing Proportional Representation from Below

      • Georg Lutz
      Pages 279-293

    9. The United Kingdom: Reforming the Westminster Model

      • Patrick Dunleavy, Helen Margetts
      Pages 294-306
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Keywords

About this book

The topic of electoral reform is an extremely timely one. The accelerated expansion of the number of new democracies in the world generates increasing demand for advice on the choice of electoral rules; at the same time, a new reformism in well established democracies seeks new formulae favouring both more representative institutions and more accountable rulers. The Handbook of Electoral System Choice addresses the theoretical and comparative issues of electoral reform in relation to democratization, political strategies in established democracies and the relative performance of different electoral systems. Case studies on virtually every major democracy or democratizing country in the world are included.

Reviews

'Electoral studies have long focused more on the effects than the causes of electoral rules. As Josep Colomer notes in his introduction to this volume,

however, the very strength of the effects leads to a natural line of theorizing about causes: Parties introduce new rules in anticipation of their effects on

those parties' future electoral fortunes. The individual essays in this volume

show that this simple notion plays out in many and sometimes subtle ways in

particular cases. Cumulatively, they provide the most extensive collection we

possess to date. Moreover, Colomer's synoptic overview shows that there is an important general trend visible in the historical record, toward greater

proportionality. Every serious student of electoral systems will want this

handbook on their shelf.' - Gary W. Cox, Professor of Political Science, University of California, San Diego

'This volume goes a long way in providing the necessary detailed historical evidence about the roots of electoral system change for a large and diverse set of democratic nations throughout recent history. Professor Colomer offers a new and highly original theory of electoral change which lays the groundwork for a radical revision of what has become the common wisdom about the effects of electoral laws. The chapters provide us a wealth of new information and new theoretical insights.' - From the Foreword by Bernard Grofman, Professor of Political Science and Mathematical Behavioral Science, University of California, Irvine

Editors and Affiliations

  • Higher Council of Scientific Research, Barcelona, Spain

    Josep M. Colomer

About the editor

GERARD ALEXANDER University of Virginia, USA PATRICK DUNLEAVY London School of Economics and Political Science, UK ERIK ENGSTROM University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA RICHARD L. ENGSTROM University of New Orleans, USA ALBERTO DIAZ-CAYEROS Stanford University, USA, and ITAM, Mexico ANDREW ELLIS National Democratic Institute, Jakarta, Indonesia CARLOS FLORES JUBERÍAS University of Valencia, Spain DIEGO GAMBETTA Oxford University, UK MATT GOLDER New York University, USA ALLEN HICKEN University of Michigan, USA MAREK KAMINSKI University of California, Irvine, USA PETR KOPECKY University of Sheffield, UK, and University of Leiden, the Netherlands MARCUS KREUZER Villanova University, USA FABRICE LEHOUCQ CIDE, Mexico LEIF LEWIN University of Uppsala, Sweden GEORG LUTZ University of Berne, Switzerland BEATRIZ MAGALONI Stanford University, USA and ITAM, Mexico HELEN MARGETTS University College, London, UK EVALD MIKKEL University of Tartu, Estonia SUBRATA K. MITRA Ruprecht Karls University, Heidelberg, Germany SHAHENN MOZAFFAR Bridgewater State College, USA JACK H. NAGEL University of Pennsylvania, USA MONIKA A. NALEPA Columbia University, New York, USA GABRIEL L. NEGRETTO CIDE, Mexico JAIRO MARCONI NICOLAU IUPRJ, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil VELLO PETTAI University of Tartu, Estonia ANDREW REYNOLDS University of North Carolina, Chapell Hill, USA MARIAN SAWER Australian National University, Canberra, Australia JOHN W. SCHIEMANN Fairleigh Dickinson University, USA OLGA SHVETSOVA Washington University, St. Louis, USA JUNICHIRO WADA Yokohama City University, Japan LEONARD WANTCHEKON New York University, USA STEVEN WARNER Oxford University, UK

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