What Kind of Electoral System for Plural Societies?

Abstract

Arend Lijphart complains that the electoral system of a country is too often regarded as a constant rather than a variable (1984a). This is particularly true of developing countries, for most of them inherited electoral systems from their colonial periods, or, at the dawn of independence, they adopted systems patterned after the models of their former colonial powers, because they were the best known for them. Hardly any attempts were made to study the question whether some alternative electoral system might be more suitable in their conditions. I do not want to exaggerate the importance of electoral systems, but I think that it is an institutional factor which can facilitate or hamper the function of democratic institutions in developing countries, although the major reasons for the failure of democracy in most third world countries have probably been in the social structures, as I have tried to show in my recent study on the emergence of democracy (Vanhanen, 1984). However, because it is usually much easier to change an electoral system than to transform social and economic stuctures, it would be worth-while investigating which defects in the function of democratic institutions may be caused by the electoral system. Therefore, in this article, I shall discuss the problem from the aspect of plural societies in particular, for most developing countries can be regarded as plural societies because of their deep segmental cleavages (see Lijphart, 1980, pp.3–4). My preliminary assumption is that proportional representation would serve their needs better than the plurality system. India will be used as a major example of a plural society where the plurality system seems to have caused serious problems.