Electoral Systems in Contemporary Advanced Democracies: Basic Principles and Their Mechanics

Abstract

What are electoral systems? A broad definition would include the set of rules which — from the distinction between active and passive electorates to access to TV, from the rules for the presentation of lists and candidates to the regulation of campaigning (see, in comparative perspective Rose, 2000a) — are concerned with all the important legal aspects of elections. But this broad definition is more appropriate for election laws than for electoral systems. Electoral laws include all the important provisions that regulate the electoral process. As recent research has underlined, even limiting the spectrum to some 60 democracies, there are today significant differences in one or more of the rules that regulate democratic elections around the world (Massicotte et al., 2004). The six dimensions chosen in that study are the following: the right to vote, the right to be a candidate, the electoral register, the agency in charge of the election, the procedure for casting votes, and the procedure to sort out the winners and losers. Clearly, all these topics are fundamental for regulating the democratic course of an election. However, it is on the last two dimensions that the study of electoral systems focuses. How people vote and who wins or loses: these are the two crucial questions around which a growing literature has been developing over the last two decades, since Arend Lijphart lamented the scarcity of studies on this topic (Lijphart, 1985).