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The insights gained while carrying out a book-length study of electoral systems are applied to evaluate existing electoral systems and to suggest guidelines for changes, if necessary. © 1989.

Elements of an economic theory of political institutions are introduced. A variety of electoral systems are reviewed. Cox's threshold is shown to measure incentives for diversity and specialization of candidates' positions, when the number of serious candidates is given. Duverger's law and its generalizations are discussed, to predict the number of serious candidates. Duberger's law is interpreted as a statement about electoral barriers to entry, and this idea is linked to the question of the effectiveness of democratic competition as a deterrent to political corruption. The impact ofpost-electoral bargaining on the party structure in presidential and parliamentary systems is discussed.

Electoral rules delimit the democratic game, but are also part of the game. In conjunction with political culture and skills they lead to an electoral system. This overview first addresses their effect in mature democracies, especially on the number of parliamentary parties and deviation from proportionality. The results are cautiously extended to early democratization. The main advice is to keep the electoral rules simple, so that world-wide empirical and analytical experience can be used to obtain somewhat predictable outcomes. Once chosen, keep the same rules for at least three elections, so that an electoral system has time to develop. For scholars the main lesson of the newly democratizing countries is modesty in prediction.

Electoral rules delimit the democratic game, but are also part of the game. In conjunction with political culture and skills they lead to an electoral system. This overview first addresses their effect in mature democracies, especially on the number of parliamentary parties and deviation from proportionality. The results are cautiously extended to early democratization. The main advice is to keep the electoral rules simple, so that world-wide empirical and analytical experience can be used to obtain somewhat predictable outcomes. Once chosen, keep the same rules for at least three elections, so that an electoral system has time to develop. For scholars the main lesson of the newly democratizing countries is modesty in prediction.

In many ountries, the a ommodation of ethni , linguisti and religious diversities is a ma jor hallenge. The s ope of this paper is to attempt to understandwhi h politi al arrangements might fa ilitate inter-ethni ohabitation. It is indeed extremely important to understand whi h ele toral system ould be seen asthe most eÆ ient in redu ing ra ial tensions both in the short and in the longrun. The ore of the work is the study of the ee t that ele toral systems have onra ial tensions but also their intera tive ee ts with de entralization. Using thebest available data ( oming from the International Country Risk Guide) and thete hniques we believe to be the most appropriate (Interval Censored Regression)we nd interesting results: rst, ma joritarian systems seem to be positively relatedto high levels of ethni tensions while proportional representations seem parti ularly appropriate for redu ing su h tensions. Se ond, we nd that presidentialism,is asso iated to lower levels of ra ial tensions. Finally we nd that de entralizationis more eÆ ient under parliamentarism than under presidentialism for allowing abetter ethni ohabitation.JEL CLassi ation: D74, H40, H72

This paper examines whether participation in the electoral process has become easier or more difficult for new political parties. We identify barriers that might facilitate or discourage the participation of new parties in elections. This involves both the rules of ballot access, as well as media access and campaign funding. Then, we assemble empirical evidence on the changes in these barriers in advanced industrial democracies. The paper also considers whether any observed institutional changes have had demonstrable impact on the number of new and small parties in these electoral systems

This paper provides a game-theoretic model of representative democracy with endogenous party formation. Coalition formation may occur before and after elections, and the expected payoffs from the after-election majority game affect incentives to form parties before the elections. In this way Duverger's hypothesis can be formally explained by the strategic behaviour of political elites. If politicians care primarily about private benefits, the equilibrium policy outcome under a proportional electoral system coincides with the median party's position. On the othoer hand, with quasilinear utility, the distance from the median voter outcome may be lower with plurality rule.

Shaheen Mozaffar sets out some preliminary findings regarding the impacts of different electoral systems on political representation and party systems in Africa.

Emerging democracies may go through a sequence of positive and negative attitudes toward foreign advice on electoral systems. My experience in Estonia makes me propose such a sequence, to see from the roundtable responses whether it has any generality. Based on a sample of one, the framework most likely will not hold, but reactions to it may help to map the field. Indirectly, I will touch on the touchy issue of whether the foreign advisors have failed to give adequate advice or whether local politicians have failed to take sound advice. Of course, it is neither and both, to some degree, plus honest misunderstandings. I will examine to what extent our systematic and analytical knowledge of electoral systems enables Western political scientists to offer advice to emerging democracies, and my conclusions are rather modest. I will briefly digress from impact of political science advice for emerging democracies to the latter's impact on political science discourse, focusing on Duverger's rule.

This theory specifies the party sizes expected on the basis of constraints imposed by simple electoral rules. Duverger's law and hypothesis states that under the single-member plurality rule third parties tend to be eliminated, while proportional representation in multi-seat districts enables more than two parties to thrive. Expanding on Duverger' statements, the seat and vote shares of parties at all size ranks are calculated here, using nothing but two institutional inputs (district magnitude and assembly size) plus the number of voters. These are the baseline values expected if (and only if) institutional constraints were the only factor, with other factors balancing themselves out. The theory is complete in the sense of leading to complete party size structure. Among the relatively simple electoral systems the institutional baselines do reflect the long-term averages in New Zealand, while the residuals indicate the imbalance of inputs by other factors in the case of The Netherlands and Finland, and especially in the case of the UK.

Since the onset of the current wave of democratization, there has been a growing interest in researching the institutional factors underlying citizen support for democracy. This has also, in part, reflected a renewed scholarly interest in seeking answers to the questions of whether and how institutions 'matter'. Of all the institutions that may matter, few would deny that electoral systems are among the most significant. They are the central institutional design issue for a new polity to resolve; and they are also among the most malleable of the political institutions. The aim of this paper is to assess whether ballot structure has a wider impact on levels of voter satisfaction with democracy. This paper uses the latest wave of data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) to assess the role of ballot structure, as well as a battery of other electoral system and individual-level variables, in influencing voter satisfaction with democracy in thirty countries. Using an intra-party measure which identifies the main characteristics of preferential system, our comparative analysis has shown that such systems promote a greater sense of fairness about election outcomes among citizens, which in turn is a major component of the public's satisfaction with the democratic system.

This thesis examines party institutionalization in East Europe. Ethnicity, electoral systems and economics are variables explored in the substantive chapters. Many political science studies examine the number of parties in East Europe, but only a few studies study party institutionalization. Chapter 1 establishes the foundations for this thesis and provides an overview of each chapter. In the second chapter, I analyze the relationship between institutionalized parties and ethnicity. Kitschelt (1992) argues that in the absence of institutionalized parties, voters look to other factors, such as ethnicity, when voting. The results from this chapter report that ethnicity plays a limited role in party institutionalization. The most surprising finding from this chapter is the significant relationship between the presence of an official state language and the number of institutionalized parties. For future research, I would like to develop and ethnicity index which would measure the distribution of ethnic groups within a country. I believe an ethnicity index would substantially improve the results in this chapter. Electoral systems have received considerable attention from political scientists. Many studies focus on the relationship between electoral systems and the number of parties in a country. This chapter, however, examines the influence of electoral systems on the number of institutionalized parties in East Europe. In general, the results from chapter 3 provide no empirical support for the impact electoral systems have on party institutionalization. To improve the validity of this study, I believe additional elections could add salience to studies in this area. Chapter 4 explores the effect economics has on institutionalized parties. In early elections, my results indicate an insignificant relationship between economic performance and party institutionalization. For the final two elections, my results show that economic variables influence party institutionalization. Gross national income (GNI) per capita was positive in the final two tests, and the results reveal a positive relationship between this variable and the number of institutionalized parties. Central government debt and gross domestic product (GDP) growth were also statistically significant in the final test. In sum, the findings in this thesis suggest that economics are the most salient factor for party institutionalization in East Europe.

This theory specifies the party sizes expected on the basis of constraints imposed by simple electoral rules. Duverger's law and hypothesis states that under the single-member plurality rule third parties tend to be eliminated, while proportional representation in multi-seat districts enables more than two parties to thrive. Expanding on Duverger' statements, the seat and vote shares of parties at all size ranks are calculated here, using nothing but two institutional inputs (district magnitude and assembly size) plus the number of voters. These are the baseline values expected if (and only if) institutional constraints were the only factor, with other factors balancing themselves out. The theory is complete in the sense of leading to complete party size structure. Among the relatively simple electoral systems the institutional baselines do reflect the long-term averages in New Zealand, while the residuals indicate the imbalance of inputs by other factors in the case of The Netherlands and Finland, and especially in the case of the UK.

A theoretical model is developed for predicting the relative effectiveness of different electoral systems for reducing government corruption. We consider voting games in which parties with known corruption levels and known positions on a major policy question are competing of legislative seats. We find that approval voting and proportional representation are fully effective, in the sense that all equilibria exclude corrupt parties from legislative seats. Plurality voting is partly effective, in the sense that there always exist some equilibria that exclude corrupt parties. Borda voting is ineffective because, for some political situations, no equilibria can guarantee the exclusion of corrupt parties.

We provide an political-institutional explanation for the considerable variance in the extent to which democratic governments redistributes from higher to lower incomes. We show that the electoral system plays a key role because it shapes the composition of governing coalitions, whether these are conceived as party-forming alliances of classes or alliances between class parties. Our argument implies a) that center-left governments dominate under PR systems, while center-right governments dominate under majoritarian systems, and b) that PR systems redistribute more than majoritarian systems. We test our argument on panel data for redistribution, government partisanship, and electoral system characteristics in advanced democracies.