Search Results

This develops an argument applicable primarily to reform in established democracies, but potentially offering insight into choices in new democracies as well: that there are certain electoral systems that may be seen as extreme on one (or both) of two dimensions—interparty and intraparty. The interparty dimension refers to the degree to which, on the one hand, a single party forms a majority government on well under a majority of votes, or, on the other hand, coalitions are formed among several parties; the intraparty dimension refers to a continuum of electoral systems from those in which legislators depend exclusively on their own personal votes to those in which votes are given exclusively to parties such that legislators have no direct ties to voters. Suggests that electoral systems that are extreme on one or both of these dimensions are inherently prone to reformist pressures, and also shows that much of the appeal of mixed‐member systems derives from how they appear to balance the extremes on each of these dimensions: the trade‐off on the interparty dimension, which is between majoritarian and proportional forms of representation; and the trade‐off on the intraparty dimension, which is between ‘strong candidates’ and ‘strong parties’. Brief studies are presented of five cases of reform from extreme electoral systems to mixed‐member systems: New Zealand (formerly a pluralitarian system); Italy and Israel (formerly hyper‐representative systems); Japan (formerly a hyper‐personalistic system); and Venezuela (formerly a hyper‐centralized system). The ideas presented in the chapter form the basis for the set of key questions presented to the authors of the country chapters in Part II of the book.

An analysis of the factors and the processes that led to the adoption of a mixed‐member electoral system in Israel. The first section analyzes the characteristics of the Israeli pre‐reform extreme electoral (hyper‐representative) system according to the two dimensions (intraparty and interparty) suggested by Shugart in Ch. 2; it also presents a brief discussion of reform initiatives, intended to provide solutions to some of the electoral system pathologies, and explains their failure. The second section discusses the developments in the intraparty dimension—the parties’ tendencies from the 1970s on to adopt more and more inclusive selectorates for candidate selection (this was reform outside the constitutional and legislative framework). The final section discusses the developments in the interparty dimension—patching a majoritarian feature onto a proportional system; this is an analysis of the politics of reform—the factors and the processes that led to the adoption of direct election of the prime minister, and includes five elements: long‐term developments that served as background factors; events that served as catalysts during the struggle for and against reform; a description of the political actors who took part in this struggle; the characteristics of the mixed system that make it more fit for promotion and its use by the reformers to overcome the primary advantage of the institutional status quo; and, lastly, the four stages of the reform process. An appendix lists major events and dates.

Explores the replacement in Italy of an extremely proportional (hyper‐representative) system by a relatively majoritarian variant of a mixed‐member electoral system. On April 18, 1993, the Italian electorate overwhelmingly approved a referendum that altered the electoral system for the national Senate. Unlike the 1993 referendum altering the electoral system in New Zealand (discussed in the previous chapter), which came at the end of a lengthy process including an extensive study and report by a Royal Commission, and which gave final popular approval to put the new electoral regime into effect, the Italian referendum was the catalyst that finally initiated change after long, but apparently futile, debate. Rather than ratifying the selection of one system that had been deliberately chosen over others, the Italian referendum imposed, at least for the moment, the only reform possible, given that Italian referendums can only abrogate existing laws, but cannot impose new ones. The different sections of the chapter are: Background to the Referendum of 1993; Immediate Impact of the Referendum; Ends and Means—to electoral reform; Drafting the New Electoral System in the Chamber; Drafting the New Electoral System in the Senate; The New Electoral System; and Expectations and Predictions.