Electoral Engineering
Voting Rules and Political Behavior

Compares the consequences of electoral rules for many dimensions of political representations and voting behavior.

Pippa Norris (Author)

9780521829779, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 9 February 2004

392 pages, 24 b/w illus. 24 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm, 0.626 kg

'… this is a book rich in its insights and detailed research findings'. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

From Kosovo to Kabul, the last decade witnessed growing interest in ?electoral engineering?. Reformers have sought to achieve either greater government accountability through majoritarian arrangements or wider parliamentary diversity through proportional formula. Underlying the normative debates are important claims about the impact and consequences of electoral reform for political representation and voting behavior. The study compares and evaluates two broad schools of thought, each offering contracting expectations. One popular approach claims that formal rules define electoral incentives facing parties, politicians and citizens. By changing these rules, rational choice institutionalism claims that we have the capacity to shape political behavior. Alternative cultural modernization theories differ in their emphasis on the primary motors driving human behavior, their expectations about the pace of change, and also their assumptions about the ability of formal institutional rules to alter, rather than adapt to, deeply embedded and habitual social norms and patterns of human behavior.

Part I. Introduction: 1. Do rules matter?
2. Classifying electoral systems
3. Evaluating electoral systems
Part II. The Consequences for Voting Behavior: 4. Party systems
5. Social cleavages
6. Party loyalties
7. Turnout
Part III. The Consequences for Political Representation: 8. Women
9. Ethnic minorities
10. Constituency service
Part IV. Conclusions: 11. The impact of electoral engineering.

Subject Areas: Political parties [JPL], Elections & referenda [JPHF], Politics & government [JP]