The Politics of Electoral Reform
Changing the Rules of Democracy

Elections lie at the heart of democracy, and this book seeks to understand how electoral systems are chosen.

Alan Renwick (Author)

9780521765305, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 4 February 2010

328 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.66 kg

Review of the hardback: 'The past two decades have witnessed an explosion in research on electoral systems, telling us pretty much all we could ever hope to know about how they impact on our wider political institutions - in other words about electoral systems as independent variables. This book is the first major cross-national study of its type to turn the tables on electoral systems, to examine them as the dependent variables, as the things to be explained. In this definitive work, Renwick closely scrutinises, compares and explains the electoral reform processes of key industrialised democracies over the past twenty years.' David Farrell, University College Dublin

Elections lie at the heart of democracy, and this book seeks to understand how the rules governing those elections are chosen. Drawing on both broad comparisons and detailed case studies, it focuses upon the electoral rules that govern what sorts of preferences voters can express and how votes translate into seats in a legislature. Through detailed examination of electoral reform politics in four countries (France, Italy, Japan, and New Zealand), Alan Renwick shows how major electoral system changes in established democracies occur through two contrasting types of reform process. Renwick rejects the simple view that electoral systems always straightforwardly reflect the interests of the politicians in power. Politicians' motivations are complex; politicians are sometimes unable to pursue reforms they want; occasionally, they are forced to accept reforms they oppose. The Politics of Electoral Reform shows how voters and reform activists can have real power over electoral reform.

1. Introduction
Part I. Building Blocks: 2. What motivates actors?
3. From motivations to outcomes: exogenous factors
4. The reform process: endogenous factors
Part II. Elite Majority Imposition: 5. France: the recurrent game of electoral reform
6. Italy: the search for stability
7. Japan: the persistence of SNTV
8. Elite majority imposition: comparative analysis
Part III. Elite-Mass Interaction: 9. Italy: diluting proportional representation
10. Japan: the abandonment of SNTV
11. New Zealand: MMP in a Westminster setting
12. Elite-mass interaction: comparative analysis
13. Conclusions and implications
Appendix: Glossary of electoral system terminology.

Subject Areas: Political structures: democracy [JPHV], Comparative politics [JPB], Politics & government [JP]