ABSTRACT
The rational approach to electoral system choice maintains that electoral systems serve certain purposes. It is largely concerned with deliberate design of electoral rules on the basis of the sociopolitical conditions of a society. According to this view, the structural differences between countries explain variations in electoral system design. To begin with, we need to specify what is meant by electoral system design, also called electoral engineering. In a broader sense, we may speak of institutional design or constitutional engineering. There is an important distinction between institutional choice and constitutional engineering. Political actors in a newly independent country may adopt certain institutions, because they expect them to maximize their gain in the short term. This is an institutional choice based on rational considerations regarding the short-term consequences of institutional arrangements. By contrast, the discipline of constitutional engineering rests upon the assumption that long-term stability is the primary goal of a country, and that the most appropriate institutions in this respect may not be the same as those that the negotiating actors will benefit from. Institutional design is, hence, concerned with engineering political outcomes through the choice of institutional structures (Reilly and Reynolds 1999: 5; Reynolds 1999: 12-13). This field was given contemporary prominence by Sartori (1968) who urged political scientists to take up the challenge of becoming participants in the shaping of political institutions via constitutional engineering. Deliberate electoral engineering occurred for the first time at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. For instance, the alternative vote in Australia was introduced (in 1918) in order to solve the problems of conservative forces ‘splitting’ their vote opposed by a rising Labor Party (Reilly and Reynolds 1999: 24). Proportional list systems were initially adopted in several culturally diverse countries in Western Europe for the purpose of ensuring balanced inter-ethnic representation (Rokkan 1970). An electoral system may also be a disastrous solution for a country. As Jean Laponce and Bernard Saint-Jacques point out; political institutions may be problem-solvers as well as problem-creators (1997: 233). Indeed, too often electoral system choices are the result of accidents and miscommunications leading to several unintended consequences. This way of adopting electoral laws to a great extent coincides with colonial heritage. Most of the accidental electoral system choices with dis-
astrous consequences have been inherited from former colonial powers. Yet, there are other cases of accidentally adopted electoral rules as well. In 1993, Jordan rejected SMP-BV and introduced the more proportional SNTV on the personal initiative of King Hussein, thereby facilitating the election of a quite large share of Islamic fundamentalists to the legislature (Reynolds and Elklit 1997: 53-4). However, not every accidental choice has led to tragic outcomes. The Papua New Guinean heritage (AV) from Australia is a case in point. An electoral system that encourages vote trading between competing candidates and different communal groups was exceptionally appropriate for the ethnically fragmented colony.1 Notwithstanding, the poor experience of many accidental choices, inherited or not, has emphasized the importance of designing electoral rules for the specific sociopolitical conditions in a society rather than automatically assuming that a design that is successful in one context will work well in other social, political and economic circumstances, too. The rational perspective contains two dimensions. An electoral system choice may be a rational solution with regard to the societal needs that emerge from structural traits. However, the adoption of an electoral system may also be a rational solution from the actors’ point of view. Every politician in the negotiation process most likely prefers an electoral system that he or his party will benefit from, the adopted system thereby being a rational choice for the potential winners. This book is concerned with contextual determinants, but the role of political actors cannot be completely disregarded. More specifically, the study does not focus on actors but on the political context in which actors make their decisions on electoral arrangements. This matter becomes particularly apparent when the association between party systems and electoral system choice is discussed. Electoral system choice as a consequence of party system structure or party system transformation is foremost an actor-related matter but has a structural dimension as well. As for the rational perspective, I shall distinguish between ‘structurally generated determinants’ and ‘actor-related determinants’. There are some important differences between these two. Structural theories are principally deterministic; they regard the occurrence of certain political phenomena as the consequence of certain structural traits. However, structural explanations do not comprise the dynamics of the political process. The actorrelated approach, on the other hand, is concerned with the process in which political actors implement decisions on the basis of the existing structural settings. Another noteworthy difference concerns the distance between the independent and the dependent variable. Structural theories usually meet the scientific criterion that the explanatory factor should precede the explained phenomena. Concerning actor-related explanations, however, the analyst runs the risk of explaining a phenomenon by the phenomenon itself. Yet both approaches are important and may be seen as mutually supporting each other: one deals with the structural prerequisites, whereas the other deals with the dynamic of the political process within these prerequisites.
