ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the degree to which electoral institutions affect a country's capacity to address the problem of pandering. Pandering should affect many policy areas but it is perhaps most observable in areas that most directly affect voters' sense of personal security, areas such as crime, terrorism, and national security, where fear is more readily mobilized to strengthen the default preference for quick-fix policies. Small-group dynamics do not perfectly translate over to the study of electoral institutions, but there is a remarkable degree to which the findings of small group research on dissent can inform the study of the relationship between electoral institutions and policy-making. The sub-optimal policies outcome can be understood as a consequence of a problematic pattern of policy-making identified by systems thinkers as the 'shifting-the-burden' archetype. The relationship between electoral institutions and security-based policy outcomes, by focusing on incarceration rates and the use of capital punishment.
