This article presents, discusses and tests the hypothesis that it is the number of parties what can explain the choice of electoral systems, rather than the other way round. Already existing political parties tend to choose electoral systems that, rather than generate new party systems by themselves, will crystallize, consolidate or reinforce previously existing party configurations. A general ...

Present research on minor party performance consists largely of singlecountry studies or pooled studies including a raft of widely varying electoral systems. This study examines the topic from a cross-national perspective, but is limited to democratic polities with single-member districts and first-past-the-post rules. An original dataset is compiled including 217 elections drawn from 37 countr...

■ Abstract In this review article, I identify the key questions raised by the treatment of electoral systems not as causal influences on party systems but as effects or byproducts of party systems. Framing these questions in the context of the classic consequences-oriented study of electoral institutions, I first review the classic approach, which treats electoral systems as causes, and explore...

JON FRAENKEL At first sight, the Pacific Islands seem like a graveyard for institutional determinist theories regarding the impact of electoral systems on party polarisation. Maurice Duverger’s well-known ‘sociological law’ was that first-past-the-post electoral rules tend to deliver two-party systems. Proportional representation (PR) systems were more loosely associated with multi-party settin...

Falling into a Niche: Institutional Equilibrium between Plurality and Proportional Representation for Large Political Parties" Scholars of electoral systems (e.g., Duverger, 1954; Rae 1967) argue that a combination of electoral system and district magnitude provide the strategic incentives for political party competition. All electoral systems reward large parties with a disproportional seat bo...

Little is known about how electoral institutions systematically affect the level of incumbency advantage in legislative elections. In this paper, I analyze the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) data to put the U.S. case in a comparative context and explore how electoral institutions aid or preclude incumbents from gaining an advantage. In particular, I study whether electoral system...

Recent literature suggests that electoral budget cycles are a phenomenon of new rather than established democracies. What part of the democratization process explains the amelioration of the political budget cycle? We argue the answer lies (in part) in the development of a strong party system. We extend the classic Rogoff-Siebert model to show that political budget cycles are possible in a legi...