dunleavy1995

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9.

Understanding the Dynamics of

Electoral Reform

PATRICK DUNLEAVY AND HELEN MARGETTS

ABSTRACT. After a long period of stasis 1993 marked a burst of change in

liberal democracies’ electoral arrangements. There were major shifts in

three established democratic countries (Italy, Japan, and New Zealand),and a new system in Russia. All four changes show some parallels as well

as some distinct features, especially in adopting "mixed" electoral systems.The roots of this pattern lie deep in the multiple criteria involved in

debates about voting systems. Multi-dimensionality also explains some of

the inherent difficulties of implementing reform, which we consider in the

context of the revived electoral reform debate in the UK. Lastly, we

examine the pressures for "convergence" in electoral systemsat

work inplurality rule countries, where party systems show tendencies to fragment;and in proportional representation systems, where public demands for

greater accountability have emerged.

There has been recurrent evidence from many contemporary liberal democracies of

large-scale discontent with aspects of their voting systems. Yet over the postwarperiod the norm has been for voting systems not to change. Liberal democracies, it

seemed, had lost either the will or the capacity to enact major changes in theirinstitutional arrangements for choosing rulers. In the 1990s, however, this logjamhas apparently begun to break up. Public opinion and elite debates in many Western

countries have turned again to questions about designing electoral systems, and

dissatisfaction with the quality of existing democratic processes now has become

salient in established democratic countries. We first explore how this changecreates difficulties for the small &dquo;c&dquo; conservatism of much of the political science

literature. The second section examines why electoral system arrangements are

inherently contested, why achieving intellectual agreement or practical consensus

on them is likely to be difficult. The third section of the article explores whyelectoral systems can endure even when a

large majorityof public opinion supports

the case for change, looking especially at the capacity of elites to shape agendas.

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The fourth section briefly examines the general pressures for change in countries

with plurality rule electoral systems, and then in countries with proportional repre-sentation systems. We suggest that a trend towards &dquo;mixed&dquo; electoral systems has

emerged in the contemporary world, reflecting diverse influences whose cumulative

effect is to erode the distinctiveness of each country’s historical patterns.

The Conventional Wisdom and the 1993 Reforms

Amongst political scientists the conventional wisdom stresses that electoral systemsreflect deep-rooted aspects of national character and political life across democracies:

Electoral systems do not arise from a vacuum but from political debate and

struggle. They mirror the politics of the time of their creation and are altered

when politics change to the point where the existing electoral system becomes

too restrictive (Taagepera and Shugart, 1989: 234).

Hence countries change their electoral systems very rarely, if at all. There are a few

obvious problems with this generalized view, such as the many tinkerings with the

French electoral system under the Fifth Republic, including the temporary replace-ment of double ballot voting by proportional representation in the 1986 national

legislative elections.’ Countries which use different voting systems at different tiers

of government (as Italy does in local elections,2 or France does for the EuropeanParliament elections3) also pose problems. But these cases were always presented as

slightly pathological exceptions to the general picture of countries as wedded to a

single stable system adjusted to their national circumstances.

Analysts keen to stress their positive &dquo;scientific&dquo; credentials against the older

normative advocates of this or that (usually proportional) voting system, also inter-

preted the liberal democracies’ reluctance to change their electoral arrangementsas a &dquo;rational&dquo; response. The implicit argument here moved from what &dquo;is&dquo; to what

&dquo;ought&dquo; to happen, by suggesting that since electoral systems reflect fundamental

features of a political system, they should not be changed except when those polit-ical fundamentals themselves change-as in revolutionary situations, or system

collapses, or in the aftermath of wars, or other strong exogenous shocks. For

example: &dquo;The conclusion is that there isno

pressing moral or practical reason toshift away from plurality rule in large and homogenous countries which have

practised it for a long time&dquo; (Taagepera and Shugart, 1989: 225).With the few &dquo;odd&dquo; exceptions noted above, it followed that peacetime transfor-

mations of electoral systems should be almost unknown:

A major purpose of elections is to supply a stable institutional framework for the

expression of various viewpoints. Even if imperfect, a long-established electoral

system may satisfy this purpose better than could a new and unfamiliar system,even if it were inherently more advantageous. Those political forces which are

disadvantaged bythe

existingrules learn to live with them,

gradually devisingstrategies that minimize their drawbacks. What disadvantages remain, are not

unexpected, and hence the level of frustration is reduced. Familiarity breeds

stability......

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[M]ost of the longstanding electoral systems do the job. Keeping the ills we

know of may be better than leaping into the unknown (Taagepera and Shugart,1989: 218, 236).

A final implication of the orthodoxy was that liberal democracies are unlikely ever

to converge on a single system. The anticipation of minimal change, and the defence

of divergent rationalities depending on political culture and political circumstances,generated an expectation of stubborn variegation in electoral arrangements, provid-ing yet another characteristic to differentiate &dquo;positive&dquo; political science from the

blanket recommendations of electoral reform advocates.

Seen against this type of argument, 1993-94 appears as an annus mirabilis in which

three established liberal democracies-Italy, Japan, and New Zealand-radicallychanged their voting systems. In each case the switch represented the accumula-

tion of chronic dissatisfaction with the ways that their political systems had evolved,and in

particularwith citizens’

inabilityto

adequatelycontrol

politiciansand

polit-ical party behaviour. But although all the transitions had deep roots, they none the

less took place in peacetime as part of &dquo;normal politics,&dquo; and in circumstances far

removed from &dquo;system collapse&dquo; situations. In Japan and New Zealand the reform

of the voting system was implemented despite relatively small changes in the distri-

bution of voters’ support between parties, and despite substantial continuity in polit-ical elites’ control of power.

Perhaps the Italian collapse of the &dquo;partitocrazia&dquo; amidst the swelling&dquo;Tangentopoly&dquo; corruption scandal comes closest to approximating the collapse of

the whole political order. But the basic form of the state and its relations with civil

society were not called into question by the transformation of Italy’s party system.

The legal system, for example, initiated the purge of corrupt politicians and gainedincreased legitimacy as the scandals mounted. The citizens’ revolt was quitenarrowly focused on punishing particular parties associated with corruption, the

Christian Democrats and the Socialists. Some of the new political forces (such as

the Northern League) have raised fundamental issues about the structure of the

Italian state, such as the creation of a federation or even secession within the

European Union: but it is currently unclear whether these propositions are seriouslyput forward, or are bargaining counters for more regional autonomy. A further development of considerable interest was that in all three countries,and in another important if still fledgling &dquo;liberal democracy,&dquo; Russia, the changesmade in 1993 apparently moved towards a common-looking pattern. Each countryadopted a mixed electoral system, combining plurality rule elections in single-member constituencies with &dquo;additional&dquo; seats allocated between parties on a

proportional representation basis. The detailed organization of each system was

distinctive, and their probable outcomes in terms of delivering proportionalelectoral results are completely different, as Table I shows. In Japan and New

Zealand the additional seats are allocated proportionally in a top-up mode, so as to

compensate those parties under-represented from the contests for the local

consituency MPs. Both systems closely follow the academic concept of &dquo;the

additional member system&dquo; (called the &dquo;mixed member proportional system&dquo; in

New Zealand), and are close to the operations of the postwar German voting system.

But in Italy the additionalseats

allocatedat

the regional levelseem at

presentnot

to be pure top-up seats. Instead, in the lower house some complex &dquo;semi-top-up&dquo;arrangements operate as follows. For a local constituency X where party A wins, a

number of votes equal to those of the runner-up party B in X local constituency






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TABLE I. Summary Characteristics of the Mixed Voting Systems Adopted in Japan, Italy, New Zealand

and Russia in 1993.

Note: For Italy and Japan, the percentage of plurality rule/local seats and the percentage of

additional seats refer to the lower chamber.

are deducted from party A’s total in the regional votes, before allocating regionalseats. This unique-looking system will over-represent large parties at the expenseof small.4 And in Russia, the local plurality contests and the national PR votes are

not related at all. Parties’ shares of the nationally allocated half of all seats are

determined by their share of the national vote, irrespective of how many seats theyhave won in the local constituency contests. Thus the Russian system is only contin-

gently proportional.These important developments, together with much wider currents of change,

create considerable difficulties for the previous consensus amongst electoral systemresearchers and make it worthwhile to look again at the politics of electoral reform.

We take the view that existing political science commentary on these issues is often

a form of disguised conservatism, which adopts a &dquo;system-biased&dquo; view that

whatever &dquo;is,&dquo; is &dquo;natural&dquo; (Catt, 1989). In the orthodox approach to electoral

studies, indeed, it is common for the electoral system to disappear almost into the

background (Dunleavy, 1990), and for analysts to internalize its key features in their

judgements of what is, and is not, politically salient behaviour. In this view, salienceis implicitly equated with institutional effectiveness (Dunleavy and Margetts, 1993;Margetts and Dunleavy, 1993). Although explicit accounts of electoral systems are

potentially less system-biased in approach, the &dquo;naturalistic&dquo; view of long-livedsystems as somehow adapted to the demands of political actors in fact reproducestheir orientation.

In its place we want to substitute an approach which stresses that electoral

systems are a key focus of preference-shaping behaviour by established politicalparties and elites, which actively maintain institutional arrangements that

maximize their access to state

power (Dunleavy,1991:

chap. 5).The

spacewithin

which manipulation and preference-shaping can take place is generated in the first

place by the continuing debate about the purposes of electoral systems and thecriteria which ought to be applied in assessing them.






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Why Voting Systems are Contested

Attempting to explain chronic disputes over terms and ideas, W.B. Gallie (1959)argued that some concepts are &dquo;essentially contested.&dquo; He had in mind conceptswhich are

appraisive (describingsome

generallyvalued ideal

state); complexand

multi-dimensional (requiring a weighting of different elements); and with rather

open language rules governing usage (hence leaving much scope for dispute about

when the concept applies or not, and how it should be defined). William Connollyskirts around the &dquo;essentiality&dquo; of contestation to conclude more neutrally that

political science is littered with &dquo;cluster concepts&dquo; which involve applying multiplecriteria and which are hard to operationalize:

Conceptual disputes...are neither a mere prelude to inquiry nor peripheral to it,but when they involve the central concepts of a field of inquiry, they are surface

manifestations of basic theoretical differences that reach to the core. The inten-

sity of commitment to favoured definitions reflects intensity of commitment to a

general theoretical perspective; and revisions that follow conceptual debates

involve a shift in the theory that has housed the concepts (Connolly, 1974: 21).

The concept of an electoral system might seem far removed from such considera-

tions. It might be objected that the methods used by countries for selecting politi-cal personnel can be operationally specified in neutral terms and studied despitenormative disagreements about which components or arrangements would best

maximize social welfare. In fact, disputes about the meaning of an electoral system,about the factors which may be legitimately construed as part of the system, are

integrally connected with normative disputes about the &dquo;best&dquo; voting method.

Running through a variety of more specific arguments there is a basic tension

between those analysts who construe an electoral system primarily in terms of the

requirements of liberal democratic theory, and others who believe that electoral

systems must also be analyzed as general institutional arrangements and evaluated

against state management criteria generic to all states.

To see how this tension runs through the analysis of electoral systems, we follow

an approach pioneered by Hood (1976) of simply listing as comprehensively as possi-ble the criteria for evaluating voting systems, focusing on whether there is a

&dquo;perfect&dquo; voting system which would meet all criteria simultaneously. To the extent

that the goal has proven infeasible, we shall then have mapped the &dquo;limits&dquo; of any

electoral system-limits which will mean that any arrangements are likely to be

permanently contested. The challenge for electoral analysts is to recognize thissituation explicitly, instead of trying to brush it under the carpet.

Criteria from Democratic TheoryThe criteria related directly to principles of democratic theory fall into four groups:

(i) Political equality is fundamental to democracy. No voter should formally be

allocated an influence greater than others. Logically this implies:~ The ratios between voting population and legislative seats should be equal

across a country. There should be no malapportionment of seats which over-

representssome

partsof the

countryand

under-representsothers.

~ A perfect electoral system will have no &dquo;wasted votes&dquo;: every vote counts

equally towards determining the composition of the legislature. In particu-lar, no set of votes is completely ignored in determining who is elected.






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. Proportionality: across the country the percentage of seats awarded to a

party should reflect its percentage share of the national vote, for all parties.

(ii) Representation of viewpoints is also fundamental to liberal democracy, the substi-

tution of an

assemblyto stand in

place of the peopleas a

whole (that is, in placeof direct democracy). How this substitution is achieved is important: the processcannot be arbitrary or vitiated by lacunae, implying that:

~ Minorities within the country can win seats: there are no artificial barriers

operating to deny them places in the legislature.~ All social groups are placed on an equal ex ante footing in standing for the

legislature and electing MPs. The nomination or voting method does not

include procedures or criteria which knock out some groups from represen-

tation at stages before the popular vote itself.~ The legislature is socially representative, reflecting in its composition the

distribution of voters as a whole across social

classes, genders,ethnic

groups,or regions.

(iii) Accountability is an important corollary of liberal democratic electoral

processes, even though it apparently refers to the relationship which should exist

between representatives and voters after an election has taken place. The basic ideahere (strongly developed in countries influenced by Anglo-American political tradi-

tions) is that the voting method should foster representatives’ behaviour which can

be monitored and judged by voters.

~ Local knowledge of representatives’ behaviour and a developed mechanism

of local accountability can be fostered by constituency elections. Single-

member electoral districts create a &dquo;singular&dquo; relationship between voters

and MPs: local voters’ surveillance task is facilitated by identifying only one

representative amongst a crowd who they must monitor. According to Harold

Laski, constituency representation is one of four basic pillars of democracy.By contrast, two countries operate without any constituency system at all

(the Netherlands and Israel), while a large number operate with much

larger, multi-member constituencies.~ The ease with which the electorate can punish party wrongdoing or unpopu-

larity is a more complex notion of accountability. It requires that politicalparties should not be able to create protected niches (in terms of either

&dquo;safe&dquo; seats or indispensability for a governing coalition) which artificiallyprevents voters from withdrawing support from them, or reducing their

representation in the legislature.

(iv) The importance of elections in terms of influencing access to political leader-

ship and public policy development should be considerable in any liberal democ-

racy.

. Elections should determine changes of government: there should not be a

disconnection between voters’ verdicts and the constitution of governments. A strong form of this principle is the argument sometimes put forward in

countries with plurality rule systems that only elections should trigger

changesof

government:there should not be mid-term

rearrangementsof

governing personnel in response to dynamics over which voters have no direct

control, such as the withdrawal of a sinall party from a coalition triggeringa governmental crisis.






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~ Voters should be offered distinct options on issues and policy directions

across political parties, &dquo;a choice not an echo,&dquo; because too much elite

convergence is a potent source of problems for a liberal democracy. Unless

the segmentation of elites between parties has some substantial basis, the

effects of competition in ensuring elite accountability may be impaired.~ Voters should also be offered a full range of choices: there should be no elite

closure on debate.

S’tate Management Criteria

There are four sets of standards for evaluation directing attention to how electoral

arrangements affect the stability and management of the state apparatus as an

institutional order. It is sometimes suggested that these principles are in fact

&dquo;democratic,&dquo; on the grounds that an unstable or unsustainable democracy will

deliver lower levels of welfare to citizens than a less &dquo;perfect&dquo; but more sustainableform of democratic regime. However, the linkage here is specious: at root there are

two different imperatives at work here. Three sets of state management criteria

can be distinguished:(i) Governability implies that the electoral system chosen should not worsen, and

where possible should accentuate, the ease of effectively governing a society.~ Government durability is often taken as a key indicator of this dimension,

but broader measures of government &dquo;stability&dquo; (such as its ability to

progress a legislative programme) are also sometimes cited.~ Majority governments, single-party governments and &dquo;undivided&dquo; govern-

ment are often recommended as other features which should be encouragedby electoral systems to enhance governability. Majority governments (of oneor more parties) can be sure of enacting a legislative program. Single-partygovernments may be easier for political leaders to manage than multi-partycoalitions (although single-party governments can also be plagued by a highdegree of factionalism). &dquo;Undivided&dquo; government refers to the presence of a

consistent pattern of partisan control across executive and legislature where

they are separately elected, or conceivably across the two houses of bicam-

eral legislatures.~ Avoiding &dquo;adversary politics&dquo; or political over-polarization is a diametrically

opposed principlein designing an electoral system. Whereas

majoritygovern-

ment considerations suggest reinforcing the representation of larger partiesor creating &dquo;winner-take-all&dquo; situations, a concern to prevent over-polariza-tion points to an electoral system facilitating the graduated award of seats

to parties in response to their vote levels, rather than a system marked byjumps or discontinuities.

~ Large-majority or consensus policy-making may be valued in state manage-

ment terms, over and above the need to moderate political polarization. The

grounds cited have varied widely, ranging from a pluralist concern for &dquo;one

nation&dquo; policies, through conservative public choice arguments for large-majority decision rules (as inherently less oppressive), to left corporatist

advocacy of inclusive decisional systems.~ Long-run policy-making is widely seen as a positive benefit of avoiding adver-

sary politics, by contrast with the &dquo;short-termism&dquo; which may be fostered bysystems with rapid party alternations in power.






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(ii) Party system stability criteria are concerned not directly with government, but

with the level of turbulence in the universe of political parties. State managementbecomes more difficult if the party system is volatile and constantly changing, with

little opportunity for voters or leaders to adjust or to learn how to predict the conse-

quences of their own and others’ actions.~ Thresholds against the representation of anti-democratic or anti-system

parties are widely built into electoral systems, usually in the form of

minimum support levels which must be reached before parties are entitled

to win seats from list elements in the electoral system. Most formal thresh-

olds are set low (in the 4 to 5 percent range). The effectiveness of thresh-

olds is, of course, disputed, since rule-of-law constraints prevent them beingtargeted on anti-system or non-democratic parties. Thus occasions mightarise where thresholds actually benefit extremist parties which have alreadypassed their limits, and thereafter gain from the elimination of more centrist

parties below the threshold-as in the 1993 Russian election. Occasionally(as in the 1993 Russian electoral system), additional thresholds are built in

at the stage of nominations or standing candidates, to ensure that politicalparties are oriented towards national and not purely regional or local inter-

ests. Systems without list components do not have formalized thresholds, but

in practice parties need to win much higher levels of support to win access

to the legislature.~ Protecting established parties against centrifugal tendencies is often justi-

fied in state management terms because fragmented and fissiparous partiescreate more complex coalitional situations, and make it harder to sustain a

continuous government majority.

(iii) Handling social conflicts is a critical dimension of successful state management.

~ Managing ethnic conflicts and irredentism has rarely been more salient than

in the contemporary era, where ethnic divisions have re-emerged as the

absolutely dominant focus of political conflicts and civil disruption in many

countries. The specific impacts of electoral systems in fuelling or dampingdown cleavages based on race, tribe, language, religion, culture, or national

identity are hence peculiarly important. However, it is unclear that there are

any general relationships here: context and the articulation of electoral

systems within broader institutional patterns (such as the role of pluralityelections in Westminster

systems,or

highly proportional systemswithin

consociational arrangements) seem most important.~ Consensus-building around political institutions can be fostered (or

impaired) by voting systems to the extent that they create (or erode) the

overall legitimacy of a constitutional order. In a long-term way, and in a

context of increased pooling of information about political systems across

liberal democracies, an electoral system which is markedly &dquo;out of line&dquo; with

practices elsewhere in terms of any of the major criteria set out above will

tend to accumulate legitimacy problems and have a progressively less

positive effect.

Some of the

existingliterature on electoral reform shows a marked

tendencyto

associate systems in a simple-minded way with groups of criteria. For example,proportional and plurality (or &dquo;majoritarian&dquo;) systems are often portrayed as operat-

ing on different philosophical avenues, and hence incapable ofbeing sensibly assessed






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TABLE 2. (Roughly) Evaluating Plurality Rule and Proportional Representation.

against criteria which are &dquo;foreign&dquo; to their essential principles (Reeve and Ware,1991). Part of the point of grouping criteria as we do above is to demonstrate how

feeble this familiar argument now looks. Table 2 presents a necessarily bald summaryof how plurality rule and proportional representation systems might be scored againstboth democratic theory criteria and state management criteria. The pattern shows

very mixed results, rather than the clear orientation of plurality rule towards strongstate management and of PR systems towards democratic criteria which is normallysuggested. Any evaluation of these alternative systems would necessarily be far more

complex than the casual justifications offered by practising politicians or the conven-

tional wisdom of political scientists analysing electoral systems.

Why Voting Systems are Hard to ChangeThe multi-dimensional character of voting systems, the fact that they are defended

or criticized

byreference to so many different criteria

simultaneously, providessome

key insights into the difficulties of changing electoral systems in practice. Multi-

dimensionality opens up important possibilities for strategic manoeuvring by politi-cal elites with interests in the status quo. We demonstrate the complexities of






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accomplishing reform by reference to Britain, where the electoral reform debate

since 1987 has considerably heated up, but where the chances of enacting changesaway from plurality rule currently seem remote. The detailed context and develop-ment of debate in Britain has been well described elsewhere (see Norris, this issue;and Dunleavy, Margetts, and Weir, 1992), so we shall concentrate on modellingelectoral reform in the UK in a self-consciously limited way, concentrating on certain

&dquo;stylized facts&dquo; and neglecting any effort at detailed descriptive realism.

We have pictured the British debate as a game played by three main parties(Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats) in two dimensions. The first,shown on the vertical axis in Figure 1, is &dquo;proportionality.&dquo; Empirically we mightoperationalize this axis as I - DV, the measure for &dquo;deviation from proportional-ity&dquo; (Taagepera and Shugart, 1989). The second dimension, shown on the horizon-

tal axis in Figure 1, is &dquo;ease of governing,&dquo; by which we mean a summary measure

of the various non-representative (stability) criteria considered above, plus the

extent to which the UK’s constitutional order confers on the government of the daya capacity to reach and implement decisions insulated from, or able to override,political opposition.

Existing institutional arrangements define the status quo point (shown as a small

black square in Figure 1 ), which is low on proportionality, with an &dquo;experiential&dquo;measure of DV reaching 27 percent in 1992, far higher than any other EuropeanUnion country or indeed any other advanced industrial society (Dunleavy and

Margetts, 1994). Yet plurality rule elections, plus many other features of the UK’s

uncodifiedconstitution, normally

secure &dquo;artificial&dquo;

majoritiesfor the

leading partyat most elections and guarantee an almost uniquely unconstrained scope of action

for any Commons majority. Consequently, the UK status quo is placed far out alongthe horizontal axis.






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Figure I also shows the current attitudes of the three political parties on electoral

system changes as points in the same two-dimensional space. The Conservatives

have been the chief beneficiaries of plurality rule elections throughout the centuryand since 1918 have always fiercely opposed changes towards a more proportionalsystem, especially given their period of electoral predominance since 1979. Toryattitudes favour further slight increases in governability, however: their &dquo;statecraft&dquo;

radically increased central government power under Thatcher, a continuing trend

still under John Major. By contrast, the Liberal Democrats are committed to the

introduction of full proportional representation. Historically the Liberal Partyfavoured the single transferable vote as the most &dquo;perfect&dquo; form of PR, even thoughthe large constituency sizes inherent in STV have made it a very hard system to

popularize in the UK. In theory, the Liberal Democrats deny that an STV systemwould reduce governability. But in practice they would be perfectly content to bear

such a price, for as the probable &dquo;swing&dquo; party between Conservatives and Labour

under a PR

system theywould

onlybe

advantagedin

forming governingcoalitions.

Labour’s current attitudes towards electoral reform are in transition. The Partyused to be an unreflective supporter of the status quo but four successive defeatshave made its attitudes more critical. A vigorous internal debate since 1987 has leftLabour MPs evenly divided about the desirability of reform. But most Labour voters

are persuaded of the case for a proportional system, while still recoiling from theneed for coalitions which PR would imply. The party leadership has largely acceptedthe case for building at least somewhat greater proportionality into British arrange-ments, but without affecting the House of Commons. Many of the party’s MPs and

apparatchiks are unwilling to trade off any reduction of governability in order to

achieve a more proportional system, for to do so would be to accept in advance very

substantial re.strictions on a future majority Labour government, which they persistin believing can be attained. The party’s long period in opposition has if anythingincreased the desire of Labour elites to make &dquo;one more heave,&dquo; and thereby attain

unconstrained governmental power. Accordingly we show Labour’s current positionas very mildly favouring more proportionality in the voting system, but as commit-

ted as the Conservatives to governability.Each party’s indicated position is its optimal point, and using the normal

&dquo;proximity assumption&dquo; of rational choice spatial models the further away any givenpoint is from that optimum the lower its utility for the party. It follows that for

each party we can draw a circular indifference curve through the status quo, which

shows other points in the two-dimensional space having the same utility for that

party. The Conservatives’ circle is small, reflecting the fact that they already getmost of what they want from the electoral system, while the Liberal Democrats’

circle is large by contrast. Labour’s optimal position has moved some distance awayfrom the status quo, so its circle is somewhat larger than the Conservatives’. Within

each party’s indifference curve, all the outcomes shown have a higher value than

the status quo. Hence the intersections between the parties’ indifference curves are

important: they define &dquo;winsets&dquo; where in principle two parties would be able to

mutually improve their welfare (move closer to their optimum points). Since FigureI also notes each party’s share of the proportion of the popular vote, the winsets

can also identify combinations where clear majorities of public opinion could be

assembledfor

changes awayfrom

thestatus

quo. As Figure 1 is drawn there are two feasible winsets. The first between theConservatives and Labour is the &dquo;major party&dquo; winset, in favour of improvinggovernability while leaving proportionality unchanged. Although this area is small,






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20

the possibility of attaining a large majority &dquo;consensus&dquo; is high: yet the politicalsystem has not moved further down this path, and is highly unlikely to do so. The

other winset, the overlap between Labour and the Liberal Democrats representingan opposition party agreement on the need for electoral reform, is larger. But the

two parties can barely muster majority support for such an electoral system change,and again Labour has only briefly dallied with a move in this direction-notably in

Kinnock’s last year as party leader, especially during the closing days of the 1992

election campaign. Note that in Figure 1 Labour’s current optimum position still

lies outside this second winset.

In explaining why the status quo has stayed where it has, and not been changedin either direction, we need to modify Figure I by making a more realistic estimate

of the extent of the difficulties of reform. Here we introduce a significant innova-tion in the way that two-dimensional bargaining games of this kind are commonlyconceptualized. Picturing the status quo as a single point (as in Figure 1 ) is actuallyequivalent to assuming that there are no transaction costs in advocating changeand securing agreement, and no transition costs in implementing that agreementand moving to a new position. Neither of these propositions is credible.

Transaction costs in legislative bargaining will be every bit as serious a consider-

ation as they are in market contexts, where transaction costs economics insists that

the difficulties of discovering, moving to, and policing, contracts have an importanceequivalent in significance almost to physical production costs (Williamson, 1975,1985). Economic transaction costs are defined by Arrow as the &dquo;costs of running the

economic system,&dquo; (quoted, Williamson, 1985, p. 18), and by Williamson (1985: 19)as &dquo;the economic equivalent of friction in physical systems.&dquo; In legislative situations

transaction costs will also be substantial, since assembling and managing coalitions

is a costly and often fraught undertaking. For Labour to co-operate with the Toriesin enhancing governability (immediately benefiting a Tory administration) is costlybecause it qualifies their opposition stance. And for Labour to cooperate with the

Liberal Democrats on achieving electoral reform is also costly, for of course the two

parties diverge considerably in the type of system they might favour. In particular,the Liberal Democrats’ past attachment to STV is anathema to Labour leaders,hence its rapid exclusion from the Plant Commission’s report. Transaction costs also

attach to the risk of promoting a change which proves controversial or unpopular,and squeezes out legislative time for other measures in a party’s programme.

Transition costs are worth distinguishing separately because they would fall

outside Arrow’s definition of transaction costs, but not outside Williamson’s.

Transition costs are concerned with ex post implementation penalties following an

agreement to shift away from the status quo. For example, moving away from an

established electoral system creates uncertainty for parties about their prospectsand strategies under the new system, while creating huge risks for incumbent MPs

who might or might not be able to secure re-election under the new arrangements.For example, Labour would risk &dquo;knock-on&dquo; effects for its own levels of support if

it removed barriers to effective Liberal campaigning, although it might expect to

hit the Tories harder by doing so.

To see in principle how introducing transaction and transition costs affects the

winsets diagram, consider Figure 2, where we picture these costs as defining a

&dquo;penumbra&dquo; around the status quo position. The penumbra indicates the movement

which a change must make in order to be able to offset the transaction/transitioncosts of making any change. For simplicity’s sake we first draw it as a circular area,

meaning that in whatever direction change is advocated it must go the same






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21

distance away from the status quo to be viable. Small, incremental changes which

barely move away from the status quo would be ruled out by the penumbra, because

they would produce a net reduction in welfare for any party.The effect of the penumbra is also to reduce the utility which each party derives

from alternatives to the status quo. We now draw each party’s indifference curve

not through the status quo but through the point on the penumbra circle closest

to each party’s optimum position. (At first sight it may seem that in Figure 2 the

status quo is nearer to each party’s optimum than in Figure 1. In fact, the indif-

ference curves in Figure 2 denote the same welfare level as those in Figure 1: so

the number of combinations of outcomes offering an improvement on the status

quo has been reduced for all parties.) The effect of the penumbra in Figure 2 is to

remove the Conservative/Labour winset completely: these parties’ circular indiffer-

ence curves no

longer overlapat all. The Labour/Liberal Democrat winset is also

considerably reduced in size, and the combinations involved where change is still

feasible are further removed from the status quo.Since this is now the only winset, however, an obvious problem is to explain why

the two opposition parties have not so far been able to reach an accommodation to

move towards it. Possible explanations include the plurality rule electoral systemitself, which privileges the Conservatives as the leading major party even thoughtheir electoral support is only 42 percent (Dunleavy, 1991). A further possibility is

that there are no prospective electoral system changes which would fall into this

narrow winset, with its demanding conditions that proportionality and governabil-ity increase. Suppose that the opposition party leaders picture electoral system

options as discrete points in the two-dimensional space. Then if no

ready-madesystem offers a point falling within the winset they may conclude that reform is

infeasible, even though in fact detailed modifications and adaptations of adjacentsystems might be relatively easily engineered so as to reach the winset.






8/10/2019 dunleavy1995


22

We can get closer to a &dquo;realistic&dquo; diagram of the electoral reform game by varyinganother assumption of Figure 2, that transaction and transition costs decrease

evenly whichever direction change moves away from the status quo. In fact thepenumbra around the status quo is highly unlikely to be circular. Instead it will be

a stretched shape which will characteristically reflect a &dquo;mobilization of bias&dquo; in the

legislative and political realms. Many political forces will actively try to shape the

transaction and transition costs of changing the electoral system, with the effects

shown in Figure 3 where the bottom of the penumbra skirts the status quo pointclosely while the top is further away from it. The effect of this &dquo;egg&dquo; shape that we

have used is then to push the Labour and Liberal Democrat indifference curves

apart, thereby removing any winset altogether.How likely is it that a situation such as that in Figure 3 exists? Which forces have

interests in shaping the transaction/transition costs area in this fashion? The list in

fact is a long one. First, the general bias of incumbent MPs will clearly tolerateminor changes of the electoral system (especially those which preserve its propor-

tionality) more easily than any radical overhaul disrupting their established positionin their local constituency. Second, the Conservatives as the incumbent governmentand dominant party have strong preference-shaping incentives to help structure the

penumbra in this way, as do the anti-reform elements in the Labour party (whonow count over 90 Labour MPs as overt supporters). Third, external interest groupsin British society display a considerable bias towards protecting the current system,especially business and the commercial mass media, which are preponderantly pro-Conservative in orientation. The trade unions affiliated to Labour were also an

importantbarrier to radical

changeuntil

1989-90,when the balance of union views

began to swing very slowly towards reform. Business and media opposition will

certainly pose a major problem for electoral reform to be achieved via a referen-

dum, as the New Zealand referendum campaigns showed (see Vowles, this issue).






8/10/2019 dunleavy1995


23

Finally, British historical traditions and political culture also differentially protectthe status quo from a shift towards a more proportional system-for example, in

the attachment to &dquo;simple&dquo; vote-counting methods and to single-memberconstituencies, and to every MP having constituency duties (so that AMS, which

potentially creates a class of de-localized top-up MPs, is harder to advocate in the

British context).But Figure 3 may still not tell the whole story, in particular about the possibili-

ties for radical change in the voting system during the remainder of this decade.’.

While it makes sense to display the Conservatives’ optimal position as a singlepoint, the same is not true of the Labour Party or the Liberal Democrats. The opendebate inside Labour’s ranks means that its optimal position is relatively uncertain.

It could shift quite substantially if a future election produces a &dquo;hung parliament&dquo;with a minority Labour government. Similarly, although the Liberal Democrats’

public pronouncements (such as the 1993 Conference resolutions) still keep faithwith STV, there have been many indications that the party leadership would be

willing to make very substantial compromises with a Labour administration in order

to break the stranglehold of plurality voting in single-member constituencies which

so impedes Liberal Democrat representation in parliament. Hence the party could

easily support an AMS solution for reform, or even the traditional first resort of

indecisive- Labour MPs, the alternative vote.

We can picture these possibilities for change in the parties’ optimal positions in

Figure 4. Here we draw the old Labour and Liberal Democrat positions at Ll andLD1 respectively, showing the indifference curves from Figure 3 as dotted lines. We

draw thenew Labour and

Liberal Democrat optimaat

L2 and LD2 respectively,and show the new indifference curves as solid lines. These new indifference curves

do just intersect, so long as we envisage that Labour’s optimum point moves to

accept greater proportionality, and the Liberal Democrats’ optimum point shifts






8/10/2019 dunleavy1995


24

towards governability considerations (as it would anyway be likely to do if the

prospect of reform being implemented drew closer). Yet although both parties makeclear shifts in their positions, the overlap area created is a small one. Hence the

possibility for change remains fragile and conjunctural, so long as the transac-

tion/transition costs penumbra around the status quo poses difficulties for theopposition parties in co-operating with each other. (We might also have allowed for

the penumbra to be reshaped by new political conjunctures, such as a hung parlia-ment : but this would have made Figure 4 even more complicated.)

Contemporary Pressures Changing Electoral Systems At first sight the relatively rapid and apparently important changes in electoral

arrangements enacted during 1993, which we discussed in the first section of the

article, may seem inconsistent with the themes developed in the later two sections.

Here we seek to show how the

multi-dimensionalityof

voting systemchoices, and

the general difficulty of securing change explored in the section above, can none

the less be consistent with the enactment of reform. We explore three issues:

pressures for change in plurality rule countries; pressures for change in countries

with hyper-proportional systems; and the emergence of mixed systems as the most

attractive form of solution to meet otherwise contradictory imperatives.

Plurality Rule Countries

The dominant fact of political life in virtually all liberal democratic countries with

plurality rule systems is that processes of party fragmentation are likely to raise

increasing difficulties for them in the future. The exception, of course, is the UnitedStates, which now stands alone in the world as the homeland of a system that is

almost perfectly two-party. In the 1990 Congressional elections the number of third-

choice candidates in the House of Representatives elections was so small that the

effective number of parties was 2.0 or 2.1 in virtually every region of the USA

(Dunleavy and Margetts, 1993). And the relative reduction in parties at

Congressional elections was minute, a mere 7 percent, less than most proportionalrepresentation systems, for the simple reason that if only two parties run candi-

dates then even a plurality rule system may operate quite proportionally. Yet

because American (and American-based) political scientists are so important in the

comparative analysis of electoral systems, there is a serious risk of losing sight of

how odd the United States has now become in maintaining untrammelled two-partycompetition in contests for the legislature. In US presidential elections, third-force

interventions are much more common and much more important than in

Congressional contests. Ross Perot’s 19 percent vote in 1992, coming on top of previ-ous bids by John Anderson and George Wallace, and President Clinton’s electionon 43 percent of the vote, serve to underscore how atypical the US legislativeelections have become.

In all other countries commonly thought of as two-party systems, the last two

decades have seen a cumulative process of change. In Britain, third and fourth

parties have received a minimum of 20 percent of the vote for over two decades,with

regularmid-term scores well above that: there is little or no

prospectof a

restoration of two-party predominance. In New Zealand, a rapid succession of third

parties, and a continuous process of party fragmentation cumulated in 1993 with

three new parties securing representation in the legislature as well as Labour and






8/10/2019 dunleavy1995


25

the National Party, and with widespread public disillusionment with the govern-ments of both the established parties. The adoption of the new AMS electoral

system has given a further boost to party fragmentation. In Australia, the Labour

and Liberal/Country party grip on the House of Representatives remains absolutelyintact, but in Senate elections (using an STV system with something of a party list

character) third parties have consolidated their permanent role, especially the

centrist Democrats and the Greens. The 1993 elections left the Senate third partiesplaying an increasingly pivotal role. Finally, amongst the Westminster-influenced

countries, the 1993 Canadian election saw a spectacular collapse in Conservative

representation, with the governing party going from a majority to just four seats.

Although the Liberals revived spectacularly in terms of seats, and the NDP repre-sentation was cut, the election by no means restored a two-party system. Instead

two new fourth parties emerged, with the success of Quebec separatists in federal

elections almost for the first time, and the arrival of a right-wing anti-tax party as

well.

If we look outside these advanced industrial countries at industrializing nations

using plurality elections, the picture of fragmentation does not change much. In

India the dominance of the Congress party has long disappeared, and the growthof the Hindu chauvinist BJP has added an important new dimension, while the other

non-Congress parties until recently displayed very fissiparous tendencies. Malaysiacontinues to operate plurality rule elections partly as a means of reinforcing the

hegemony of the majority ethnic group, and various aspects of Malaysian govern-ment (such as human rights abuses and harassment of opposition politicians)continue to pose question marks over its democratic credentials. Both here and in

South Korea the ability of plurality rule systems to cope with the pressures for polit-

ical liberalization created by very fast industrial growth seems likely to be limited.If we step back from even this broad-gauge level of empirical description, and

instead pose the question of how political life and party politics are likely to changein the next two decades, it seems unlikely that the general trend towards partyfragmentation in plurality rule systems, evident since the late 1960s, can now be

reversed. So many aspects of political life have been changed by mass media dynam-ics that old-style parties and election campaigning, focusing on the simplifiedbundling together of issues, look increasingly obsolescent. Finally, the end of thecold war and the transition to a more complex international order seem to have

further reduced the salience of left/right political cleavages, upon which historicallytwo-party politics was based.

Countries with Proportional RepresentationIn PR countries the push for change has come mainly from public disillusionment

with low levels of political accountability flowing from either large electoral districts

or from large-scale party lists. In effect such systems create high costs for citizens

in monitoring multiple legislators from their constituency, and difficulties in

seeking to &dquo;punish&dquo; politicians who transgress. The collapse of the East Europeancommunist systems, and the reinstallation of capitalist economies there, has power-

fully re-emphasized the endemic and pervasive nature of political corruption. Some

right-wing public choice theorists in America have written solemn treatises abouthow legislatures which respond both to electoral popularity and to the willingnessof organized economic interests to contribute political finance (e.g., via PACs in the

USA) will enact more economically &dquo;efficient&dquo; legislation, when compared with






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26

other legislatures (as in the UK) where politicians have less need to search for polit-ical finance. But in Italy and in Japan the current reforms of the electoral systemhave sprung from a quite different public perception of corruption.The Italian and Japanese electoral systems both shared a single highly undesir-

able characteristic in a climate where corruption is rife. They both forced politi-cians of the same party to compete with each other for votes. In Italy’s list PR systemthe long-retained capacity for voters to &dquo;write-in&dquo; the names of candidates gaveincentives for MPs to concentrate some of their constituency activity on building upa reputation amongst voters compared with other candidates of their party. The

system was also open to abuse; since only a minority of voters took up the write-in

option, quite small numbers could have an important influence on the positioningof candidates on lists. Finally, of course, there were difficulties in operating the

&dquo;write-in&dquo; provisions in an environment where organized crime and political life

were closely intermeshed: allegations frequently surfaced that the Mafia could getnames of their favoured politicians written in to ballot papers where voters did not

take up the write-in option.In Japan, the single non-transferable vote also created very strong incentives for

candidates of the same party to compete with each other strongly, since each voter

had only one vote but multiple seats had to be filled. The SNTV system meant that

candidates’ search for personal political funds was almost insatiable, whatever thelevel of competition between the LDP and the opposition parties. It also encour-

aged a tradition of strong and direct constituency service by MPs to constituents,focusing on providing semi-public goods. Both factors were important ingredientsin the growth of political corruption, which eventually produced the backlash in

1993, and change of the electoral system in early 1994.

A more

diffuse reaction against the lack of accountability over minority partiesand politicians which can be created in hyper-proportional systems seems to have

occurred also in two PR countries without any constituency system at all. Diskin

and Diskin (this issue) show that the intransigence of the religious parties in Israel,and their overly pivotal role in determining coalition government possibilities,triggered first a period of &dquo;grand coalition&dquo; between Likud and Labour, and later

an agreement to create a system for directly electing the Israeli prime minister,due to come into operation in 1996. Both devices were means of trying to enforce

some deference to the public interest on parties which given the legislative electoral

system were otherwise virtually invulnerable to public opinion: so long as they retain

their minority support, they face no incentive to behave cooperatively. A much lower

level of concern has also emerged in the Netherlands, where elections to the secondchamber (which is in fact the key House) currently are conducted on a nationwide

basis. A parliamentary commission is now examining whether or not the

Netherlands might change to a system with a constituency component, almost

certainly some form of the German or AMS approach.

The Attraction of Mixed Electoral SystemsThe apparent convergence of liberal democracies noted in the first section can now

be seen not as a coincidental phenomenon, but perhaps as the start of a more

important phasein the evolution of liberal democratic

systemsacross the

globe.The second section stressed the multi-dimensionality of electoral choice. In an era

where citizens’ experiences of democracy are increasingly pooled by global mass

media, better education, and a great deal of &dquo;policy learning&dquo; across nations (Rose,






8/10/2019 dunleavy1995


27

1993), the characteristic result must be to cast into sharper silhouette those

features of electoral systems which are most distinctive. Ten or twenty years ago,for example, the peculiarities of the British electoral system were much less appar-ent than they are today, when the UK is the only country in the European Union

to adhere to this approach, and when the British contribution to European parlia-mentary elections is to impart so marked a disproportional spin. Similarly, in Italyor Japan the non-accountability between voters and representatives which was

inherent in their systems became progressively more apparent as time went by, and

as the contrast with cleaner politics in countries with constituency systems became

more clear cut.

Against this kind of background mixed electoral systems have emerged as attrac-

tive for very good reasons. Whereas Taagepera and Shugart (1989) stress &dquo;simplic-ity&dquo; as the over-arching virtue of an electoral system, mixed methods of voting for

legislatures seem to go against this advice, by giving citizens not one but two differ-

ent

votingmethods. Yet in

fact,the

emergent &dquo;converged&dquo;form of mixed

systemis still quite easy to understand. It combines the accountability strengths of plural-ity rule in single-member constituencies with the offsetting proportional qualitiesof regional or national lists, an effect reinforced when the list element is used in a

&dquo;top-up&dquo; mode to redress imbalances of representation at constituency level.

None of this suggests that any invariant or &dquo;necessary&dquo; tendency has come to lightas a result of the 1993 changes. There is no &dquo;law&dquo; of displacement of pure PR or

pure plurality systems by mixed systems. Instead we need to recognize that debate

about electoral systems is literally endless, and the grass in a neighbouring field may

always look greener. Even in Germany, whose AMS system was deliberately devised

by the Allies as a mechanism for combining democratic values with state manage-

ment imperatives, criticisms of the voting system are always present. For example,the Bavarian PM Edmund Stolber, head of the right-wing Christian Social Union,advocates a shift towards the British plurality rule system in Germany:

Slowly, through PR, we are running the risk of being incapable of forming a

majority government and the coalition-wrangling in Bonn causes people even

more disenchantment. If this carries on then majority-voting might be a solution

to provide stable government majorities and decision-making, and make more

people feel the strength of our democratic system again (Argles, 1994).

Notes

1.President Mitterrand and the French Socialists replaced the French double ballot system for

legislative elections with a PR system in time for the 1986 election, thereby limiting their

losses and splitting the right by effecting representation for the Front Nationale in the

Chamber. The new right-wing majority changed back to a double-ballot system, and after he

won the 1988 presidential election Mitterrand was able to call snap legislative elections and

win almost a new majority using the system’s non-proportional characteristics.

2. Italy adopted, in 1989, a system of awarding "reinforced majorities" on local councils to

the party list which won the mayoralty in each area: the winning mayor is thus guaran-teed a 60 per cent majority for his or her list. At national level in 1993 the country adopteda version of the additional member system, described below. (See also Donovan, this

issue.)3. France has always used a national party list system for allocating seats in the European

Parliament, despite using the double-ballot system for legislative and presidentialelections.






8/10/2019 dunleavy1995


28

4. The bigger the gap between party A’s local vote and that for the runner-up party B, the

less the regional 25 percent of seats will be allocated on top-up lines. The closer the

competition in local constituencies the more the system will look like an AMS system with

a 75 percent/25 percent split of local and top-up seats.

In the new Italian Senate elections a

75/25 splitis

againused. But here

party A’s whole

vote in a local constituency it has won is deducted from its regional total before allocat-

ing the regional PR seats, thereby giving a more clear-cut "top-up" character to the

system. However, the regional electoral districts at the Senate level have far smaller

numbers of seats, so that again large parties are advantaged vis-à-vis smaller parties.

References

Argles, M. (1994). "’Edmund Thatcher’ is Man of Straw," The Guardian, 8 January, p. 25.

Catt, H. ( 1989). "What Do Voters Decide? Tactical Voting in British Politics," PhD disser-

tation, London School of Economics.

Connolly, W.E. (1974). The Terms of Political Discourse. Lexington, MA: Heath.

Dunleavy, P. (1990). "Mass political behaviour: is there more to learn?" Political Studies, 38(3):453—469.

Dunleavy, P. (1991). Democracy, Bureaucracy and Public Choice: Economic Explanations in Political

Science. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester-Wheatsheaf.

Dunleavy, P. and H. Margetts. (1993). "Disaggregating Indices of Democracy: Deviation from

Proportionality and Relative Reduction in Parties" (paper delivered to the ECPR Annual

Workshops, University of Leiden, 2-8 April).Dunleavy, P. and H. Margetts. (Forthcoming). "The Experiential Approach to Auditing

Democracy." In Indices of Democratization, (D. Beetham, ed.). London: Sage.Dunleavy, P., H. Margetts, and S. Weir. (1992). "Replaying the General Election of 1992:

How Britain Would Have Voted Under Alternative Electoral Systems," Rowntree Reform

Trust/LSE Public

Policy Group,LSE

Papersin Public

PolicyNo. 3.

Gallie, W.B. (1959). "Essentially Contested Concepts," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. 56.

Hood, C. (1976). The Limits of Administration. London: Wiley.Margetts, H. and P. Dunleavy. (1993). "Auditing Democracy: The Case for Experiential

Measures" (paper delivered to the ECPR Annual Workshops, University of Leiden, 2-8

April).Reeve, A. and A. Ware. (1991). Electoral Systems. London: Routledge.Rose, R. (1993). Lesson Drawing in Public Policy: A Guide to Learning Across Time and Space.

Chatham NJ: Chatham House.

Taagepera, R. and M.S. Shugart. (1989). Seats and Votes. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Williamson, O. (1975). Markets and Hierarchies. New York: Free Press.

Williamson, O. (1985). The Economic Institutions of Capitalism. New York: Free Press.

Biographical Notes

PATRICK DUNLEAVY is Professor of Government at the London School of Economics

and Political Science, where he has taught since 1979. His most recent books include

Democracy, Bureaucracy and Public Choice (Englewood Cliffs, NJ.: Prentice-Hall, 1992)and Developments in British Politics 4 (London: Macmillan, 1993), a co-edited work.

ADDRESS: Department of Government, London School of Economics, Houghton

Street, London WC2A 2AE, U.K. email: [email protected] MARGETTS is Lecturer in Politics at Birkbeck College. She is co-author of

Replaying the 1992 General Election: How Britain Would Have Voted Under Alternative






8/10/2019 dunleavy1995


29

Electoral Systems (London: LSE Public Policy Group, 1992), and is co-editor of TurningJapanese? Britain with a Permanent Party of Government (London: Lawrence and Wishart,1994). ADDRESS: Department of Politics and Sociology, Birkbeck College, Universityof London, Malet Street, London WC

1 7HX,U.K. email:

[email protected]. Acknowledgements. We would like to thank Pippa Norris and all the other contributors to this issue for

kindly allowing us to read their papers. We thank also Rosa Mule for information on Italian electoral

law, and colleagues in the PSA Specialist Group on Electoral Reform from whose collective wisdom we

have benefited.

dunleavy1995

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