To Adopt or Not to Adopt Proportional Representation: The Politics of Institutional Choice

Abstract

In September 1864, the Association Internationale pour le Progrès des Sciences Sociales met in Amsterdam to examine the system of proportional representation (PR) which had just been proposed by Thomas Hare. The meeting signalled a growing interest in systems of PR across the more democratic nations of the world – some of which had already begun experimenting with it. Sixty years later, the majority of existing democracies, including Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, had adopted PR for the election of their national legislatures.Why did so many countries decide to shift to PR? Why did the shift occur at a given point in time, not earlier or later? Why did some countries never move to PR? These are the questions that we address in this Note.We are interested in exploring the factors that influenced the decision to adopt PR at the turn of the twentieth century. We argue that two factors of considerable theoretical relevance were particularly important in facilitating the shift to PR: the spread of democratic ideas and the presence of a majority (usually two-round) system and, as a consequence, a multi-party system.Carstairs's classic history of electoral systems shows that at the turn of the twentieth century there was a strong demand for PR, which was linked to a more general demand for democratization. As Carstairs notes,there was a general movement in the direction of more democratic political institutions which took several different forms … There was a movement for the establishment or strengthening of parliamentary institutions … Extensions of the franchise for parliamentary elections enabled an increasingly large proportion of the population to gain representation in parliament … With these developments it became a matter of increasing concern that the elected members of parliament and the parties they supported should fairly represent the various interests and opinions of the electorate.

The Adoption of Proportional Representation

“…A similar critique is presented by Blais, Dobrzynska, and Indridason (2005) who argue that the incentives of all parties to switch to proportional representation are stronger in countries which require a majority rather then just plurality of the votes to take a district.…”

“…T he study of the process of reform of electoral institutions during the first decades of the twentieth century and the adoption of proportional representation (PR) by some countries has been at the center of comparative research in recent years (Ahmed 2012;Benoit 2004;Blais, Dobrzynska and Indridason 2005;Boix 1999;Calvo 2009;Colomer 2005;Soskice 2007, 2010;Kreuzer 2010). 1 This renewed interest in the origin of these political choices has been partly motivated by a related literature examining the importance of proportional representation in affecting a range of political outcomes, including the level of government expenditures, the types of social-spending programs, levels of inequality, and so on.…”

The Contraction Effect: How Proportional Representation Affects Mobilization and Turnout

“…With the expansion of suffrage, support for the socialist Labor Party (Det Norske Arbeiderparti) increased, but the SMD system resulted in the party's consistent under-representation. In part as a strategy of socialist "containment" similar to the pattern in many other European democracies in the early 20th century (Rokkan, 1970;Boix, 1999;Blais, Dobrzynska and Indridason, 2005), 7 the nonsocialist parties in the Norwegian parliament conceded in 1919 to change the electoral system to a multi-member PR system using the D'Hondt seat allocation formula. 8 Our empirical analysis is based on four parliamentary elections preceding this reform (1909, 1912, 1915, and 1918) and three elections following the reform (1921, 1924, and 1927).…”

Coevolution of Capitalism and Political Representation: The Choice of Electoral Systems

“…The move (or not) to PR was simply not a big issue, as Blais, Dobrzynska, and Indridason (2005) show. The dog did not bark in the night.…”

“…Blais, Dobrzynska, and Indridason (2005) argue that there were no great divisive political debates on these issues (once democratization had taken place). This doubtless accounts for the absence of a historiography of electoral choice, which Kreuzer notes.…”