To debate whether electoral systems are an independent or dependentvariable is pointless. For we are not dealing with an intrinsic indepen-dence; we are simply asking different questions. Electoral systems areassumed to be an independent variable when the question is “What dothey do?” If the question is, instead, how electoral systems come aboutand why are they chosen, then the electoral system is treated as a depen-dent variable. And that is all there is to it.

Taken as an independent variable and, indeed, as a causal factor,electoral systems are assumed to affect the party system, not parties perse. Yet it stands to reason that a modification of the system of partiesmust also be of consequence for the component elements of the system,namely, for its parts. Note, however, that this argument goes from systemto party, not from party to system. As hypothesized, the causal chain isthat electoral systems cause the party system, which in turn causes partiesper se to be as they are.

The argument must begin, then, with the influence of the electoralsystem on the party system. I must also challenge from the start the viewthat “any theory making electoral systems a fundamental causative fac-tor in the development of party systems cannot be sustained.”1 For thisis still the prevailing view.2

As is well known, the first author to state in law-like form how electoralsystems influence the party system was Maurice Duverger. His first lawreads: “The plurality single-ballot system tends to party dualism.” Hissecond law reads: “The double-ballot [plurality] system and proportional

5

Giovanni Sartori is Albert Schweitzer Professor Emeritus in theHumanities at Columbia University. He was previously professor ofpolitical science at the University of Florence and at StanfordUniversity. His books include Parties and Party Systems (1974), TheTheory of Democracy Revisited (1987), Comparative ConstitutionalEngineering (1994), and, most recently, Homo Videns (1998) and LaSociedad Multietnica (2001).

THE PARTY EFFECTS OFELECTORAL SYSTEMS

Giovanni Sartori

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representation tend to multipartism.”3 These laws have been delugedwith criticisms and certainly display major weaknesses. The Duvergerlaws posit that electoral systems affect (that is, reduce or multiply) thenumber of parties, and yet Duverger never indicates how parties are tobe counted. The related point is that a causal relationship is verifiableonly if the effect is clearly specified, whereas the effect of the first law(party dualism) is accordion-like, and the effect of the second lawequally suffers from excessive imprecision. Another major and almostfatal weakness of Duverger’s treatment is that he never states theconditions under which his laws apply or, conversely, do not apply.4

These drawbacks have led, unfortunately, to an outright dismissal ofthe nomothetic approach. When Douglas Rae took up the matter in hisinfluential The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws, he did notbuild cumulatively on Duverger but switched instead to a different track.Rae posits a general “fractionalization effect” of electoral systems(whether or not they lead to fragmentation) and provides a statisticalmeasure for it—his well-known “index of fractionalization.” Whateverthe merits and shortcomings of Rae’s index,5 the point is that, with Rae,the political-science profession enters a path of measurements whosegains in precision are outweighed by major losses of understanding.

While Duverger looked at concrete party systems (even though hedid not identify them correctly), the quantitative literature that goesfrom Rae to Rein Taagepera and Matthew Shugart simply leaves us witharbitrary cutting points along a continuum. For example, Rae defines“two-party competition” (note, not two-partism as a system) as a state ofaffairs in which “the first party holds less than 70 percent of thelegislative seats and the first two parties together hold at least 90 percentof the seats.”6 Why not less than 60 percent and, cumulatively, 80percent? And what do these ratios or proportions entail in terms ofsystemic properties? This is what we are not told. Likewise, Taageperaand Shugart come up with what they call a “generalized Duverger’srule” which reads as follows: “The effective number of electoral partiesis usually within + 1 unit from N = 1.25 (2 + log M).”7 Now, and quiteaside from the fact that the empirical fit of the rule is poor, as theyadmit, what is the explanatory value of their “effective parties” measure?Not only are we left with a pure and simple counting of parties (ofdubious empirical validity) but what is it that we have? The authorsthemselves ask: “Is the new rule on the number of parties a law, ahypothesis, or an empirical data fit?”8 And their candid reply simply is:“For practical matters, it really does not matter.” Well, no: It matters.

The issue is whether electoral systems “cause” something, and iftheir effects can be rendered in terms of law-like generalizations. Andlaws can hardly be formulated unless we are clear-headed as to how theyrelate to causal analysis, to condition analysis, to probability and deter-minism, and, conclusively, to how they are confirmed or disconfirmed.9

9 2 The Party Effects of Electoral Systems

So, if nothing of this nor the difference between law and hypothesismatters “in practice,” then the business of knowing has been put out ofbusiness. Because there can be no real knowing without logic, whereaswhat is currently considered and called “methodology” is methodwithout logos, techniques that have largely lost their logical backboneand component element.

Restating the “Laws”

Reverting, as it were, to “logical knowing,” the question is: Can theimpact of electoral systems be stated in terms of law-like rules that areboth predictive of single events (not only of classes of events) andverifiable? But first, what do we mean by “law”? We mean, I assume, ageneralization endowed with explanatory power that detects a regularitythat allows predictions. So a law is required to assert more than aregularity and cannot consist of a mere generalization. And the point tobear in mind is that the explanatory power of a law is just as crucial asits predictive power.

Another preliminary point bears on the conditions under which a lawapplies or does not apply. Hundreds of critics point to hundreds ofoccasions in which the electoral system fails to produce the predictedeffects. But a law, any law, can hold only when it applies and cannot bedisconfirmed by cases to which it does not apply. Water boils at 100o Cat the sea level, not at the top of Everest; bodies fall at the sameacceleration, regardless of shape and size, in a void. Likewise, the lawsthat specify the effects of electoral systems apply only to party systems,that is to say, to the stage at which a loose collection of notables givesway to a structured ensemble of parties. Unstructured systems made ofshapeless and volatile units escape electoral engineering and are“lawless.”10

Let us come to some specifics. First of all, what do electoral systemsaffect? At first blush, the direct effect of an electoral system appears tobe on the voter. However, the electoral system also has a direct effect onthe number of parties (the format of the party system) since it establisheshow votes are translated into parliamentary seats. Other effects areinstead derivative. We shall come to them in due course.

The effect of an electoral system on the voter can be constraining(manipulative) or unconstraining. If it is unconstraining, then anelectoral system has no effect—and that is that. The effect of an electoralsystem on the party system can either be reductive (it reduces orcompresses the number of parties) or not—and in the latter case we haveagain a non-effect. A pure system of proportional representation (PR) isineffective in both respects: It does not have a manipulative impacteither on the voter or on the format of the party system.11 Pureproportionality, however, is rare. Regardless of the mathematics of

Giovanni Sartori 9 3

proportionality, a small district (for example, a district that elects twoto five members) brings about impure proportionality. The rule of thumbhere is that the smaller the district, the lesser the proportionality. Con-versely, the larger the district, the greater the proportionality. Israel andthe Netherlands thus rank among the pure PR systems in that they elect,respectively, 120 and 150 MPs in a single, nationwide constituency.

The bottom line then is that when electoral systems are effective,they reduce the number of parties. This brings us back to the question ofhow parties are to be counted. Duverger, I have already noted, had noanswer for this question, and his assessment was not only impressionisticbut also utterly erratic. Yet if we assume that electoral systems “cause”the number of parties, then we must know how this number is to bedetermined. Clearly, parties cannot be counted at their face value. In mywork, I have used the notion of relevant party, where relevance is asystemic assessment based on two criteria, namely, the coalition potentialor blackmail potential of any given party.12 Most authors instead abideby measures of fragmentation (Rae’s index of fractionalization and thelike) and currently speak of “effective party.” The quantitative deter-minations are, to be sure, easy to obtain since they are machine-made.Unfortunately, they miss relevance (as I define it) since they tell us justabout nothing about whether and in what manner a party affects theparty system as a whole.

I now submit the rules (“laws”) that govern the effects of electoralsystems on the number of parties.13

Rule 1: A plurality system cannot produce by itself a nationwidetwo-party format, but under all circumstances it will help maintain anexisting one. Hence, whenever a two-party format is established, aplurality system exerts a brakelike influence.

Rule 2: A plurality system will produce, in the long run, a two-partyformat (not the eternalization of the same parties, however) under twoconditions: first, a party system structured by nationwide parties and,second, if the electorate which is refractory to whatever pressure of theelectoral system happens to be dispersed in below-plurality proportionsthroughout the constituencies.14

Rule 3: Conversely, a two-party format is impossible—under whateverelectoral system—if racial, linguistic, ideologically alienated, single-issue, or otherwise incoercible minorities (which cannot be representedby two major parties) are concentrated in above-plurality proportionsin particular constituencies or geographical pockets. If so, the effect ofa plurality system will only be reductive vis-`a-vis the third parties thatdo not represent incoercible minorities.

Rule 4: Finally, PR systems also obtain reductive effects—though toa lesser extent—in proportion to their nonproportionality; andparticularly whenever they are applied in small-sized constituencies,establish a threshold of representation, or attribute a premium. Under

9 4 The Party Effects of Electoral Systems

these conditions, PR too will eliminate the smaller parties whoseelectorate is dispersed throughout the constituencies; but even a highlyimpure PR will not eliminate small parties that thrive in concentratedabove-quota strongholds.15

Let it be underscored that with single-member districts, the electoralsystem exerts its influence discretely, district by district. Hence a two-party system requires “nationwide parties” (as stated in Rule 2), that is,comes about only if the same two parties are the major contestants in all(or almost all) constituencies. Let me also explain why my rules largelyhinge upon the distribution of electorates, and specifically upon knowingwhether or not incoercible above-plurality or, as the case may be, above-quota minorities happen to be geographically concentrated or dispersed.This is so because my rules apply only when the stage of local fragmen-tation of politics is over. At this point we are simply left, therefore, withthe allegiances that remain unaffected by the advent of a structuredparty system.

One may ask why the number of relevant parties (the format of partysystems) is so important? This is because the format explains and predictsthe mechanics, that is, the systemic characteristics of distinctive typesof party systems. In my analysis, I sort out three major systemic patterns:1) two-party mechanics, that is, bipolar single-party alternation in govern-ment; 2) moderate multipartism, that is, bipolar shifts between coalitiongovernments; 3) polarized multipartism, that is, systems characterizedby multipolar competition, center-located coalitions with peripheralturnover, and antisystem parties.16

I cannot explicate the above in any detail, aside from pointing outthat as the analysis moves from the classification to a typology of partysystems, the decisive variable turns out to be systemic polarization,defined as the distance (ideological or other) between the most distantrelevant parties. So the question now is: Will the format be followed bythe expected, corresponding mechanics (functional properties)? Givenstructural consolidation as a necessary condition and polarization asthe intervening and, to some extent, dependent variable, I hypothesizeas follows:

Hypothesis 1: When the single-member plurality formula produces atwo-party format (Rule 1 and 2), the format will, in turn, produce a two-party mechanics if and only if the polarization of the polity is low. Withhigh polarization, the two-party mechanics breaks down. However, sincea two-party mechanics implies centripetal competition, it tends to lessensystemic polarization.17

Hypothesis 2: Assuming a below-quota dispersion of the incoercibleminorities (if any), impure PR formulas are likely to allow for one or twoparties above the two-party format, that is, three-four parties. This formatwill, in turn, engender the mechanics of moderate multipartism if andonly if the polity does not display high polarization.18 However, since

Giovanni Sartori 9 5

moderate multipartism still is bipolar-converging (centripetal com-petition), it will not tend to increase systemic polarization.

Hypothesis 3: Relatively pure or pure PR systems easily allow for afive-to-seven-party format. Even so, under conditions of medium-lowpolarization, the coalitional mechanics of moderate multipartism arenot impeded. Under conditions of high polarization, however, the formatwill display the mechanical characteristics of polarized multipartism,thereby including a multipolar competition that eventually heightenssystemic polarization.

Thus far I account for just one causal factor, the electoral system.Another causal factor at play may be the party system itself. That is tosay, a strongly structured and well-entrenched party system performs asa channelling force of its own. Thus the party system as a system ofchannelment may, by itself, “cause” the staying power of a partyconfiguration as is. Vide Austria, whose two-party format has resistedfor some 40 years (until the rise of Haider’s Freedom Movement) thefragmenting lures of PR. But the substitution of an independent variablewith another does not pose any problem to my laws, which can easilyincorporate an alternative causal factor.19 Still, I detect an incompletenessin my analysis that has long escaped me, and that I must now confront.

The New Case: From PR back to Plurality

My argument and my laws implicitly assume a movement frommajoritarian to proportional systems. For this has been, historically, theunfailing direction of change. PR was first introduced in 1889, and nodemocracy switched back from proportional to plurality elections forthe next 70 years. (France did exactly that in 1959.) In France’s transitionfrom the Fourth to the Fifth Republic, there was no apparent resistancepower of PR, in the sense that the return to majoritarianism wentsmoothly and achieved its purpose (albeit slowly). Thus the eventfulnessof this unprecedented event went unnoticed. But when Italy attempteda similar comeback from PR to plurality in 1994 and in 1996, the attemptfailed miserably and indeed backfired. So here we have a problem thathas yet to be tackled.

Why has France succeeded and Italy failed? The first reason is thatthe two countries have followed different paths. France astutely adopteda double-ballot plurality system reinforced by increasingly heightenedthresholds of exclusion (today of 12.5 percent); and the aggregate impactof this electoral arrangement was reinforced, as of 1962, by direct-majoritarian presidential elections. Italy has done nothing of the sort. Itadopted a single-shot plurality system20 with an insufficient thresholdof exclusion, and has thus far not had a directly elected president. Clearly,the Italians’ major mistake was to assume that single-ballot pluralityelections would, per force, perform “reductively.” Thus the major reason

9 6 The Party Effects of Electoral Systems

why Italians have failed to curtail the number of parties lies in theirfailure to adopt a double-ballot system. Yet the success of the Frenchcomeback has obscured the intrinsic difficulties that confront thedismantling of an entrenched pattern of party fragmentation.

Note that in Italy a single-ballot plurality system has not only failedto reduce the number of parties; it has actually backfired in producingmore parties, a still higher level of fragmentation. Until the early nineties,the “relevant” parties in Italy numbered six (plus or minus one) withPR; with plurality they have currently grown to 12 (plus or minus two).Why did they multiply? This is the question that goes to the heart of theproblem.

The answers lies, I suggest, in the (originally Downsian) notion ofblackmail party. Remember that “blackmail potential” is one of my twocriteria for establishing party relevance. And the point now is that aswitch from PR to plurality extends “relevance,” that is, providesrelevance to hitherto irrelevant parties. The reason for this is simple.With a winner-take-all system, victory or defeat may be decided by oneor two percentage points. Thus even very small parties—as long as theyhave a core of strongly identified voters—may display crucial blackmailleverage. True, with plurality elections a small party cannot win, but itcan easily endanger the winning chances of the major parties. Underthis circumstance, and given a state of entrenched fragmentation, theItalian electoral game has, in fact, been played by “paying out” theminor parties (of each family), that is, by granting them on the drawingboard a given number of seats in exchange for their staying out of therace. Paradoxically, in the case at hand, it is not PR but the winner-take-all system that multiplies parties (by extending and facilitating theirrelevance).

Clearly, then, returns from PR to plurality require a new engineeringnot covered by current know-how. The new problem is how to cope witha new kind of blackmail potential. Note that this new problem is entirelycreated—since all other circumstances remain equal—by the electoralsystem. It will have to be remedied, therefore, by electoral counter-measures. Here the firm point is that substituting PR with a single-ballot plurality system will not, in all likelihood, reduce the number ofparties. Indeed, this remedy is likely to boomerang. Even a double-ballot system, however, will not cure party fragmentation if it is “closed”(that is, if it admits to the run-off only the first two frontrunners), becausein this case blackmail maneuverings can still be quite effective. A thirdwarning is that electoral alliances —the French apparentement—shouldbe prohibited whenever an electoral system has thresholds or premiums.For, clearly, alliances circumvent thresholds of exclusion and defy theaggregative intent of majority premiums.

Bearing these provisos in mind, in the case of Italy, I have proposedat the parliamentary hearings an “open” double ballot system that admits

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to the run-off the first four runners.21 One can, however, think of otherways of disposing of extreme fragmentation. In the case of Israel, forexample, I would recommend a PR system that provides majoritypremiums for the first two parties in this proportion: 20 percent to thefirst, 15 percent to the second.22 We then have the solution adopted inChile as of 1989: a two-member PR system. While this system isespecially intended to reinforce the second-place finishers, the minimalsize of the constituencies does crush the smaller parties (even thoughChile permits electoral coalitions).

Misunderstood Electoral Systems

Up to this point I have dealt with the effects of electoral systems. Butwhat about the causal factor itself? Is everything clear at this end of theargument? Not really. Moreover, the understanding of electoral systemsleaves much to be desired. For a number of voting methods are bothmisclassified and misunderstood. Electoral systems are fundamentallydivided into majoritarian and proportional and thus defined byreciprocal exclusion: All majoritarian systems are not proportional and,conversely, all proportional systems are not majoritarian. So far, so good.But PR systems have been devised by mathematicians and a respectablemathematician must seek perfect proportionality. Thus mathematicianshave ignored ordinal proportionality and have confined PR to equalquotas (or quotients), that is, to systems that allocate seats to equalshares of the voting returns. Assume, however, that we encounter—aswas the case in Japan until 1993—four-member constituencies (average)that elect the first four most voted candidates. What kind of system isthat?

For Lijphart and others, it is a variety of the limited vote (the voterhas fewer votes than there are seats) in which each voter has only onevote. Therefore, they argue, it is a single nontransferable vote system(SNTV) which is best considered “a semiproportional system rather thana plurality system.”23 But the above makes little, if any, sense. First ofall, it makes no sense at all to wonder whether the Japanese system maybe considered a plurality system, for it is certainly not. Secondly, in allstandard PR systems voters have fewer votes than there are seats, andwith PR, it is normal for voters to have just one nontransferable vote.Therefore, it is an untelling redundancy to consider Japan an SNTV case.Thirdly, under what criterion is Japan best considered semiproportional?This is a purely impressionistic assessment. PR systems have alwaysbeen considered more-or-less pure (or impure). Along this continuum, isthere a cut-off point for the notion of “semiproportional”? The answer isno, and therefore this notion has no classificatory value.24

But why on earth have most scholars, in attempting to classify theJapanese case, trapped themselves in these tortuosities? In my opinion,

9 8 The Party Effects of Electoral Systems

the Japanese system was quite simply an ordinal proportional systemcharacterized by personalized voting (in lieu of list voting) and bysmall constituencies (and thus of the impure, least proportional variety).So why does this straightforward understanding of the case escape us?The reason is the mathematical bias that establishes that proportionalitycan be achieved only via equal quotas, whereas proportionality canalso be achieved, I submit, by having candidates elected in multimemberconstituencies on the basis of the highest portion (proportion) of thereturns. Nor is it a foregone conclusion that ordinal proportionality isnecessarily more imperfect (impure) than quota-based proportionality.For this matter (the degree of correspondence of votes to seats) is decidedfar more by the constituency size than by algorithms.

Moving on, double-ballot systems (also called two-round systems)represent both a neglected and highly misunderstood area of electoralsystems. An expert of the stature of Richard Rose assimilates and indeedsubordinates the double ballot to the alternative vote.25 His argument isas follows:

The two-ballot plurality systems used in France’s Fifth Republic is a variantof the alternative vote. . . . The difference between the Australian andFrench forms of alternative vote is limited, but of practical importance.Both systems . . . heavily penalize parties which have a large vote, but moreenemies than supporters. Both ask voters to state more than one preference.But the Australian system leaves it to the voter to decide his preference,ordering candidates all at once in a single ballot. By contrast the Frenchsystem also gives an initiative to the candidates and parties after the resultsof the first ballot are in.26

With due respect, the above is a misreading. Firstly, it is the doubleballot that has many variants, not the alternative vote. If anything, then,the double ballot should be the genus of which the alternative vote is aspecies. Anyway, the double ballot is not necessarily a single-membermajoritarian-plurality system; it can also be an ordinal proportionalmethod of electing candidates in multimember (if small) constituencies.Furthermore, the similarities perceived by Rose are, if anything,dissimilarities. The alternative vote requires an absolute majority. TheFrench parliamentary double ballot requires only a plurality; the former“orders” the candidates, the latter does not; the former does not allowvoters to change their vote, the latter does. These are hardly “limited”differences.

So why assimilate the double ballot to something else? In this mannerone misses that the system’s unique characteristic—that the voterrevotes—is also its central characteristic. All other electoral systems areone-shot; the double ballot, and the double ballot only, is a two-shotsystem. With one shot the voter shoots very much in the dark; with twoshots he or she shoots, the second time, in full daylight. This entails,among other things, that in the first round the voter is free to express his

Giovanni Sartori 9 9

first preference, that is, to engage in “sincere voting.” It is only in thesecond round that he is subjected to the constraints of the electoralsystem. Note, moreover, that when the voter is pressured in the run-offto vote for less preferred candidates, this constraint largely becomes theconstraint of actual voting distributions (not, as in the single-ballotplurality system, of the electoral system).27

Misinterpretations and ambiguities also plague the notion of “mixedsystem,” the formula that has currently charmed Italy, Russia, Japan,New Zealand, and other countries. The notion originates with the Germanelectoral system, and its popularity is largely due to a misunderstand-ing. For the German system is mixed, in the sense that half of the mem-bers of the Bundestag obtain a personalized vote (in single memberconstituencies), but is proportional in the far more important respectthat the seats are all allocated proportionally on the basis of the PR listvoting.

Alleged electoral experts are equally misguided in attributingimportance to the German additional member system (AMS), that is, toits variable Bundestag membership. For instance, Pippa Norris writesthat the most striking phenomenon in recent years has been the shift inNew Zealand, Italy, and Japan “away from the extremes of proportionaland majoritarian systems toward the middle ground of the ‘additionalmember system’ used in Germany.”28 But Italy and Japan do not haveadditional members and AMS is not a middle ground of anything, for itonly ensures proportionality. Let it be added that the German system isnot mixed in outcome (since it produces a fully proportional parliament).It is equally wrong to assume that Germany displays a three-party formatbecause it mixes PR with plurality. German parties have been reducedby the Constitutional Court—which has outlawed communists and neo-Nazis—not by the electoral system.

Germany and its false witnessing aside, when is a mixed systemveritably mixed? And what are the merits of plurality-PR mixes? Afrequently held opinion is that mixed systems are “the most attractiveforms of solution to meet otherwise contradictory imperatives.”29 I agreethat we are faced with contrary (though not contradictory) imperatives,namely, the function of mirroring (exact representation), and the functionof functioning (efficient government). But are mixed systems a solutionthat combines, as the claim goes, the best of both worlds?

Let me first provide this definition: A veritable mixed system is suchif and only if both the voting method and the allocation of seats are inpart majoritarian and in part proportional. Thus a veritable mixed systemmust combine a proportional with a majoritarian translation of votesinto seats. The current Italian, Japanese, and Russian electoral systemsqualify as mixed under the aforesaid criterion. In Italy since 1994, 75percent of the seats are filled via plurality districts, while the remaining25 percent of the seats are filled according to proportional criteria. In

100 The Party Effects of Electoral Systems

Japan the mix is 60 percent (plurality) to 40 percent (proportional),whereas in Russia the mix is an even 50:50. As I have already noted, theresult of Italy’s mixed system across two elections has been counter-productive.30 In Russia, under existing conditions no electoral systemcan be expected to do much, yet the choice was a poor one.31 And inJapan three years of disappointing coalition-maneuverings have helpedthe LDP to restore its own single-party government.32

So far with the veritable mixed systems. Other countries are equallycalled mixed, albeit misleadingly, for here we fail to distinguish betweentwo different kinds of mixtures. In the first kind (the one that is correctlycalled mixed) we have plurality-proportional mixes both in input and inoutput, as we know to be the case of Italy, Japan, and Russia.33 In thesecond one (that can be called mixed-proportional), the mixture isincomplete: it is only in input, for the output is fully proportional. Indeed,in Germany as well as in New Zealand, a proportional compensation isprovided (in parliamentary seats) for any disproportionality arising fromthe plurality elections. Hence the systems in question unequivocallyperform as proportional systems based, in part, on personalized voting.The interesting case in this category is New Zealand, in that here wehave a switch from plurality to PR. And while the German “proportionalmix” has been of almost no consequence, New Zealand’s switch hasalready brought about the novel experience of coalition uncertainty.34

Overall, the record of both the veritable and incomplete mixes hasbeen erratic.35 But this record still is, for most countries, a very shortone. And since one or two elections cannot tell with any assurance howelectoral “mixes” might work when routinized, my objection is, in termsof principle, that electoral systems should have one logic that conformsto their purpose. Hence all the mixed systems, including the incompleteones, are objectionable in that they confuse voters and, secondly, requireparties to become Janus-faced. PR permits, as Fahrquharson puts it,“sincere voting,” that is, it encourages voters to express their firstpreferences freely, while majoritarian electoral systems require votersto engage in “strategic voting,” that is, to express second best, calculatedpreferences (attuned to the likely winners). To require an ordinary voterto engage simultaneously in sincere (proportional) and in strategic(majoritarian) choices is a sure way of blurring them. By the same token,parties too are prompted to engage in schizophrenic behavior. For partiesthat coalesce in the plurality contests fight against each other in the PRsetting. So are we looking at the best of two worlds or, instead, at thebest way of producing a bastard, a parliament that serves no purpose?For the ultimate question always is: Electoral systems to what end?

The ultimate end of PR is representative justice. The ultimate end ofmajoritarian elections is governing capacity. Clearly these are contrarygoals. To be sure, these goals are amenable to trade-offs: moregovernability in exchange for less proportionality, or, more proportional

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justice for less governability. But these trade-offs should not lead tosolutions that are neither fish nor meat, that is to say, to non-solutions.One of the two ends—representativeness or governability—must haveclear priority and prevail over the other.

Note that I do not hold that one goal is intrinsically superior to theother. I hold that we are confronted with a choice that should not beeluded by “mixes.” Thus while Arend Lijphart believes that PR isinherently superior to plurality and that a consociational model ofgovernance is inherently superior to the Westminster model, my viewis, instead, that when a proportional parliament produces paralyzedcoalition governments, we should seek majoritarian electoral remedies.Unfortunately we hardly know how to do that.

The Influence on Parties

Let me turn to the last item on my agenda. Thus far I have dealt withthe impact of the electoral system on the voter and with its effects on theparty system. As I have indicated at the outset, this is the causal path thatwe are logically required to follow. Yet it is clearly the case that theelectoral system also shapes parties per se. When the whole is affected,its parts are affected; and, conversely, the parts affect the whole to whichthey belong.

Note, firstly, that with a majoritarian system, one either wins or losesin each constituency, whereas in a proportional system, winning andlosing are only a matter of greater or smaller shares. And if the verynotion of winning is different, at the very least the tactics of party com-petition must be different. In one case the loser loses all; in the other itjust loses something (perhaps just one or two percentage points). So dif-ferent electoral systems bring about different ways of competing, andthis affects how parties are, that is, their competitive nature.

A similar point can be made with regard to the notion of responsibility.When an electoral system maintains or brings about two-partyism, bythe same token it brings about single-party government, and thus anidentifiable responsibility: who is responsible, in governing, for what.When, instead, electoral systems cause multipartyism, by the same token,they generally bring about coalition governments. If so, the morenumerous the coalition partners (for example, in Italy with PR they havegenerally been five), and the more frequent the coalition changes, theless the voter can attribute responsibility to any specific party. Withcoalition governments, responsibility becomes fuzzy. One may thus saythat different electoral systems engender “differently responsible” and/or “differently irresponsible” parties (in the sense that I have justindicated), in that few parties facilitate, and many parties obfuscate, theperception of responsibility in party governance.

However, the single most important direct effect of the electoral system

102 The Party Effects of Electoral Systems

on parties per se bears on whether party splitting is penalized and partyaggregation rewarded. As we have seen, when a nation-wide two-partysystem is in place, a plurality system is a powerful factor in maintainingtwo-partyism. And we have also seen that double-ballot systems can berendered strongly aggregative. Conversely, unless they are extremelyimpure, PR systems hardly penalize party fragmentation and party splits,thus allowing for small-to-minute parties. Therefore, whether we havefew large parties or a host of small-sized parties is a direct consequenceof the electoral system. In short, electoral systems control party numbers(in the manner indicated by my laws).

It is also assumed that a single-member-district system enhances “per-sonalized” politics, whereas list systems of proportional representationreinforce “party-based” or party-centered politics. On the same grounds,majoritarian systems are assumed to lead to constituency-based (local)politics and thus to decentralized parties, whereas PR is assumed to up-hold centralized and stronger parties. Yet these seemingly obvious expec-tations turn out to be fraught with exceptions. This is so because we arenow dealing with indirect or derivative effects and thus, with distalcausality. And the more a causal trajectory or a causal linkage islengthened, the more it allows for intervening variables. Yes, on its ownaccord, a single-member-district system does enhance person-based andlocality-centered politics. But this tendency can be effectively counter-acted by party strength (as in England). And another decisive interveningvariable here is who controls the financing of politics: the party as acentralized entity or the candidates themselves. The general point is,then, that the more we move into the area of indirect effects, the more weenter into multicausality and thus the more the electoral system turnsout to be one of many causal factors. And I cannot unravel multicausalcomplexities here.

Are parties in decline? If they are, electoral systems have little say onthat. The enfeeblement of parties cannot be ascribed to voting methods.But the effects of electoral systems remain unchanged, as stated, regard-less of whether the nature and centrality of parties change.

NOTES

1. Vernon Bogdanor, “Conclusions,” in Vernon Bogdanor and David Butler,eds., Democracy and Elections: Electoral Systems and their Political Consequences(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 254, 261.

2. Somewhat amazingly, even in the recent Handbook of Electoral SystemDesign (Stockholm: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance,1997), there is no reference whatsoever to “laws” that may monitor the designingof electoral systems.

3. I quote from Maurice Duverger, Les Partis Politiques, 2nd ed. (Paris: ArmandColin, 1954), 247, 269 (my translation).

Giovanni Sartori 103

4. These and further critiques are spelled out in Giovanni Sartori, “The Influenceof Electoral Systems: Faulty Laws or Faulty Method?” in Bernard Grofman andArend Lijphart, eds., Electoral Laws and Their Political Consequences (New York;Agathon Press, 1986), 43–45.

5. I discuss them in Giovanni Sartori, Parties and Party Systems: A Frameworkfor Analysis (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 307–15; and in GiovanniSartori, “The Influence of Electoral Systems,” in Bernard Grofman and ArendLijphart, eds., Electoral Laws and Their Political Consequences, 45–46, 51, 65–66.

6. Douglas Rae, The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1971), 93.

7. Rein Taagepera and Matthew Soberg Shugart, Seats and Votes: The Effectsand Determinants of Electoral Systems (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989),145.

8. Ibid., 145.

9. On all these points, see Giovanni Sartori, “The Influence of Electoral Systems,”49–52.

10. See Giovanni Sartori, “The Influence of Electoral Systems,” 55–56; andGiovanni Sartori, Comparative Constitutional Engineering: An Inquiry intoStructures, Incentives, and Outcomes, 2nd ed. (New York: New York UniversityPress, 1997), 37–38.

11. We generally speak of a “multiplying effect” of PR. This is, however, amanner of speech, for the multiplication is not “caused” by PR but results from the“removal of obstacles” brought about by PR.

12. See Giovanni Sartori, Comparative Constitutional Engineering, 33–34, and,for the full argument, Giovanni Sartori, Parties and Party Systems, 119–25, 300–19. It is apparent that my relevance criteria apply to parliamentary systems. Thenumber of parties is of lesser importance in presidential systems.

13. I draw them and repeat from Giovanni Sartori, Comparative ConstitutionalEngineering, 40–45.

14. For reasons explained later, I deliberately avoid specifying whether theplurality system in question is of the single-ballot or double-ballot variety. Herethe assumption is that one of the two will perform as predicted.

15. To illustrate sketchily, Rule 3 applies nicely to the Canadian case. That is, therule accounts for the fact that, despite plurality, Canada has a three-four-party format,whereas Rule 4 applies nicely to Ireland and Japan (with small three-to-five memberconstituencies), to Greece, Spain, and Austria (which also have relatively smallconstituencies of, respectively, five, six, and seven members), and also helps explain(on account of the exclusion clause) the format of the German Federal Republic.

16. This typology is developed at length in Giovanni Sartori, Parties and PartySystems, 125–211 and 273–93. For easier consultation, see Peter Mair, ed., TheWest European Party System (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), a readerthat carries the gist of my party theory (316–49).

17. The underlying assumption of the hypothesis is that low polarizationcorresponds to a unimodal, bell-shaped distribution of opinions and that whenmost voters cluster around the central, middle area of the political spectrum, partycompetition is (must rationally be) center-converging. Conversely, high polarizationcorresponds to a bimodal, two-peaked distribution with a hollow center. This

104 The Party Effects of Electoral Systems

entails that competition is center-fleeing, and that two-camp entrenchments blockthe swinging of the pendulum. A recent work bearing on these issues is Reuven Y.Hazan, Centre Parties: Polarization and Competition in European ParliamentaryDemocracies (London: Pinter, 1997).

18. High polarization generally results from ideological distance. However, itcan also reflect ethnic and/or religious conflict. Let it be added that polarizationcan equally be party-triggered, in the sense that in a given system, parties may finddivisive and conflictual politics rewarding.

19. See Giovanni Sartori, Comparative Constitutional Engineering, 44–45.

20 .More precisely, the new Italian electoral system is “mixed” in this proportion:75 percent of the seats are allocated by plurality and 25 percent on a proportionalbasis. This majoritarian incompleteness, however, does not affect my argument.

21. This formula is implemented by a proportional compensation (on nationallists) for the parties admitted to the run-off that drop out. My expectation is thatthis arrangement would lead to two-cornered final races and that it would eliminateblackmail at both electoral stages.

22. The percentages are purely illustrative. The advantage of this “premiummethod” is that it strongly encourages party aggregations (especially if electoralalliances are not permitted). Its standard alternative—a majority premium for thewinning electoral coalition—simply fabricates a heterogeneous majority thatmaintains all its pre-coalition conflicts.

23. Bernard Grofman and Arend Lijphart, eds., Electoral Laws and Their PoliticalConsequences, 154–55.

24. Note, incidentally, that the Japanese system was devised to favor medium-sized parties and that its proportionality would have been “normal” had that intentbeen achieved.

25. To wit, the alternative vote is a “preferential” majority system, used insingle-member districts, in which voters use numbers to mark their preferences onthe ballot paper. If no candidate achieves an absolute majority of first preferences,votes are reallocated until one candidate attains the required 50 percent majority.The alternative vote is used in Australia.

26. Richard Rose, “Elections and Electoral Systems,” in Vernon Bogdanor andDavid Butler eds., Democracy and Elections, 32–33 (my emphasis).

27. For further considerations, see Giovanni Sartori, Comparative ConstitutionalEngineering, 10–12, 61–69.

28. In “The Politics of Electoral Reform” issue of the International PoliticalScience Review 16 (January 1995), Introduction.

29. Patrick Dunleavy and Helen Margetts, “Understanding the Dynamics ofElectoral Reform,” International Political Science Review 16 (January 1995): 24.

30. For a detailed account, see Leonardo Morlino, “Is There an Impact? AndWhere Is It? Electoral Reform and the Party System in Italy,” South EuropeanSociety & Politics 2 (Winter 1997): 103–30.

31. In the 1995 Duma election, of the 18 parties running with PR party lists,only four crossed the 5 percent threshold of exclusion. Thus nearly 50 percent ofthe votes were wasted, producing an enormous overrepresentation of the first fourparties. On the other hand, 43 parties competed in the single-member constituencies,

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and excessively multicornered races produced winners with 20 percent of the con-stituency vote. It is apparent that some double-ballot system would have performedbetter.

32. To be sure, this is not a prediction. Remember, however, that the downfallof the LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) resulted from a split, not from any majordefeat. Thus if and to the extent that the LDP holds together as the major singleparty, as its self-interest recommends, it is well positioned to do very well in theplurality contests and to bring home its proportion (a major one) in the PR arena.Somewhat paradoxically, the new mixed system is easier for the LDP to handlethan the earlier one.

33. The IDEA Handbook of Electoral Design calls this a “parallel system,” thuscorrectly distinguishing it from the “mixed member proportional” (MMP) system,which is New Zealand’s name for the German “personalized proportional system”(Personalisierte Verhältniswahl) . I object, however, to the “parallel system”denomination, for labels are required to be descriptive. Since in this case weexactly have a mixed system, why not say so?

34. The 1996 election has produced a two-party coalition government (NationalParty and New Zealand First) that controls a bare majority (61 seats out of 120) ofParliament. To be sure, very thin majorities also occur in England; but with coalitiongovernment, “minimal winning coalitions” generally perform with great difficultyand represent the worse possible solution.

35. The full list of electoral mixes adds up to some 15 countries. In LatinAmerica, the important cases are Venezuela (semi-mixed) and Mexico (mixed-mixed). In Eastern Europe, the peculiar case is Hungary, with a double ballotvariety of mixed system. The point, however, is that mixed systems are indeed amixed bag that must be sorted out.