Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
6-2007
Abstract
In this review article, I identify the key questions raised by the treatment of electoral systems not as causal influences on party systems but as effects or byproducts of party systems. Framing these questions in the context of the classic consequences-oriented study of electoral institutions, I first review the classic approach, which treats electoral systems as causes, and explore the potential implications when electoral systems are viewed instead as outcomes of party systems. I then survey a variety of principal explanations of the origins and change of electoral laws, followed by a focus on several of the more explicitly defined models of this process. I conclude by discussing—and contesting—the notion that except for exceptional founding episodes of institutional choice, electoral systems eventually stabilize as equilibrium institutions.
Keywords
Duverger's law, electoral laws, electoral systems, institutional change
Discipline
Election Law | Political Science
Research Areas
Political Science
Publication
Annual Review of Political Science
Volume
10
First Page
363
Last Page
390
ISSN
1094-2939
Identifier
10.1146/annurev.polisci.10.072805.101608
Publisher
Annual Reviews
Citation
BENOIT, Kenneth.(2007). Electoral laws as political consequences: Explaining the origins and change of electoral institutions. Annual Review of Political Science, 10, 363-390.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/4043
Copyright Owner and License
Publisher
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.10.072805.101608