Electoral Systems

Elections; the process by which representatives are chosen to vote on our behalf, have come to be accepted as an integral part of most democratic systems. But there are many varieties of electoral system: proportional representation, and first-past-the-post are two such systems currently in operation. The issue of whether the rules governing the current electoral process are in need of reform, provokes perennial debate. In this book, Andrew Reeve and Alan Ware attempt to inform this debate by analysing such critical questions as the role an electoral system plays in allocating values in a society, the principles which should be invoked in the analysis of such systems, the significance of the territorial dimension, and the connection between democracy and the electoral process. These questions are analysed from both a comparative and a theoretical standpoint. The book looks at electoral systems in relation to democratic theory, it examines justifications for some aspects of modern electoral rules, and it links the study of electoral systems to that of voting systems. It compares parliamentary elections with various other kinds of election, and it looks at the differences between British experience and that of other countries.