- 2 Uncertainty over the Preferences of Voters
A decision to change electoral systems can involve decision-makers trying to
predict how voters will respond both to the system and to the party alternatives
on oVer. It is not always clear how voters will jump under diVerent electoral rules.
Again this was especially true for Eastern Europe in the 1990 s. At an extreme, when
an electoral regime is put in place as a country moves from dictatorship to
democracy, decision-makers may have little idea what voters want and the kinds
of parties that are going to develop to cater to those wants. But even in established
democracies it may be the case that, say, a move to proportionality may well
produce some uncertain shifts among voters towards, say, more extreme or single
interest parties.
- 3 Uncertainty over the Impact of Electoral Systems
While the general principle of electoral systems shaping winners and losers is well
known and also the broader lesson of Duverger’s Law is quite quickly learned, more
speciWceVects are often unknown. Again, this is more likely to be the case at times of
innovation of new electoral institutions. As Birch, Millard, and Williams note in their
discussion of changes in Eastern Europe, ‘‘actors had some understanding of the
generalconsequences of electoral systems vis-a`-vis party development. Yet they were
often mistaken when it came to the speciWcs of how laws would aVect individual
political groups and this hampered their ability to craft electoral institutions to suit
their immediate political ends’’ (Birch, Millard, and Williams 2003 , 170 ;emphasisin
original). Indeed electoral architects were often surprised by events such as the
success of the ultranationalists in Russia (Birch, Millard, and Williams 2003 , 170 ).
Even players within established electoral regimes may experience uncertainty.
As Andrews and Jackman ( 2005 ) argue, uncertainty about the consequences of
electoral system change were important in Britain when it considered a move to
proportional representation around the end of the First World War. It is important
to underscore that when we move away from the well-established electoral systems
such as single-member simple plurality (SMSP) 2 and list proportional representa-
tion (list PR) 3 uncertainty increases. The eVects of systems such as the single
transferable vote (STV) 4 are much less studied and understood than the ‘‘bigger’’
2 The system used in Britain, the USA, Canada, and India.
3 List PR is widely used in Scandinavia but there are important variations in this system in terms of
how many seats are to be elected (district magnitude) and whether voters have the chance or not to
vote for individual candidates (open vs. closed list).
4 The system used in Ireland and Malta to elect their parliaments. It is also used to elect the
Australian Senate and has been used in local elections in the USA and UK (Barber 1995 ).
584 shaun bowler