For some this means that mixed systems—systems that combine elements of both
plurality and proportionality—are the answer (Shugart and Wattenberg 2003 ). 8
However, our understanding of the working of these systems seems to be both more
restricted and also more dependent on speciWc cases than our understanding of
other systems. But we also need more work examining the trade-oVs implied by
diVerent electoral systems, an area that has received relatively little attention to date.
Finally, democracy has spread to a new range of countries. We have already seen
work re-examining the oldWndings in new contexts to see, for example, if what
held for Germany will hold, say, for Poland or Hungary. But the countries of
Eastern Europe neighbor rich and democratic Western Europe and, in many cases,
had brief experiences of democracy prior to Communist rule. Their—largely
successful—experience with elections may not be so readily copied in countries
such as Afghanistan and Iraq. Perhaps one of the bigger trends in electoral studies,
then, will follow one of the bigger trends in world politics: The spread of elections
to the Middle East and Asia. One of the biggest possibilities of this move of
elections to ‘‘the East’’ is not so much what these regions will learn but what the
rest of us will learn about electoral systems from those regions.
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8 Examples of these systems are found in Germany, New Zealand, Russia, and Mexico.592 shaun bowler