Embodying Democracy Electoral System Design

Embodying Democracy analyzes the politics of electoral reform in eight postcommunist states including Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, and Ukraine. By exploring the multiple factors that shaped the design of electoral institutions during the first ten years of postcommunist transition, it accounts for an important element of the postcommunist reform process and illuminates general features of institutional design in post-transition states.

Sarah Birch , Frances Millard and Marina Popescu are all at the Department of Government, University of Essex. Kieran Williams is Lecturer in Politics, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London

List of Tables

vii

List of Party Acronyms

viii

Preface

xi

Explaining the Design and Redesign of Electoral Systems

1

(24)

Elections under communism

3

(4)

The distinguishing characteristics of post-communist electoral reform

7

(2)

How electoral systems are shaped

9

(13)

Expectations and chapter plan

22

(3)

Poland: Experimenting with the Electoral System

25

(23)

The impetus to electoral reform

26

(8)

The process of change

34

(11)

Conclusion

45

(3)

Hungary: the Politics of Negotiated Design

48

(19)

The origins of the origins

49

(2)

The negotiating parties

51

(3)

The Round Table negotiations

54

(6)

The law

60

(1)

The aftermath

61

(2)

Assessing the outcome

63

(1)

The incentive system of the Hungarian law

64

(1)

Conclusion

65

(2)

The Czech and Slovak Republics: the Surprising Resilience of Proportional Representation

67

(23)

Initial choice of electoral regime

68

(7)

The unintended consequences of the pursuit of stable government

75

(11)

Explaining electoral reform in the successor states

86

(2)

Conclusions

88

(2)

Romania: Stability without Consensus

90

(19)

Provisional institutions and the first post-communist electoral law

91

(5)

The 1992 electoral legislation and the 1992 elections

96

(5)

Reform proposals after 1996

101

(4)

Conclusion

105

(4)

Bulgaria: Engineering Legitimacy through Electoral System Design

109

(19)

Bulgaria's electoral history

111

(2)

The Round Table talks and the electoral law for the Grand National (Constituent) Assembly, 1990

113

(6)

The parliamentary electoral law of 1991

119

(4)

Post-1991 changes to the electoral law

123

(2)

Conclusion

125

(3)

Russia: the Limits of Electoral Engineering

128

(15)

Late Soviet electoral liberalization: 1989-90

128

(4)

The 1993 electoral decree

132

(5)

The 1995 electoral law

137

(3)

The electoral law in the context of `managed democracy'

140

(1)

Conclusion

141

(2)

Ukraine: the Struggle for Democratic Change

143

(21)

The pre-independence period: elections before multi-party competition

145

(1)

Electoral reform in the wake of independence, 1992-3: parties versus the `party of power'

146

(16)

1994-8: the drive to institutionalize political parties

152

(6)

1998-2001: parties versus the president

158

(4)

Conclusion

162

(2)

Conclusion: Embodying Democracy

164

(25)

Characterizing the process of post-communist electoral reform

166

(12)

Explaining reform outcomes

178

(4)

Accounting for variations

182

(5)

Conclusion

187

(2)

Notes

189

(32)

Bibliography

221

(13)

Glossary

234

(3)

Index

237

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Embodying Democracy Electoral System Design in Post-Communist Europe

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials