Electoral Systems: A Theoretical and Comparative Introduction

Elections--the processes by which representatives are chosen to vote on our behalf--have come to be accepted as an integral part of most democratic systems. 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 through an analysis of 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 crucial questions are analyzed from both a comparative and a theoretical standpoint. The authors analyze electoral systems in relation to democratic theory, and examine justifications for some aspects of modern electoral rules. They link the study of electoral systems to that of voting systems, and compare parliamentary elections in Britain with thesystems of other countries.