Democracy and the Politics of Electoral System Choice: Engineering Electoral Dominance

by Amel Ahmed

Amel Ahmed brings new historical evidence and a novel theoretical framework to bear on the study of democratization. Looking at the politics of electoral system choice at the time of suffrage expansion among early democratizers, she shows that the electoral systems used in advanced democracies today were initially devised as exclusionary safeguards to protect pre-democratic elites from the impact of democratization and, particularly, the existential threat posed by working class mobilization. The ubiquitous use and enduring nature of these safeguards calls into question the familiar picture of democracy moving along a path of increasing inclusiveness. Instead, what emerges is a picture that is riddled with ambiguity, where inclusionary democratic reforms combine with exclusionary electoral safeguards to form a permanent part of the new democratic order. This book has important implications for our understanding of the dynamics of democratic development both in early democracies and in emerging democracies today.

Genres: Politics

242 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2012

Reviews

[Pinko Palest · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not sure if the main premise of the book is correct: namely that the perception of the threat of radical socialist parties by elites in different countries is primarily what determined the electoral system chosen. My own personal hunch is that it was a more haphazard process than that. Still, the book is very informative and includes a host of intriguing details. The first chapter, as is commonly the case, was about methodolodlogy and feels, as is also commonly the case, almost irrelevant to the rest of the book. But that's a problem shared by all books stemming from PhDs. All in all a very readable book