Electoral Systems and Democracy

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute of War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University. Marc F. Plattner is vice president for research and studies at the National Endowment for Democracy. They serve as codirectors of the International Forum for Democratic Studies and coeditors of the Journal of Democracy, as well as of other collections of essays available from Johns Hopkins, including The Global Divergence of Democracies, Islam and Democracy in the Middle East, and Democracy after Communism.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroductionI. Electorial Systems and Institutional Design1. A Primer for Decision Makers2. A Gobal Snapshot3. Dealing with Divided Societies4. The Case for Power Sharing5. The Impact of FederalismII. Is Proportional Representation Best?6. Constitutional Choices for New Democracies7. The Problem with PR8. PR and Democratic Statecraft9. Double-Checking the Evidence10. The Primary of the ParticularIII. Country and Regional Experiences11. Constitutional Engineering in Southern Africa12. Comment: Elections in Agrarian Societies13. Rejoinder: The Case for Proportionality14. Electoral Reform and Stability in Uruguary15. Devaluing the Vote in Latin America16. Why Direct Election Failed in Israel17. The Politics of Reform in Japan and Taiwan18. The Curious Case of Afghanistan19. Iraq's Year of Voting DangerouslyIndex

An accessible and comprehensive collection... usefully grounds the key theoretical arguments with empirical evidence. -- Toby James Political Studies Review 2007 Very useful for pedagogical purposes... Recommended. General readers and undergraduates. Choice 2007