The Politics of Electoral Reform

Alan Renwick is a Lecturer in Comparative Politics at the University of Reading.

• 1. Introduction; Part I. Building Blocks: 2. What motivates actors?; 3. From motivations to outcomes: exogenous factors; 4. The reform process: endogenous factors; Part II. Elite Majority Imposition: 5. France: the recurrent game of electoral reform; 6. Italy: the search for stability; 7. Japan: the persistence of SNTV; 8. Elite majority imposition: comparative analysis; Part III. Elite-Mass Interaction: 9. Italy: diluting proportional representation; 10. Japan: the abandonment of SNTV; 11. New Zealand: MMP in a Westminster setting; 12. Elite-mass interaction: comparative analysis; 13. Conclusions and implications; Appendix: Glossary of electoral system terminology.

Review of the hardback: 'Renwick's creative application of rational-choice inspired theoretical frameworks to electoral system choice is both innovative and enlightening. Theoretically-informed qualitative analysis of this sort is rare, and this volume provides a much-needed complement to the many quantitative studies of electoral system design.' Sarah Birch, University of Essex