Legitimacy, Representation, & Electoral System Reform in Western Europe

• In Event: Poster Session: Representation and Electoral Systems and Poster Session: Political Organizations and Parties
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Representation and Electoral Systems

Abstract

How does the concept of legitimacy affect electoral system reform? While the extant scholarship on electoral system change and institutional change emphasize interest-based explanations (such as seat-maximization) or the impact of established institutions, relatively little attention has been paid to the role of legitimacy. This paper demonstrates how incorporating the concept of legitimacy into historical-institutionalist accounts derived from the literature on institutional change can improve our understanding of electoral system reform. A complete explanation of endogenous electoral system change must investigate the causal mechanisms that affect the creation of institutional opening (the process through which electoral rules are dismantled), as well as the choice of institutional alternatives. The existence of an institutional opening and the adoption of new electoral institutions are two jointly necessary but not individually sufficient conditions for successful electoral reform. Legitimacy plays an important role in both processes. First, electoral systems that over-represent certain social groups and risk the marginalization of others are likely to lose legitimacy. Underrepresented actors (parties or movements) can further delegitimize these institutions by employing peaceful extra-institutional tactics, including negotiation boycotts and mass demonstrations. At the same time, these actors need to develop, popularize and improve the legitimacy of electoral systems that improve representation, and seek political allies willing to implement these solutions. The theoretical framework is used to examine successful and unsuccessful attempts at implementation of proportional representation (PR) in 19th and early 20th century Western Europe. A historical-institutionalist analysis with focus on legitimacy can explain the timing of the reform and the specific institutional outcomes (PR instead of mixed-electoral institution) better than the existing literature on electoral system reform.

Author

• Nina Simeonova Barzachka, Dickinson College