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Cited by 940

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 18 of the 18 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Setting the Rules of the Game: The Choice of Electoral Systems in Advanced Democracies

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Boix, Carles·1999·American Political Science Review
DOI 10.2307/2585577
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Abstract

Looking at the history of democracies in the developed world, I show that electoral systems derive from the decisions the ruling parties make to maximize their representation according to the following conditions. As long as the electoral arena does not change and the current electoral regime benefits the ruling parties, the electoral system is not altered. As the electoral arena changes (due to the entry of new voters or a change in voters' preferences), the ruling parties modify the electoral system, depending on the emergence of new parties and the coordinating capacities of the old parties. When the new parties are strong, the old parties shift from plurality/majority to proportional representation if no old party enjoys a dominant position, but they do not do this if there is a dominant old party. When new entrants are weak, a system of nonproportional representation is maintained, regardless of the structure of the old party system.

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Cites

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Citations

Cites

Show all 18 references

Research works printed but not linked: 15

  1. Downs, 1957, An Economic Theory of Democracy
  2. Hermens, 1941, Democracy or Anarchy? A Study of Proportional Representation
  3. Carstairs, 1980, A Short History of Electoral Systems in Western Europe
  4. Taagapera, 1989, Seats and Votes: The Effects and Determinants of Electoral Systems
  5. Nohlen, 1981, Sistemas electorates del mundo
  6. Rokkan, 1970, Citizens, Elections, Parties: Approaches to the Comparative Study of the Process of Development
  7. Dahl, 1973, Size and Democracy
  8. Lijphart, 1977, Democracy in Plural Societies
  9. Bartolini, 1990, Identity, Competition, and Electoral Availability. The Stabilisation of European Electorates 1885–1985
  10. 10.1111/1475-6765.00334 · doi:10.1111/1475-6765.00334
  11. Boix, 1992, Trade, Politics and Proportional Representation. A Reinvestigation of Rogowski's ‘Trade and the Variety of Democratic Institutions
  12. Butler, 1963, The Electoral System in Britain since 1918
  13. Duverger, 1954, Political Parties
  14. Rae, 1971, The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws
  15. Taylor, 1972, World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators

Cited by

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Metadata

Authors
Boix, C.
Venue
American Political Science Review
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Published
1999-09
Volume
93
Issue
3
Pages
609-624
ISSN
  • 0003-0554 (ISSN-L)
  • 1537-5943
DOI
10.2307/2585577
OpenAlex
W3121507183
Cited by
940
References
18
FWCI
30.81
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
green
Licence
www.cambridge.org/core/terms (unspecified, 5448 d)

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Setting the Rules of the Game: The Choice of Electoral Systems in Advanced Democracies. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.2307/2585577
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Boix, C. (1999). Setting the Rules of the Game: The Choice of Electoral Systems in Advanced Democracies. American Political Science Review. https://doi.org/10.2307/2585577

Data sources

Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.