Electoral Systems in Latin America: Explaining the Adoption of Proportional Representation Systems During the Twentieth Century

This article explains the twentieth-century Latin American shift from majoritarian to proportional representation (PR) electoral systems. It argues that PR was introduced when the electoral arena changed significantly and threatened the power of the dominant party. The adoption of PR was therefore a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Latin American politics and society 2009-10, Vol.51 (3), p.33-58
Main Author: Wills-Otero, Laura
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
20th century
Adoption
Case studies
Changes
Comparative analysis
Democracy
Developing countries
Diachronic analysis
Districts
Elections
Electoral reform
Electoral rules
Electoral Systems
Empirical research
Incumbent party
Incumbents
Industrialized nations
Latin America
Latin American politics
LDCs
Majority voting system
Party realignment
Pluralism of mandates
Plurality voting
Political Change
Political leadership
Political parties
Political power
Political Representation
Political Systems
Population growth
Power relations
Proportional Representation
Social classes
Survey analysis
Twentieth Century
Voters
Voting
Voting rights
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Summary:This article explains the twentieth-century Latin American shift from majoritarian to proportional representation (PR) electoral systems. It argues that PR was introduced when the electoral arena changed significantly and threatened the power of the dominant party. The adoption of PR was therefore an effort by the established party to retain partial power in the face of absolute defeat. Majoritarian systems remained in place when the incumbent party was strong enough to believe that it could gain a plurality of the votes despite electoral changes. An empirical analysis of 20 countries over 104 years (1900-2004) provides support for this argument.
ISSN:1531-426X
1548-2456
DOI:10.1111/j.1548-2456.2009.00055.x