| Why do powerful political actors introduce institutions that limit their power? Specifically, why ruling parties that expect to win elections under majoritarian rules, forgo seat-maximization and adopt proportional representation or relatively proportional mixed systems? This dissertation argues that to understand electoral system reform in democratizing countries, electoral system choice must be placed in the broader context of democratization. Consequently, the concept of threat to incumbents must be disaggregated into two components, electoral threat and extra-institutional threat to the regime. Incumbents eschew seat-maximization when they perceive low electoral threat and high extra-institutional threat to the regime and to their position within it. Political parties that expect clear electoral victories but are threatened by their opponents' extra-institutional actions can afford to shed some seats without losing upcoming elections in exchange for immediate and/or long-term advantages in the arena of regime transition. To probe the logic of tactical seat loss and the limits to seat-maximization, the dissertation examines nineteen episodes of electoral system reform from six countries in 19th and 20th-century Western Europe and post-communist Eastern Europe. The specific question about the change of actors' electoral system preferences is embedded in a broader question about how, why and when electoral systems change. In cases of endogenous change, two conditions must be met. The old electoral system must be discredited and political actors must identify and adopt a new institutional alternative. When instead the opening for electoral system change arises from a sudden exogenous shock triggering regime collapse, the electoral system associated with the old institutional status quo is discredited and simultaneously rejected; actors' preferences, capacities and bargaining still influence the choice of institutions. Tactical seat loss can motivate dominant parties (that perceive electoral threat as low and extra-institutional threat as high) regardless of whether the opening for institutional change stems from an abrupt exogenous shock or the gradual interaction of exogenous and endogenous factors. The novel argument and evidence in the dissertation examines the interaction between structure and agency and sheds fresh light on electoral reform, democratic transitions and institutional change. |
