The Pattern of Electoral Rules in the United States: a Deviant Case among the Industralized Democracies

• Published in: Government and Opposition
• Main Author: Lijphart, Arend
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1985
• Subjects: Public Administration; Sociology and Political Science; Canada; New Zealand; Norway; Iceland
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-7053.1985.tb01065.x; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0017257X00010484

THE UNITED STATES IS THE WORLD'S SECOND LARGEST DEMOcracy (after India) and the largest of the older well-established democracies, with a very long and uninterrupted history of free elections. For this reason, it can be argued that the American democratic example has been and, should be an important model for other countries to follow. This article will focus on one important aspect of the American democratic system - the pattern of electoral rules - and it will emphasize the striking differences between the American electoral process and that of most other democracies. This contrast obviously affects the applicability of the American model to other countries that may be in the process of revising their electoral rules: because the United States is a deviant case in almost all respects, it presents clear alternatives to the more common attern but also dternatives that are so radical that they may ge difficult to transplant. The democracies with which the American pattern of electoral systems will be compared and contrasted are the 20 countries which, Me the United States, have been democratic without interruption for a relatively long time, that is, since approximately the end of the Second world War: the four large West European countries (Great Britain, France, West Germany, and Italy), the five Nordic countries (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Iceland), the Benelux countries (the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg), Ireland, Switzerland, Austria, and five countries outside Europe (Canada, Israel, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand).