Expanding Representation: Reinventing Congress for the 21st Century

Representation

Electoral systems determine which groups of voters are able to secure representation—and how much. A key driver of this working group’s interest in proportional representation (and, likewise, the OCP recommendation of STV) is its potential for improved representation on a variety of dimensions.

i. Party and Ideological Representation

Single-member districts tend to overrepresent groups already in the majority and underrepresent those in a minority. To illustrate, consider Massachusetts, where Republicans do not constitute a majority in any given district—they are too geographically dispersed—and so Democrats win the single U.S. House seat available in each district. The cumulative effect is an all-blue delegation. Despite constituting one-third of the entire state’s electorate, Republicans are unable to secure any of the delegation’s nine seats. Republicans’ one-third vote share translates into a zero percent seat share, while Democrats’ two-third vote share translates into 100 percent of seats.49

Lopsided House delegations are common. Those from Arkansas, Hawaii, Iowa, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and Utah, for example, are composed of only a single party, despite at least one-third of each of their electorates voting for the opposing party. In Oklahoma, where roughly one-third of the state votes Democratic in congressional elections, all five House seats are held by Republicans.

Typically, these nonproportional outcomes are not the result of gerrymandering. In California, for example, where gerrymandering has been virtually eliminated, Democrats currently hold 77 percent of congressional seats despite earning less than 60 percent of the vote.50 In Massachusetts, district lines are slightly biased toward Republicans, who still cannot secure a single seat.51 Instead, these outcomes are a consequence of single-member districts, which are uniquely sensitive to the geographic distribution of voters: in no Oklahoman district are Democrats concentrated enough to constitute a majority.

Finally, proportional systems, because of their use of multimember districts, create space for more political parties to form and effectively compete. Proportional systems vary widely in their number of parties, principally due to different district magnitudes and assembly sizes.52 But in general, proportional systems generate multiparty systems. Multipartyism can provide for more multidimensional representation, with more voters able to identify and affiliate with a party that represents their interests.53 Instead of sorting the electorate into just one of two camps, multiparty systems permit voters expanded options that can more accurately reflect their preferences.

In the current two-party system, voters who do not believe that either party adequately represents their interests rarely have a viable alternative from which to choose. During this most recent national election, nearly 90 million eligible voters abstained. By contrast, 77 million voted for Donald Trump and 74 million for Kamala Harris. That is, more eligible voters opted out of participation than voted for either the Democratic or Republican candidate. Today, 70 percent of Americans feel that neither major party adequately represents them and wish they had more options to choose from.54 Proportional systems, in comparison, have higher turnout because voters are more likely to believe their vote matters, races are more likely to be competitive, and campaigns are more likely to engage in direct outreach to minority populations that are ignored under a winner-take-all scheme.55

ii. Race and Representation

The nonproportional results of winner-take-all similarly affect racial minorities. In South Carolina, Black voters constitute one-quarter of the electorate yet succeed in electing only a single candidate of their choice among the state’s seven-seat House delegation. A roughly one-quarter vote share translates into a one-seventh seat share. The single seat afforded to this voter group is made possible by South Carolina’s single majority-minority district, or a district with lines deliberately drawn to ensure a statewide minority can elect a candidate of choice in a district. Otherwise, Black voters in South Carolina would likely secure no representation in the seven-member delegation—despite accounting for one of every four voters.56

As political scientists Miriam Hänni and Thomas Saalfeld contend, “electoral systems are probably the most important determinants for the representation of ethno-national minority groups.”57 As a general principle, they observe, “proportional electoral rules . . . facilitate the representation of an ethnic minority, whereas majoritarian [winner-take-all] rules restrict . . . and exclude smaller groups.”58 Despite various important exceptions, cross-national evidence largely supports this observation.59 One global study of electoral systems and their relationship to minority representation finds that winner-take-all systems are “predisposed to exclude minorities from power, even if the minority’s concentration allows them to win some single-member seats.”60

More specifically, district magnitude—as the principal lever regulating the proportionality of outcomes—is a useful predictor; minority groups tend to be better able to secure representation as the number of seats per district increases.61 Additionally, as district magnitude increases, more parties, including major parties, nominate minority candidates “on the basis that balanced tickets will increase their electoral chances.”62 As one study comparing elections across various U.S. cities as well as Australia, Ireland, and the Netherlands found, higher district magnitudes correspond to “larger numbers of parties seating candidates of color.”63 Given that single-member districts represent the lowest possible district magnitude for an electoral system, they present an especially challenging avenue for minorities to secure representation commensurate with their vote share.

In the United States, research from the implementation of more proportional systems in lieu of winner-take-all at the municipal level reflects these trends. In a review of thirty races conducted throughout the 1990s using semiproportional systems in locations where Black voters were the predominant group and winner-take-all had previously been used, researchers found that Black candidates won at least one seat in 97 percent of races they contested, whereas previously not a single Black candidate had won.64 In Illinois, the only state to have employed a proportional alternative (doing so for over a century) for its state legislature, both partisan and racial minorities secured seats more commensurate with their votes than they had prior to its implementation.65

Modeling exercises suggest that proportional representation could generate similar effects on racial representation for U.S. House elections. One 2022 study concludes that, in states with three or more representatives, a proportional system for House elections could enable racial and ethnic minority populations to elect preferred candidates in close proportion to their share of the electorate—and that “race-conscious line-drawing . . . does not make any appreciable difference in the modeled outcomes.”66

iii. Women and Representation

Comparative research finds two major implications of proportional systems for women’s representation: the shift to proportional representation can lift the number of women who turn out to vote, and more women are elected in proportional systems.67 Regarding turnout, one recent study found that earlier shifts from winner-take-all to proportional representation increased the turnout of women in previously uncompetitive districts.68

Regarding the impact on the number and proportion of women who are elected to legislatures, the effects of proportional representation systems is harder to separate from another characteristic in the comparative research: many proportional democracies incorporate some form of gender quota, either at the party nomination stage or the general election stage.69

Indications from the broader scholarship on electoral systems point to how proportional representation of the type recommended in OCP (and used without quotas) could lead to improved representation for women.70 One area for further consideration includes understanding how proportional representation may shift candidates away from “zero sum” approaches to electoral competition. These changes may in turn alter perceptions of what running for office entails, thus reducing the barriers to women who run for office and increasing the “supply” of women candidates.71 The entry of more women into politics may, in turn, indirectly change gendered notions of leadership. Continuing research in this area will be crucial for understanding the potential impacts of shifting to STV at the congressional level in the United States.

The mechanisms through which proportional systems create the various effects discussed here vary widely, and some of those mechanisms may be more or less likely to be replicated in the United States.72 In the case of the election of women, comparative evidence identifies gender quotas as an important factor and, as noted above, changing perceptions of campaigning may also play a role. In the case of racial and ethnic representation, the key difference is that proportional systems allow for the representation of 5 percent, 10 percent, or 20 percent of an electorate spread over a broad geographic area in a way that does not occur in winner-take-all systems. The increased number of legislators from racial and ethnic minorities may also be facilitated in part through the formation of parties based on racial or ethnic identity. That is, the context (really) matters. In the United States, the specific experiences of race and gender and the broader rules governing elections and how discrimination is combatted (or enabled) through state and federal legislation may be different from experiences abroad. As a result, while the comparative data indicate the general direction of how proportional representation can have certain impacts and why, its practice in the United States will still be bounded by U.S. customs, laws, and experiences.

Proportional Representation and Voter Turnout

In proportional systems, more votes tend to contribute to “winning” outcomes. In any multiseat district, for example, a party that earns 40 percent of the vote will secure at least one of those seats, whereas a party garnering that same vote share in a single-member district would win nothing. Under the proportional system, more candidates and, in turn, their voters have won.

This may be one chief explanation of higher voter turnout rates in proportional systems.73 As the likelihood that one’s vote will count toward securing a seat for a preferred candidate or party increases, so, too, does voter engagement. This appears to be especially true among racial and ethnic minorities as well as women.74 In general, more proportional systems tend to see parties compete for more racial and ethnic minority voters.75 Racial and ethnic minorities are in turn more likely to turn out. Given the increased competition to secure more votes, minority voters in proportional systems are also more likely to split their votes across parties.76

Proportional Representation and the Voting Rights Act

The Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965 was a signature legislative achievement of the civil rights era, meant to capture in law the reality of “one man, one vote.”77 The VRA and its subsequent reauthorizations had many tools to achieve this, including banning some of the most egregious practices in the Jim Crow South, such as the poll tax and locally administered voter tests that were used to disenfranchise African American voters. While the VRA was originally designed to apply only to the voting rights of African Americans, through subsequent reauthorizations it advanced protections for Latino and Hispanic voters as well as other underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities. Today, it remains a core legal tool for preventing racial discrimination in voting. Among its other provisions, the VRA protects against “vote dilution,” which occurs when voters from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups are unable to elect candidates of choice due to unfair district maps or winner-take-all at-large elections.

Because proportional representation is designed to improve representation for more voters, including those in the political minority, it tends to boost representation for communities of color compared to winner-take-all. Not only is proportional representation unlikely to violate the Voting Rights Act, but it can also be used to remedy vote dilution caused by winner-take-all electoral systems.

In August 2024, legal scholar Nicholas Stephanopoulos analyzed the interaction between proportional representation and the VRA.78 He concluded that

⬩ proportional representation in practice is very unlikely to violate the Voting Rights Act;

⬩ proportional (and semiproportional) electoral systems can effectively serve as remedies to vote dilution in VRA litigation; and

⬩ the new wave of powerful, state-level voting rights acts may create more opportunities for proportional representation by encouraging their use as remedies in litigation.

Polarization

While scholars do not agree on an ideal electoral system, “a strong scholarly consensus” holds that winner-take-all systems are “clearly not advisable” in societies characterized by deep divisions.79 Numerous studies find that winner-take-all systems tend to exacerbate existing social divisions in polarized societies.80 Various studies also find that more proportional systems tend to perform better at accommodating diverse interests in different kinds of countries—and ultimately, according to some studies, at maintaining democratic governance.81 Political scientists have often recommended proportional systems for diverse societies that may be prone to ethnic conflict.82

One of the key concerns in the United States today is high levels of affective polarization, or the degree to which those with different partisan identities dislike one another rather than just disagree with one another. This is bad for healthy constitutional democracies because it makes it difficult for those with opposing views to find common ground and solve problems together. It reduces the trust that citizens have in one another and in their institutions and can even lead to political violence.

AFFECTIVE POLARIZATION: the degree to which those with different partisan identities dislike one another rather than just disagree with one another.

Recent comparative research has helped to draw more conclusive links between electoral system types and this kind of pernicious partisanship. One study of nineteen Western democracies found that winner-take-all systems “are associated with partisans’ more negative feelings toward opposing parties,” while “proportional systems are associated with positive partisan affect.”83 According to another study (of thirty-six countries), while identity-based polarization “is increasingly challenging democracies across the world,” those with proportional systems are associated with lower levels of it and “tend to do better at coping with [it].”84 In an assessment of eleven countries experiencing what the researchers term “pernicious polarization,” in which the public is divided into two mutually distrustful camps, “the most extreme cases . . . emerge in contexts of majoritarian [winner-take-all] electoral systems.”85

The relationship between electoral system type and polarization may be explained by how different electoral systems structure political conflict—and, in particular, by how they shape a country’s party system.86 Winner-take-all systems tend to generate predominantly two-party systems that more easily create an “us versus them” approach to conflict.87 Two-party systems—of which the United States is arguably the world’s strictest—in practice can divide an electorate into two camps that continually vie for power and where there is a consistent “other side.”88 As one scholar summarizes, “the more binary the party system, the stronger the outparty hatred.”89

Two-party systems may not inherently generate dangerous levels of polarization—the United States has experienced periods of less polarized politics than the present despite having a predominantly two-party system. Instead, “the rigid, binary choice of parties makes it much harder to break out of pernicious polarization once it arises, because there is no other choice for voters who fear the other party.”90 A winner-take-all electoral system can therefore make escalating polarization more difficult to escape. Voters—if they choose to vote at all—are perpetually left with only two viable options: to support one’s own party or to defect to the other team.91 Most choose to remain with their side, further entrenching binary conflict.92

By contrast, in contexts where rules of party formation are open and accessible, proportional representation generates multiparty systems in which coalitions tend to form and change over time. The coalitional implications of multipartyism can “defuse partisan hostility,” as one group of researchers found.93 That is, in a multiparty landscape, those of different partisan affiliations are more likely to work together and to change with whom they work over time; in turn, partisans are more likely to learn to get along. Different coalitions can form to govern together—or simply to work on particular issues together. Moreover, even after coalitions dissipate, “warm affective evaluations linger long after.”94 By generating multiparty systems, proportional systems are associated with less severe degrees of affective polarization.

This relationship may have other important implications for democratic health. For example, proportional systems are associated with lower levels of political violence globally compared with winner-take-all.95 Electoral losers also have greater levels of trust in their democratic institutions in proportional systems than those in winner-take-all. And proportional systems may be more likely to encourage “losers’ consent”—the acceptance of losing an election and conferring legitimacy upon the winners.96 Indeed, proportional representation typically results in far fewer actual “losers” in any election and a greater likelihood of securing some representation, as well as influence in government, even for those in the minority.97

Generally, cross-national evidence appears to support electoral system scholar Arend Lijphart’s conclusion that proportional systems produce a “kinder, gentler” politics.98 Political scientist Jennifer McCoy cautions that “changing the electoral system alone will not guarantee a more harmonious state of political affairs”—but, nonetheless, she concludes, “changing it is likely to help.”99

Governance

Predicting the impact that STV or any other new electoral system might have on governance in the United States is an inherently difficult task for a range of reasons.

Proportional systems internationally tend to be multiparty systems. This variety gives voters more specific options when picking representatives, but it rarely leads to a majority in the legislature. As a result, party leaders usually form a governing coalition after the election, combining issue positions into a workable government. This is unfamiliar in the United States, and extrapolating from cross-national results to the American context requires some imagination.

Moreover, comparing countries can tell us that proportional systems on average perform better than, or as well as, winner-take-all systems on many key governance metrics, but “on average” masks considerable variation. Among the more proportional democracies, for example, are some cautionary tales (Italy and Israel frequently come to mind; few electoral system experts would recommend these countries’ distinct approaches to proportional representation).100 The specific design choices made by policymakers (especially with regard to district magnitude) matter immensely.101

Would electoral system reform in the United Sates encourage more and different parties, which would then open up the space and energy for more creative coalitions that could unlock more innovative approaches to solving some of our current governance gridlock? Certainly, it is possible. On balance, comparative research finds that proportional systems perform better across a wide range of policy dimensions related to good governance.

On balance, more proportional systems provide

better public health outcomes, across a number of measures;102
lower levels of economic inequality;103
higher satisfaction with democracy;104 and
higher levels of subjective well-being.105

Generally, scholars who document these correlations argue that these outcomes arise because proportional systems provide more precise representation across the ideological and issue spectrum, thus better representing the entire population, including traditionally marginalized groups. Proportional systems also appear to make longer-term investments in public goods, because policymaking is more incremental under coalition governments. In addition, multiparty democracies (which, again, proportional systems tend to be) perform slightly better on the World Bank’s measure of effective governance.106

But details matter immensely.107 Additionally, and beyond electoral engineering, certain best practices for governing could increase the likelihood of success should Congress choose to transition to a more proportional electoral system, and these demand further study.108

Proportional Representation and Presidentialism

Proportional representation and presidentialism were once viewed as incompatible, with scholars cautioning that fragmented party systems could lead to legislative gridlock and democratic breakdowns.109 However, recent empirical evidence suggests that proportional systems and presidentialism can work effectively together under the right conditions.110

Presidents in multiparty systems typically build coalitions through cabinet appointments and policy concessions.111 These coalitions may form before elections or emerge after election results are known. In general, pre-electoral coalitions provide more stable governments internationally; that is, coalitions that are less likely to break up prior to elections.112 Coalition-building mechanisms, including pork-barrel politics and portfolio allocation, help facilitate cooperation between the executive and legislature, preventing deadlock.113

The success of proportional representation–presidential combinations is contingent on specific conditions. Moderate multipartyism, characterized by a limited number of parties and a balance between executive and legislative powers, tends to foster stability.114 Excessive party fragmentation, however, can create difficulties in coalition-building and governance.115 Strong institutions, including checks on executive power, are also essential to prevent presidential overreach.116 Moderate multipartyism encourages negotiation and compromise, often producing more centrist and stable governance outcomes.117 Thus, the success of combining proportional representation with presidentialism relies heavily on thoughtful institutional design.118

Summing up the recent literature in a 2023 paper, political scientists Scott Mainwaring and Lee Drutman write, “For well over a decade now, the growing conventional wisdom has been that presidentialism and PR [proportional representation] can work well together. The newer literature has shown that coalitional presidentialism, in which the president’s party shares power with others through cabinet appointments and other mechanisms, is a common and perfectly viable institutional combination.”119

Endnotes

49
Grant Tudor and Beau Tremitiere, “What’s the Matter with Massachusetts?” Democracy Journal (70) (2023).
50
“California 2022–2024 Redistricting Plan,” PlanScore (last accessed May 21, 2025).
51
“Massachusetts 2012–2020 Redistricting Plan,” PlanScore (last accessed May 21, 2025); and Moon Duchin, Taissa Gladkova, Eugene Henninger-Voss, et al., “Locating the Representational Baseline: Republicans in Massachusetts,” Election Law Journal 18 (4) (December 2019): 388–401. There is no lawful way to draw district lines in Massachusetts that would permit Republicans to win a single seat.
52
Shugart and Taagepera, Votes from Seats.
53
Anthony J. McGann and Michael Latner, “The Calculus of Consensus Democracy: Rethinking Patterns of Democracy Without Veto Players,” Comparative Political Studies 46 (7) (2013): 823–850; and Norman Schofield, ed., Collective Decision-Making: Social Choice and Political Economy (Recent Economic Thought, 1996).
54
“As Partisan Hostility Grows, Signs of Frustration with the Two-Party System,” Pew Research Center, August 9, 2022.
55
Deborah Apau, “Proportional Representation: Boosting Voter Turnout and Strengthening Democracy,” Protect Democracy, December 2024.
56
For an expanded analysis of the majority-minority districts as a solution to the inherently nonproportional outcomes of winner-take-all, see Lani Guinier, “No Two Seats: The Elusive Quest for Political Equality,” Virginia Law Review 77 (8) (1991).
57
Miriam Hänni and Thomas Saalfeld, “Ethnic Minorities and Representation,” in Research Handbook on Political Representation (Elgar Online, 2020), 226.
58
Ibid., 223–234.
59
Sonia Alonso and Ruben Ruiz-Rufino, “Political Representation and Ethnic Conflict in New Democracies,” European Journal of Political Research 46 (2) (2007): 237–267. Hänni and Saalfeld highlight the importance of the spatial distribution of minority groups: “Indeed, under some circumstances for geographically concentrated ethnic minority groups, plurality may work best. . . . It is therefore not so much the electoral system as such which affects ethnic minorities’ descriptive representation, but the threshold of representation in interaction with a group’s spatial distribution and its size.” Hänni and Saalfeld, “Ethnic Minorities and Representation,” 226.
60
Andrew Reynolds, Electoral Systems and the Protection and Participation of Minorities (Minority Rights Group, 2006).
61
David Lublin, Minority Rules: Electoral Systems, Decentralization, and Ethnoregional Party Success (Oxford University Press, 2014).
62
Reynolds, Reilly, and Ellis, Electoral System Design.
63
Michael Latner, Jack Santucci, and Matthew Shugart, “Multi-Seat Districts and Larger Assemblies Produce More Diverse Racial Representation,” working paper (SSRN, 2021).
64
Shaun Bowler, Todd Donovan, and David Brockington, Electoral Reform and Minority Representation: Local Experiments with Alternative Elections (Ohio State University Press, 2003).
65
Illinois Assembly on Political Representation and Alternative Electoral Systems, “Executive Summary,” in Final Report and Background Papers Executive Summary (IGPA University of Illinois, 2001). Illinois employed cumulative voting, which some scholars term a “semiproportional system.” For more on semiproportional electoral systems, see Lijphart and Grofman, Choosing an Electoral System.
66
MGGG Redistricting Lab, Modeling the Fair Representation Act (MGGG Redistricting Lab, 2022).
67
Pippa Norris, “The Impact of Electoral Reform on Women’s Representation,” Acta Politica 41 (2006): 197–213; Richard E. Matland and Donley T. Studlar, “The Contagion of Women Candidates in Single-Member District and Proportional Representation Electoral Systems: Canada and Norway,” Journal of Politics 58 (3) (1996): 707–733; Wilma Rule, “Women’s Underrepresentation and Electoral Systems,” PS: Political Science and Politics 27 (4) (1994): 689–692; and Reynolds, Reilly, and Ellis, Electoral System Design, 61, 121–122.
68
Dawn Langan Teele, “Gender and the Influence of Proportional Representation: A Comment on the Peripheral Voting Thesis,” American Political Science Review 117 (3) (2023): 759–766.
69
Kelly Ditmar, “Democrats Lead Republicans in Gender Parity, New Research Shows,” Forbes, March 21, 2023.
70
Steph Scaglia and Courtney Lamendola, Proportional Ranked Choice Voting: Promoting Fair Elections and Removing Barriers for Women in U.S. Politics(RepresentWomen, October 2023).
71
Women are more likely to view local politics as very competitive and less likely to believe that they have characteristics like a “thick skin” needed to run for office. Richard L. Fox and Jennifer L. Lawless, “Gendered Perceptions and Political Candidacies: A Central Barrier to Women’s Equality in Electoral Politics,” American Journal of Political Science 55 (1) (2011): 59–73.
72
APSA Task Force on Electoral Rules and Democratic Governance, “Political Science, Electoral Rules, and Democratic Governance,” PS: Political Science and Politics 46 (4) (October 2013): 867.
73
Andre Blais and R. K. Carty, “Does Proportional Representation Foster Voter Turnout?” European Journal of Political Research 18 (2) (1990): 167–181; Mark N. Franklin, “Electoral Participation,” in Comparing Democracies: Elections and Voting in Global Perspective, ed. Lawrence LeDuc, Richard G. Niemi, and Pippa Norris (Sage, 1996), chap. 8; Tova Wang, “What Other Countries Can Teach Us About Turnout,” Institute for Responsive Government, March 15, 2024; Jeffrey Karp and Susan Banducci, “Political Efficacy and Participation in Twenty-Seven Democracies: How Electoral Systems Shape Political Behaviour,” British Journal of Political Science 38 (2) (2008): 311–334; Arend Lijphart, “Unequal Participation: Democracy’s Unresolved Dilemma,” American Political Science Review 91 (1) (1997): 1–14; and Blais and Carty, “Does Proportional Representation Foster Voter Turnout?”
74
Higher turnout rates, particularly among women and minorities, may also be a function of more competitive elections under proportional representation. See, for example, Teele, “Gender and the Influence of Proportional Representation.”
75
Robert G. Moser, Ethan Scheiner, and Heather Stoll, “Social Diversity, Electoral Systems, and the Party System,” in The Oxford Handbook of Electoral Systems, ed. Herron, Pekkanen, and Shugart, 135–158.
76
J. D. Huber, “Measuring Ethnic Voting: Do Proportional Electoral Laws Politicize Ethnicity?” American Journal of Political Science 56 (4) (2012): 986–1001.
77
David Greenberg, John Lewis: A Life (Simon and Schuster, 2024).
78
Stephanopoulos, Proportional Representation and the Voting Rights Act.
79
Arend Lijphart, “Foreword” to Gallagher and Mitchell, The Politics of Electoral Systems, viii; and Shaun Bowler, David M. Farrell, and Robin T. Pettitt, “Expert Opinion on Electoral Systems: So Which Electoral System Is ‘Best’?” Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties 15 (1) (2005): 3–19.
80
Benjamin Reilly, “Electoral Systems for Divided Societies,” Journal of Democracy 13 (2) (2002): 156–170; Larry Diamond, Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (John Hopkins University Press, 1999), 104; Donald L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (University of California Press, 2001), 632; Douglas J. Amy, “Proportional Representation: Empowering Minorities or Promoting Balkanization?” Good Society 5 (2) (1995): 22–24; Bogdanor and Butler, “Introduction,” in Democracy and Elections: Electoral System and their Political Consequences, 4; and Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration (Yale University Press, 1977).
81
Arend Lijphart, “The Case for Power Sharing,” in Electoral Systems and Democracy (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 42–55; and Arend Lijphart, “Constitutional Choices for New Democracies,” in Electoral Systems and Democracy, 77–81.
82
Paul Mitchell, “The Single Transferable Vote and Ethnic Conflict: The Evidence from Northern Ireland,” Electoral Studies 33 (2014): 246–257; Stephen M. Saideman, David J. Lanoue, and Samuel Stanton, “Democratization, Political Institutions, and Ethnic Conflict: A Pooled Time-Series Analysis, 1985–1998,” Comparative Political Studies 35 (1) (2002); Gerald Schneider and Nina Wiesehomeier, “Rules That Matter: Political Institutions and the Diversity-Conflict Nexus,” Journal of Peace Research 45 (2) (2008); Frank S. Cohen, “Proportional Versus Majoritarian Ethnic Conflict Management in Democracies,” Comparative Political Studies 30 (5) (October 1997); Arend Lijphart, “Constitutional Design for Divided Societies,” Journal of Democracy 15 (2) (2004): 96–109; Pippa Norris, “5- Electoral Systems,” in Driving Democracy: Do Power-Sharing Institutions Work? (Cambridge University Press, 2012), 103–131; and Reilly and Reynolds, Electoral Systems and Conflict.
83
Noam Gidron, James Adams, and Will Horne, American Affective Polarization in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2020), 8.
84
Kamil Bernaerts, Benjamin Blanckaert, and Didier Caluwaerts, “Institutional Design and Polarization: Do Consensus Democracies Fare Better in Fighting Polarization than Majoritarian Democracies?” Democratization 30 (2) (2022): 153–172.
85
Jennifer McCoy and Murat Somer, “Toward a Theory of Pernicious Polarization and How It Harms Democracies: Comparative Evidence and Possible Remedies,” ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 681 (1) (2019): 234–271.
86
See, for example, Will Horne, James Adams, and Noam Gidron, “The Way We Were: How Histories of Co-Governance Alleviate Partisan Hostility,” Comparative Political Studies 56 (3) (2022): 299–325.
87
Jennifer McCoy, “How PR Can Decrease Polarization,” Democracy 70 (Fall 2023).
88
Steven L. Taylor, Matthew Soberg Shugart, Arend Lijphart, and Bernard Grofman, A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective (Yale University Press, 2014).
89
Lee Drutman, “Why the Two-Party System Is Effing Up U.S. Democracy,” FiveThirtyEight, June 16, 2021.
90
McCoy, “How PR Can Decrease Polarization.”
91
Voters also opt for a third option: to disengage from politics generally. Winner-take-all systems correlate to less civically engaged publics than proportional ones. See, for example, Philip Edward Jones, “The Effect of Political Competition on Democratic Accountability,” Political Behavior 35 (3) (2013): 481–515, 517–518; Jeffrey Lyons, William P. Jaeger, and Jennifer Wolak, “The Roots of Citizens’ Knowledge of State Politics,” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 13 (2) (June 2013): 183–202; and Keena Lipsitz, Competitive Elections and the American Voter (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011).
92
Grant Tudor, Advantaging Authoritarianism: How the U.S. Electoral System Favors Antidemocratic Extremism (Protect Democracy, 2024), 34–37.
93
Horne, Adams, and Gidron, “The Way We Were.”
94
Ibid.
95
Rachel Kleinfeld, “The Rise of Political Violence in the United States,” Journal of Democracy 32 (4) (2021): 169. “The fissures in divided societies such as the United States can be either mitigated or enhanced by electoral systems. The U.S. electoral system comprises features that are correlated with greater violence globally. Winner-take-all elections are particularly prone to violence.” See also John Ishiyama and Ibrahim Shliek, “Rethinking the Relationship Between Inclusive Institutions and Political Violence,” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 26 (3) (October 2020): 240–259; and Diamond, Developing Democracy.
96
Christopher J. Anderson, André Blais, Shaun Bowler, Todd Donovan, and Ola Listhaug, Losers’ Consent: Elections and Democratic Legitimacy (Oxford University Press, 2005), 139. “Losers express less negative views about the political system than winners when electoral rules are more proportional, when the political system has a greater number of veto players, and when power is shared within the political system.”
97
Matthew Germer, “Restoring Losers’ Consent: A Necessary Step to Stabilizing Our Democracy,” R Street Policy Study No. 240 (R Street, 2021).
98
Arend Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy (Yale University Press, 2012).
99
McCoy, “How PR Can Decrease Polarization.”
100
In Israel, a district magnitude of 120 (one nationwide district) has given rise to an unwieldy party system, with dozens of parties regularly winning seats and compromising the nation’s ability to form stable and productive coalitions. Italy has used five electoral systems since 1946, shifting back and forth between more proportional and more majoritarian systems. The most recent reform came in 2017, when it moved to a system with 37 percent of seats elected in single-member districts. In 2022, this system gave the rightist coalition a big bonus, allowing it to win 237 of 400 seats in the lower chamber with 43.8 percent of the vote, and 115 of 200 elected seats in the Senate with 44 percent of the vote. Marta Regalia, “Electoral Reform as an Engine of Party System Change in Italy,” in Italy Transformed: Politics, Society and Institutions at the End of the Great Recession (Routledge, 2019).
101
Other factors, such as assembly size, also affect the number of nationally competitive parties. But empirical evidence suggests that average district magnitude is by and large the most important determinant. See Shugart and Taagepera, Votes from Seats, 139–152.
102
Andrew C. Patterson, “Not All Built the Same? A Comparative Study of Electoral Systems and Population Health,” Health & Place 47 (2017): 90–99; Simon Wigley and Arzu Akkoyunlu-Wigley, “Do Electoral Institutions Have an Impact on Population Health?” Public Choice 148 (3) (September 2011): 595–610; and Alessandro Lizzeri and Nicola Persico, “The Provision of Public Goods Under Alternative Electoral Incentives,” American Economic Review 91(1) (2001): 225–239.
103
Torben Iversen and David Soskice, “Electoral Institutions and the Politics of Coalitions: Why Some Democracies Redistribute More Than Others,” American Political Science Review 100 (2) (2006): 165–181; Vincent Mauro, “Party Systems, Inequality, and Redistribution,” Perspectives on Politics 22 (2) (June 2024): 409–426; Izaskun Zuazu, “Electoral Systems and Income Inequality: A Tale of Political Equality,” Empirical Economics 63 ( 2) (2022): 793–819; Tine Paulsen, “Does Proportional Representation Increase Redistribution? Evidence from Early 20th Century Norwegian Municipalities,” Electoral Studies 78 (2022): 102494; Maciej A. Górecki and Michał Pierzgalski, “Electoral Systems, Partisan Politics, and Income Redistribution: A Critical Quasi-Experiment,” Comparative Political Studies 56 (14) (2023): 2165–2200; Vincenzo Verardi, “Electoral Systems and Income Inequality,” Economics Letters 86 (1) (2005): 7–12; and Vicki Birchfield and Markus M. L. Crepaz, “The Impact of Constitutional Structures and Collective and Competitive Veto Points on Income Inequality in Industrialized Democracies,” European Journal of Political Research 34 (2) (1998): 175–200.
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This relationship seems mostly to be mediated by the fact that, in proportional representation systems, losers are more likely to accept outcomes and voters are more likely to feel represented by existing parties. See Shane P. Singh, “Not All Election Winners Are Equal: Satisfaction with Democracy and the Nature of the Vote,” European Journal of Political Research 53 (2) (2014): 308–327; Anderson, Blais, Bowler, Donovan, and Listhaug, Losers’ Consent; and Germer, “Restoring Losers’ Consent.”
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David Altman, Patrick Flavin, and Benjamin Radcliff, “Democratic Institutions and Subjective Well-Being,” Political Studies 65 (3) (2017): 685–704; and John F. Helliwell, Haifang Huang, and Shun Wang, “Happiness and the Quality of Government,” NBER Working Paper 26840 (National Bureau of Economic Research, 2020).
106
Lee Drutman, “Proportional Representation,” in Electoral Reform in the United States: Proposals for Combating Polarization and Extremism, ed. Larry Diamond, Edward B. Foley, and Richard H. Pildes (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2024).
107
John Carey, Simon Hix, Mala Htun, Shaheen Mozaffar, G. Bingham Powell, and Andrew Reynolds, “Between Science and Engineering: Reflections on the APSA Presidential Task Force on Political Science, Electoral Rules, and Democratic Governance: Political Scientists as Electoral System Engineers,” Perspectives on Politics 11 (3) (September 2013): 827–840.
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For a broader discussion of how a multiparty Congress might operate and what institutional arrangements might work best with a multiparty Congress, see Lee Drutman and Rob Oldham, “Governing the House with Multiple Parties,” New America, last updated August 6, 2024.
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Scott Mainwaring, “Presidentialism, Multipartism, and Democracy: The Difficult Combination,” Comparative Political Studies 26 (2) (1993): 198–228; and Juan J. Linz, “The Perils of Presidentialism,” Journal of Democracy 1 (1) (1990): 51–69.
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Paul Chaisty, Nic Cheeseman, and Timothy Power, “Rethinking the ‘Presidentialism Debate’: Conceptualizing Coalitional Politics in Cross-Regional Perspective,” Democratization 21 (1) (2014): 72–94; Carlos Pereira and Marcus André Melo, “The Surprising Success of Multiparty Presidentialism,” Journal of Democracy 23 (3) (2012): 156–170; and José Antonio Cheibub, Adam Przeworski, and Sebastian M. Saiegh, “Government Coalitions and Legislative Success Under Presidentialism and Parliamentarism,” British Journal of Political Science 34 (4) (2004): 579.
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Octavio Amorim Neto, “The Presidential Calculus: Executive Policy Making and Cabinet Formation in the Americas,” Comparative Political Studies 39 (4) (2006): 415–440.
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Johannes Freudenreich, “The Formation of Cabinet Coalitions in Presidential Systems,” Latin American Politics and Society 58 (4) (2016): 80–102.
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Christian Arnold, David Doyle, and Nina Wiesehomeier, “Presidents, Policy Compromise, and Legislative Success,” Journal of Politics 79 (2) (2017): 380–395.
114
Matthew Soberg Shugart and John M. Carey, Presidents and Assemblies: Constitutional Design and Electoral Dynamics (Cambridge University Press, 1992).
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Eduardo Mello and Matias Spektor, “Brazil: The Costs of Multiparty Presidentialism,” Journal of Democracy 29 (2) (2018): 113–127.
116
Pereira and Melo, “The Surprising Success of Multiparty Presidentialism.”
117
Eduardo Alemán and George Tsebelis, Legislative Institutions and Lawmaking in Latin America (Oxford University Press, 2016).
118
Chaisty, Cheeseman, and Power, “Rethinking the ‘Presidentialism Debate.’”
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Scott Mainwaring and Lee Drutman, The Case for Multiparty Presidentialism in the U.S. (New America and Protect Democracy, 2023).