Controversies about Electoral Systems and their Effects

Research on electoral systems and their effects is subject to great controversies. This article aims to present and analyze the different positions in the debate, as closely as possible to the original text and its explanatory approach. It deals with the differences in particular scientific interests, research methods, definitions of concepts and assumed causal relationships between the variables involved, discussing finally the particular thesis about the effects of electoral systems and the options among them. The article systematically analyzes the theory of electoral systems from a historical perspective by assessing the controversial contributions of five important social researchers from five countries, making a difference at national and international level: Maurice Duverger, Stein Rokkan, Douglas W. Rae, Giovanni Sartori, and Arend Lijphart. A sixth author is somewhat hidden, but undeniably present; the author of these observations. His own comparative studies on electoral systems - where the analysis of the transcendental contributions of his colleagues is based on - have also obtained a controversial acceptance in some of the referred works.