Do mixed electoral systems matter?: a cross-national analysis of their effects in Eastern Europe

The effects of majoritarian and proportional electoral rules on politics have been broadly examined in the literature but cross-national studies have failed to appropriately include mixed systems in institutional analyses. This paper develops a theoretical argument about the consequences of the new type of electoral rules as compared to the two older "pure" systems. Multivariate regression analysis of data from sixteen East European countries is used to test the main hypotheses about the relative effect of mixed systems and the importance of their specific design. The results suggest that the East European mixed systems have contributed to the election of fewer bigger winners which could stimulate the evolution of moderately fragmented party systems. The findings show that there are effective mechanisms available to electoral engineers to shape parliamentary majorities under mixed rules. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.