Linking Citizens and Parties: How Electoral Systems Matter for Political Representation

In political science, the nearest thing to general theorems are the famous Downsian median voter theorem and the “chaos” theorem of social choice. There is also the Duverger argument that proportional electoral systems give many parties, and “first past the post” give two, as in the US. We don’t, as yet, know if these “theorems” really show us how politics works. Lawrence Ezrow’s new book, Linking Citizens and Parties, is a careful empirical and theoretical analysis of how electoral systems do work in translating voter preferences in political reality. ― Norman Schofield, Taussig Distinguished Professor of Political Economy, Washington University in St.Louis

We have long known that proportional representation schemes generate more political parties than do plurality systems. And we have long suspected that the character of representation in them is different as well. What is new in this provocative book is that Ezrow demonstrates that it is the type of parties, not the number, that matters for representation outcomes. Ezrow argues that niche parties, non-centrist groupings that stand for the views of small but coherent segments of the population, are uniquely the product of proportional systems and they are the reason that quirky minorities, from Communists on the left to nationalists on the right, find voice in proportional systems, but not in plurality systems. ― James A. Stimson, Professor of Political Science, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill