Electoral System Design and Political Culture
Key Elements of an Electoral System
The Size of the Assembly
The number of seats in the assembly. Its impact is influenced by the magnitude of the districts where those seats are distributed among parties.
Constituency Size
The number of seats to be allocated within a constituency. The constituency (or precinct) is the basic unit for transforming votes into seats. It is the element of the electoral system that has the greatest impact on proportionality, conditioning it more significantly than other elements combined. The greater the magnitude or size (defined as the number of seats to be allocated within it), the lower the disproportionality. Determining the type of district (single-member or multi-member) and how the number of seats is attributed to each (based on criteria linked to population, territorial equity, or both) is another important decision when establishing the electoral system.
Electoral Formula
This is the mathematical mechanism used to transform votes into seats. Formulas can be majority (simple majority or absolute majority, often involving two rounds), which allocate seats to candidates who obtain the most votes (or half plus one vote), or proportional (quotient or divisor), which distribute seats in proportion to the votes each candidate receives in the district. The effects of this element depend on the size of the district, as a proportional formula can lead to considerable disproportional biases if applied in districts of low magnitude.
Structure of Voting
On one hand, this defines the number of political choices a voter can make: single voting or multiple voting (limited or unlimited). On the other hand, the nomination form refers to the type of candidate (single candidate or list; complete, closed, and locked; or open).
Legal Clause or Exclusion Barrier
This is a percentage of votes required for political parties to be considered in seat distribution operations, either based on the total percentage of votes in a district or across the entire territory. Its applicability and effectiveness depend on the system’s proportionality, meaning the percentage of votes needed in each district to gain a seat, which in turn depends on the combination of various electoral system elements. This combination determines the system’s disproportionality when transforming votes into seats.
Political Culture and Political Behavior
Over 40 years ago, Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, in their seminal study The Civic Culture, highlighted the importance of citizens’ political attitudes, opinions, and behavior. They emphasized the need to study the cognitive, emotional, and evaluative components of these attitudes and opinions concerning the entire political system, its components, and citizens’ roles within the political process. The relevance of these authors lies in their emphasis that one cannot analyze a given political system without studying its patterns of political culture. This raises questions about whether the model of political culture they identified as characteristic of stable democracies is indeed the desirable model, and if that perspective unduly influences other elements of the political-institutional system.
Several authors have participated in this debate, viewing political culture as an integral element of the political system. This set of attitudes and opinions is acquired by citizens through their personal experiences or various socialization processes to which they are exposed throughout their lives. It is therefore possible that within the prevailing political culture, various political subcultures exist. These subcultures possess distinct attitudes and opinions, and are characteristic of certain social groups distinguished by relevant factors such as profession, geographic location, or age.