Rules, Choice and Strategy: The Political Economy of Italian Electoral Reform

The design of an electoral system is fundamental to any democracy. It is through electoral systems that the commitment of a society to a political system is achieved. The peculiarities of an electoral system assume significant importance in periods in which democratic polities seem caught between a crisis of confidence in their representative systems and mass apathy over the product of government - as has recently occurred in Italy.

Electoral rules constrain available choice alternatives and...