Elections: A Very Short Introduction

Elections occur in all democracies and many non-democratic regimes as well. They determine who will hold public office and who will have the power to govern. They connect citizens to those whom they choose to make decisions on their behalf and who regulate their behavior. This concise volume asks readers to view election systems critically and comparatively, to understand that all democracies do not function in the same way, to think about the reasons their system functions as it does--for good or ill--and to consider alternatives with which they might not previously have been familiar.

L. Sandy Maisel and Jennifer A. Yoder lay out the variety of electoral systems--single-member district plurality systems; proportional systems; and mixed systems. They discuss voting and the electoral systems, analyze the consequences of each system, and close with a discussion of reforms under consideration in a number of countries.

L. Sandy Maisel is Goldfarb Family Distinguished Professor of American Government Emeritus at Colby College. He is the author of American Political Parties and Elections: A Very Short Introduction and editor, with Jeffery M. Berry of The Oxford Handbook of American Political Parties and Interest Groups.

Jennifer A. Yoder is the Robert E. Diamond Professor of Government and Global Studies at Colby College. She is the author of From East Germans to Germans? The New Post-Communist Elite and Crafting Democracy: Regional Politics in Post-Communist Europe.