1990s Electoral Reform - NZ, Italy and Japan

in 1990s NZ moved toward PR while Italy and Japan moved from PR to mixed-member systems.

(at the same time, in 1992/1993 three former Communist Republics moved to PR

see Montopedia blog "Timeline of Electoral Reform 1970s...")

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from Protect Democracy - "How electoral reform happens"

In the 1990s, New Zealand, Italy, and Japan all changed from either winner-take-all or proportional representation to systems combining elements of both. These mixed-member systems change how legislative seats are allocated, with some seats reserved for candidates elected through single-member districts and other seats elected proportionally through party lists. Mixed-member majoritarian systems reserve more seats for single-member districts, while mixed-member proportional systems privilege seats elected proportionally.

Because all three countries have parliamentary systems, changing how seats are allocated in the legislature also impacts government formation and the executive branch. All the reforms were designed to affect the party system in some way, particularly by influencing the number of competitive parties. While these three countries have different histories and cultures, their experiences can help us better understand the politics of electoral system reform.

First, the specifics of the reforms varied.

New Zealand had a unicameral parliament with single-member-district plurality elections (a winner-take-all variant like ours), and its politics were dominated by two major parties (also like ours). After an initial referendum in 1992, in which voters signaled that they wanted to do away with single-member districts, New Zealanders voted the following year to adopt a new mixed-member proportional system. This system retained single-member-district plurality seats but also reserved a number of seats in parliament to be elected from party lists. Italy and Japan, on the other hand, moved from proportional representation to mixed-member majoritarian systems.

In 1993, Italians were asked via popular referendum whether they wished to abandon PR for the upper house of parliament. After a majority voted yes, a new electoral law created a mixed-member majoritarian system that combined features of single-member districts with proportional representation for both chambers.

In 1994, the Japanese government moved to a mixed-member majoritarian system combining single-member districts (for the majority of seats) with regional seats allocated proportionally.

There is no pattern to the problems these countries faced or the reforms they adopted: Italy had too much fragmentation among multiple parties, while Japan’s party competition nonetheless resulted in single-party dominance.

However, one thing all three countries shared prior to their reforms was that the political status quo had lost legitimacy.

Voters were fed up with what they considered to be dysfunctional political establishments. Italy had high-profile corruption scandals among politicians and volatility as successive governments collapsed, while Japanese legislators were seen as over-reliant on pork and patronage. In New Zealand, voters were sick of both parties, which they felt delivered unpopular policies, particularly related to economic liberalization.

The possibility for electoral system reform therefore opens when a current system is, in Matthew Shugart’s terms, too “extreme,” and fails to capture majority preferences.

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in these three countries was that some of the most significant political problems were seen as directly tied to the electoral system.

In New Zealand, more and more voters were opting for third-party candidates, but third parties could not translate their share of the popular vote (which was sometimes as high as 20 percent) into legislative seats. Further, there were two instances of “wrong winner” elections, in which the party receiving fewer votes at the national level nonetheless won a majority of seats in parliament. (This has also happened in the United States: In 2012, Republicans retained a 33-seat majority in the House despite Democrats receiving over 1 million more votes, and in the presidential elections of 2000 and 2016, Republican candidates received fewer votes but won the White House.) These problems were related to a version of a winner-take-all system.

In Japan, candidates ran in multimember districts, but voters could choose only one candidate. This system, the single non-transferable vote, required politicians from the same party to campaign against one another and cultivate personalistic clienteles. Candidates had to distinguish themselves by offering pork and patronage, since they could not distinguish themselves by party labels alone.

And in Italy, a version of proportional representation contributed to too much fragmentation of the party system, leaving voters little way to hold politicians accountable.

In adopting features of both single-member plurality and proportional representation, all three countries avoided a more significant reconfiguration of their electoral rules. Electoral system design is not just a science, but an art; there exists a spectrum of winner-take-all and proportionality. While proportional representation is associated with benefits that include more parties (and therefore more effective representation) and higher rates of participation, technical aspects of how PR is implemented — including the size of the districts and the threshold for parties to win seats — affect the number of parties and therefore the way governments form.

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The scholar Alan Renwick argues that reforms often rely on “elite-mass interaction,” whereby some elites take up the cause of political reform and mobilize a segment of the public in favor.

In Italy, the politician Mario Segni eventually broke with the Christian Democratic Party over the issue of reform. He argued that Italy needed to change from proportional representation and instead establish two parties. Segni led an organization called the Committee for Electoral Reform, which in the early 1990s began a campaign to put electoral reform to voters via referendum. In a 1993 referendum, 83 percent of voters chose to abandon the existing system. Italian legislators then adopted a mixed system with more plurality seats (elected through single-member districts) than proportional ones.

Similarly, New Zealand’s electoral reform was facilitated by Geoffrey Palmer, a Labour Party politician and law professor. He had published a book in 1979 (Unbridled Power?) that critiqued the electoral system, and he secured a commitment from the Labour Party to explore the issue. When the party came to power in 1984, with Palmer as deputy prime minister, the government appointed a Royal Commission to investigate electoral reform. The Royal Commission issued its report, “Towards a Better Democracy,” in 1986; it explicitly advocated a mixed-member proportional system. A grassroots movement called the Electoral Reform Coalition then took up the cause.

In 1992, voters were asked in a national referendum if they wanted to keep winner-take-all or to change it; 85 percent voted for change.

In a second referendum, in 1993, 54 percent of voters elected to move to a mixed-member proportional system.

Japan’s reform was not decided by the public, but by party leaders themselves. Opposition parties and a faction within the dominant Liberal Democratic Party — the conservative party that had long held power in Japan’s single-party democracy — called for single-member districts in order to create a two-party system, to reduce incentives for corruption and excessive campaign spending, and to discourage personalistic campaigns in favor of party-centered ones. In 1994, the parties agreed to the mixed system combining single-member districts with proportional representation.

It is unsurprising that the impetus for electoral reform rarely comes from the political establishment that benefits from existing rules. However, it is also rare that the public, acting alone, will make electoral reform salient.

Therefore, movements for reform require at least some political elites to spearhead calls for change. Those who take up the banner of reform often do so not in their own self-interest, but instead to create a fairer system for the long term.

Elites and dedicated reformers must then work together to advocate for electoral system change, but this requires agreement about the precise problem with the current electoral system. It also requires a coherence to the proposed reform. There is no single “best” electoral system, so reformers need to be specific about what democratic values are violated or undermined by the current system.

Is it that one party is structurally advantaged or disadvantaged in a way that subverts voter preferences?

Do they want more constraints on the number of parties, or do they instead want a system open to more parties?

Should representation be based on where voters live, or instead tied to a national party?

None of these outcomes are necessarily more or less legitimate, so making a case for change requires educating the public about which democratic values are at stake and why.

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from https://protectdemocracy.org/work/how-electoral-reform-happens/

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