The Tailor of Marrakech: Western Electoral Systems Advice to Emerging Democracies

Abstract

The article explores the challenges of providing Western electoral system advice to emerging democracies, drawing on experiences of Estonia and Poland in the format of a historical recollection of attempted electoral reforms and electoral engineering. It proposes a tentative five-phase sequence of attitudes toward foreign advice: initial acceptance of pre-existing rules, recognition of the need for reforms, attempts to reinvent electoral systems, eager adoption of foreign advice, and eventual reliance on local expertise with selective use of external input. Using Estonia as a case study, Taagepera details his role in introducing electoral system options during the transition from Soviet rule, highlighting the shift from external influence to local politicking. Kaminski contrasts this with Poland, where the absence of expert electoral advice during the 1989 Round Table negotiations inadvertently facilitated Solidarity’s victory, underscoring the impact of electoral ignorance. The article assesses the validity of Western advice, focusing on proportionality, government stability, and party constellations, and advocates for simple, stable electoral rules in emerging democracies. They conclude that while a science of electoral systems is developing, its applicability to unstable democracies remains limited, and feedback from these contexts offers modest insights into established electoral theories, such as Duverger’s law.