The Electoral Systems and Their Ability to Meet Theoretical Expectations: A Conceptual Framework

The electoral systems research is a robust branch of political science that has yet analyzed a great variety of variables in huge amount of cases and that is the reason why political science is relatively rich in rather particular, and sometimes ambivalent, evidence confirming or refusing our theoretical expectations about the outcomes of various arrangements of electoral mechanisms. Especially the results not meeting theoretical expectations lead scholars to skepticism, whether the reforms of electoral mechanisms are bringing any notable change. However, it is very rarely looked back and evaluated, whether the way we watch electoral system performance and formulate our expectations could be improved. The proposed paper will present the conceptual framework for evaluating the ability of electoral systems to meet the theoretical expectations. The effects on outcomes will be elaborated on various levels and the particularities that should be taken into consideration when estimating the impact will be discussed. Moreover, the conceptual framework will be applied on the selected cases of European countries to demonstrate the capability of the framework to systematize the way we think about electoral reforms. The major contribution of the paper lies in setting of the cornerstone for evaluation of electoral system performance. The proposed conceptual framework is systematically merging relevant variables from various levels of social reality that need to be taken into account and, thus, helps us to calibrate the future estimations from application of particular electoral mechanisms in empirical reality.