Abstract

Traditional electoral studies have primarily been concerned with the effect of the rules of election on party systems and with the consequences of the rules of candidate selection on party organization and behavior. More recently, a considerable number of scholars have addressed the potential endogeneity of electoral rules; in particular, how the conditions of party competition may themselves trigger processes of electoral change. In this chapter, I discuss some central topics in the literature on the party system effects of electoral rules and on the determinants of electoral reform, two areas of electoral research that reveal the progress made and the challenges ahead in the more general study of political institutions.