Establishing the Rules of the Game

by Massicotte, Louis; Blais, Andre; Yoshinaka, Antoine

• ISBN13: 9780802085641
• ISBN10: 0802085644
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-12-01
• Publisher: Univ of Toronto Pr

Summary

There are an astonishing variety of election laws across contemporary democratic societies. In Establishing the Rules of the Game, Louis Massicotte, Andr5 Blais, and Antoine Yoshinaka provide the first thorough examination of these laws. The study incorporates original data collected from more than sixty democracies around the world, and touches on oft-ignored, yet extremely important, aspects of election laws. The countries covered by the study include Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, Japan, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Romania, and the United Kingdom. The authors focus on six dimensions of election laws: the right to vote, the right to be a candidate, the electoral register, the agency in charge of the election, the procedure for casting votes, and the procedure to sort out the winners and losers.Massicotte, Blais, and Yoshinaka uncover underlying patterns, explaining why certain types of country tend to adopt a given sets of rules. In general, former colonies adopt the same laws as their former mother country. There is also a tendency for established democracies to be more inclusive than non-established ones. The authors point out sociological patterns and review normative and practical arguments for and against each set of rules, providing invaluable information for students of elections and democratic theory as well as election practicioners.

Author Biography

Louis Massicotte is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at l'UniversitT de MontrTal. AndrT Blais is a professor in the Department of Political Science at l'UniversitT de MontrTal. Antoine Yoshinaka is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Rochester.

Table of Contents

List of Tables	vii
Preface	ix
Introduction: Establishing the Rules	3	(12)
Who Has the Right to Vote?	15	(25)
Who Has the Right to Be a Candidate?	40	(26)
Registering Voters	66	(17)
Who Conducts the Election?	83	(19)
How People Vote	102	(40)
Sorting Out Winners and Losers	142	(16)
Conclusion: Patterns and Future Directions	158	(5)
Appendix: Countries, Sources, and Variables Included in the Study	163	(4)
Notes	167	(10)
References	177	(6)
Index	183