caa a22 4500 388078839 CHVBK 20180307125206.0 cr unu---uuuuu 161130e199909 xx s 000 0 eng 10.2307/2585577 doi S0003055400218212 pii (NATIONALLICENCE)cambridge-10.2307/2585577 Boix Carles University of Chicago Setting the Rules of the Game: The Choice of Electoral Systems in Advanced Democracies [Elektronische Daten] [Carles Boix] Looking at the history of democracies in the developed world, I show that electoral systems derive from the decisions the ruling parties make to maximize their representation according to the following conditions. As long as the electoral arena does not change and the current electoral regime benefits the ruling parties, the electoral system is not altered. As the electoral arena changes (due to the entry of new voters or a change in voters' preferences), the ruling parties modify the electoral system, depending on the emergence of new parties and the coordinating capacities of the old parties. When the new parties are strong, the old parties shift from plurality/majority to proportional representation if no old party enjoys a dominant position, but they do not do this if there is a dominant old party. When new entrants are weak, a system of nonproportional representation is maintained, regardless of the structure of the old party system. Copyright © American Political Science Association 1999 American Political Science Review Cambridge University Press 93/3(1999-09), 609-624 0003-0554 93:3<609 1999 93 PSR https://doi.org/10.2307/2585577 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.2307/2585577 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Boix Carles University of Chicago NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- American Political Science Review Cambridge University Press 93/3(1999-09), 609-624 0003-0554 93:3<609 1999 93 PSR CC0 http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0 nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-cambridge