Social Choice Theory and Electoral Design 1989 and 1990. The Application of the Theoretical Concept in Political Practice
Abstract
The main hypothesis of this paper is that relevant actors of institutional and electoral system change seek to realize alternatives satisfying their preffered outcomes. The electoral system choice in the process of transition to democracy in Central Europe can be analyzed as bargaining of explicit nature between individual political actors (political parties).
The social choice theory seems to be the best framework for analysis of this process, mainly the socalled contextualized racionality. However, uncertainty and the lack of shared information offer special conditions modifying the original outcome-maximalizing model (typical for the politics of electoral system choice) according to the Rawlsian concept of veil of ignorance to the socalled maximin rule based on the risk-minimalizing argument.
This approach offers the possibility to explain, why Central European countries opted for proportional representation electoral systems or for mixed electoral systems with proportional outcomes.