My IPF project will build on my previous research and consultancy on electoral system design, as well as the skills, contacts and knowledge that I acquired during that experience. The academic part of that previous collective project produced the most detailed and comprehensive account of the first ten years of post-communist electoral system choices in Eastern and Central Europe to date, focusing on lower or only chambers of parliament (see Birch, Millard, Popescu & Williams 2002). It discussed the differences as well as the links between the first post-communist stage of electoral system design and the subsequent ones, between electoral system choice and subsequent political development. It highlighted much more than other researchers (Benoit 2002, Benoit and Schieman 2001, Bielasiak 2002, Stanger 2002) the role of contextual factors in interest-based choices under time constraints and limited information, and demonstrated how other interests than seat maximization by political parties, and other factors than the mere distribution of voting power at the time of the initial decisions – like the timing of institutional choices with relative to party and party system formation, the imperfect information basis - impacted the outcomes.

My new project will have three interlinked components: information-dissemination (A), research and analysis (B), and advocacy (C).

The first component will, as a starting point, include the overdue updating of the database designed and maintained at the University of Essex (http://www.essex.ac.uk/elections ), and the creation of at least one mirror site in Eastern Europe. This database includes an original collection of election laws and other legislation relevant to elections and campaigns currently available regarding Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine. It can be searched by country, election year and topic areas, but I plan further improvements. Laws from other post-communist countries are also included in the data base, but currently not included in the search. Election results are provided for parliamentary and presidential elections dating back to 1990 in these 12 countries, supplemented by constituency level results of parliamentary elections, as well as candidate data. It is the most comprehensive source of information on East European elections, with widespread recognition and use among academics and practitioners. The database will be updated with the latest legislation and election results, and I plan to include election results and legislation for four more countries: Albania, Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia, with improved information on internet links to relevant institutions.

The information-dissemination component will also include the dissemination of the findings of the new research undertaken as an IPF fellow, mostly in collaboration with local NGOs through organization of seminars and workshops as well as publications in local languages. The field research will involve interviews with legislators, parliamentary aides, journalists and NGO representatives, as well as the analysis of documents obtained with their help. The contacts established under the pretext of the research will also be used to organise presentations and publications disseminating the results.

The research component will focus on recently proposed innovations in electoral system design in Eastern and Central Europe that are meant to offer a personalized tie between representatives and the represented. Such reforms were recently advocated – with considerable impact on both the political agenda and legislation – in Albania, Moldova, Poland, and Romania. I will analyse their relation to (a) the usual goals of electoral system such as providing for accountability, representation and governmental stability; (b) the political interests of the advocates and other significant actors; and (c) likely impact regarding declared goals and partisan interests. The leading hypothesis will be that minor details of the electoral system and their interaction with a specific constellation of other representative institutions and social conditions may make as much difference as the seemingly key choice of the electoral formula (Grofman and Reynolds 1997, Alexander 2001, Birch, Millard, Popescu and Williams 2002).

Because of my language skills and contacts the study will focus mainly on reform proposals in Romania and Moldova, also extending to upper house and presidential election reforms when that was also part of a proposed reform package. An analysis of electoral system design through the prism of general goals, on the one hand, and of political interests on the other, coupled with a scrutiny of the use of comparativist knowledge regarding the technical alternatives is most likely to lead to the convincing policy recommendations that can make a difference.

Changes from a closed list PR to a more personalized form can reverse the usual pattern in the post-communist world, where none of the rather numerous changes in electoral system implied a change from list to single-member districts so far. If calls for personalization in countries with very high district magnitude like South Africa and tremendous regional differences might be linked exclusively to a need for stronger geographical representation and clearer accountability mechanisms, in most other countries, and especially in Romania and Moldova, calls for personalization hide an interest in or at least the potential for a change towards a majoritarian system. This is especially so when the technical alternatives not specified, and remain open to change in poorly scrutinized stages of negotiations in which the party controlling public resources and the bureaucracy is likely to have the upper hand due partly to insufficient technical expertise on the opposition side.

Hence, my first goal is a systematic review of current proposals regarding changes of party-list based proportional representation towards a more personalized system in Romania and Moldova, in comparison with similar proposals in other post-communist countries (especially Poland and Albania) and elsewhere (Italy, South Africa, Ecuador, Indonesia). At this stage I will analyse and compare the objectives, the arguments, the interests and the eventual choices of electoral designers.

The second component of research and analysis is to compare the technical alternatives considered and those absent from the policy debate, especially regarding their likely effects in respect to the apparent goals – manifest or latent – of the parties to the debate. I will investigate to what extent, when, and in what context a systematic review of technical alternatives took place, who provided the information, and who was most receptive to it. This second research component will shed light on whether a better information basis can make a difference, and exactly at which juncture in the policy-making process.

The analysis of the reform proposals the ensuing debates will be based on transcripts of parliamentary and committee debates, legislative proposals, media reports and interviews with the important actors. Of outmost importance is the background information regarding (a) the legislative and political context in which reforms on electoral debates take place and (b) the empirical and theoretical literature on electoral systems (design and effects). The first will be obtained from the database of post-communist elections (http://www.essex.ac.uk/elections), while the latter will be based on library and internet-based research.

Given the centrality of electoral institutions for the functioning of democracy the importance of understanding the policy process leading to innovations in this field can hardly be emphasized enough. The dissemination of the findings of my analysis within Eastern European countries in English as well as in local languages, through local NGOs, would increase the information easily available for anyone interested in electoral system reform, thus first limiting the time wasted in sterile uninformed debates.  

The policy recommendations component of my project will take into account the stated goals as well as the interests and ideas of the relevant actors, as well as try to account for the amount of knowledge. The relevance of considering all these factors is hard to deny since the first two are the starting point of policy innovation, the factors determining the domain and direction of change, while the last is the information base at the core of the choice of policy alternatives. In a given balance of political forces, the information base is the most crucial factor influencing the quality of policy proposals. Only a solid knowledge of the existing technical alternatives leads to proposals based on those options most likely to best support the objectives, ideally leading to more efficient representation and accountability.

Since the balance between main features and details of the electoral institutions is a central point to my analysis, the recommendations will be topical and technically specific. They will stress the need to amend particular points at the formal or informal institutional level and at the organizational level since often these neglected secondary elements build into the system wrong incentives preventing the main features to have the expected effect.

The planned process analysis of electoral reforms will help to make recommendations about the appropriate use of the available knowledge base regarding electoral systems exactly to those within party, non-governmental and state organisations, who are in charge of policy development. By detecting the phases where this use is most likely and/or most needed, it will be possible to develop recommendations relevant for organizations like IDEA, IFES, OSCE, etc. that are already involved in providing (or with a potential capacity to supply) expertise to political parties and government officials.

References
Alexander, Gerard, ‘Institutions, Path Dependence and Democratic Consolidation’, Journal of Theoretical Politics, vol. 13, no. 3 (2001), pp. 249-70.
Benoit, Kenneth and Schiemann, John, ‘Institutional Choice in New Democracies. Bargaining over Hungary’s 1989 Electoral Law’, Journal of Theoretical Politics, vol. 13, no. 2 (2001), pp.153-82.
Benoit, Kenneth 'The Evolution of Electoral Systems in Eastern Europe' Paper presented at the 2002 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston, MA, August 28 - September 1, 2002.
Bielasiak, Jack 'The institutionalization of Electoral and Party systems in Postcommunist States'. Comparative Politics vol. 34, no. 2 ( 2002), pp. 189-210.
Birch, Sarah, Frances Millard, Marina Popescu and Kieran Williams Embodying Democracy: the Design of Electoral Systems in Post-Communist Europe (Macmillan - Palgrave, 2002).
Moser, Robert G., Unexpected Outcomes: Electoral Systems, Political Parties, and Representation in Russia (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001).
Reynolds, Andrew and Reilly, Ben, eds., The International IDEA Handbook of Electoral System Design (Stockholm: International IDEA,1997).
Reynolds, Andrew, ‘Designing Electoral Systems’ in Richard Rose (ed), International Encyclopedia of Elections. (Washington DC and London: CQ Press and Macmillan, 2000), pp. 58-67.
Stanger, Allison 'Institutional Choice and Development in Post-Communist Europe's Democratization' Paper presented at the 2002 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston, MA, August 28 - September 1, 2002.