Seminar

Legal Systems and Electoral Rules

Timothy Yeung (Toulouse School of Economics)

December 19, 2013, 12:45–14:00

Toulouse

Room MS 003

Brown Bag Seminar

Abstract

This paper explains the adoption of different electoral rules by legal systems. I argue that common law system is intended to protect an individualistic constitution, while civil law system aims at facilitating a more active government. I model the choice of electoral system as a choice of the political elite under the winner-takes-all system (WTA) before universal suffrage is enacted. Under the civil law system, where the court is subordinate to the executive and legislature, the political elite (the rich) is afraid that once universal suffrage is enacted the political left (the poor) would find no opposition from the court and then implement a redistribution program against the rich. Thus the political elite adopts proportional representation (PR) as a buffer against expropriation. Under the common law system, the court is more property-protective and thus block any unconstitutional redistribution. WTA may remain as the optimal choice of the political elite. An extension of the model explains the adoption of the superposition mixed system. I show that it is only attractive to a small subset of common-law countries, while the poorer civil-law countries are more likely to switch than the richer ones.