In their response to Timothy Meisburger’s essay, Andrew Reynolds and John M. Carey argue that the weight of the evidence—from nations actually going through democratic change, as well as from the scholarly literature that tries to understand such change—points to the conclusion that proportional systems, while not solving the all the problems by any means, are a better option than majoritarian systems in most contexts.
About the Authors
John M. Carey
John M. Carey is John Wentworth Professor in the Social Sciences at Dartmouth College.
A wide variety of electoral systems is used around the world, but in recent years the trend has been toward systems based upon greater proportionality.
Until recently, political scientists argued that democracy had poor chances of survival in a multiparty presidential regime. Latin America’s recent experience tells a different story.
