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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Electoral Rules and Proportionality in Spain: Estimating the Impact of some Swedish Rules Through the 2011 Electoral Data

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In democratic countries policy making is always framed by many procedures and rules. Some of these rules are particularly critical for allowing more or less proportionality in legislative chambers, though the behavior of political actors also matter. The rules used for technically converting votes into political representatives often exercise such an important role in western countries. In this chapter we provide an estimation of the impact upon proportionality between seats and votes that might have resulted in the 2011 Spanish general elections if some Swedish electoral rules had been applied, ceteris paribus. As we are aware that electoral reforms favouring proportionality may hinder the emergence of stable majorities our findings should therefore be considered only as a contribution for a deeper examination and informed discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of the current Spanish electoral system.