As Table One illustrate, just over half (114, or 54 percent of the total) of the independent states and semi-autonomous territories of the world which have direct parliamentary elections use plurality-majority systems. Another 75 (35 percent) use PR-type systems, and the remaining 22 (ten percent) use semi-PR systems, all but two of which are Parallel systems.
- Table One: The World of Electoral Systems (May 1997) -
| |
# of Countries/ Territories |
% |
Total Population (in millions) |
% |
Established Democracies |
% |
Total Population (in millions) |
% |
'Free' Countries/ Territories |
% |
'Not Free' Countries/ Territories |
% |
| FPTP |
70 |
33 |
1,850 |
45 |
11 |
30 |
1,273 |
71 |
35 |
36 |
17 |
37 |
| Block Vote |
10 |
5 |
139 |
3 |
1 |
3 |
1 |
0.1 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
6 |
| AV |
2 |
1 |
18 |
0.4 |
1 |
3 |
18 |
1 |
2 |
2 |
0 |
- |
| TRS |
31 |
15 |
427 |
10 |
1 |
3 |
58 |
3 |
7 |
7 |
11 |
24 |
| Parallel |
20 |
9 |
443 |
11 |
1 |
3 |
126 |
7 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
11 |
| SNTV |
2 |
1 |
5 |
0.1 |
0 |
- |
- |
- |
1 |
1 |
0 |
- |
| List PR |
67 |
32 |
968 |
23 |
15 |
42 |
158 |
9 |
39 |
40 |
10 |
22 |
| MMP |
7 |
3 |
265 |
6 |
4 |
11 |
162 |
9 |
4 |
4 |
0 |
- |
| STV |
2 |
1 |
4 |
0.1 |
2 |
6 |
4 |
0.2 |
2 |
2 |
0 |
- |
| |
211 |
|
4,119 |
|
36 |
|
1,800 |
|
98 |
|
46 |
|
NB: 36 established democracies as categorised by Arend Lijphart in Democracies, 2nd ed. (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1998). Lijphart includes all countries considered democratic now, and for the last 20 years, which have a population of at least a quarter of a million people. Free and Not Free classifications from Freedom in the World 1995-1996 (New York, Freedom House, 1997).
When classified by population size, the dominance of plurality-majority systems becomes even more pronounced, with parliaments elected by First Past The Post (FPTP), Block Vote (BV), Alternative Vote (AV) or Two-Round System (TRS) methods representing collectively 2.44 billion people (59 percent of the total). Proportional representation electoral systems are used in countries totaling 1.2 billion inhabitants, and semi-PR systems are used to represent just under half a billion people. In our survey the seven countries which do not have directly-elected national parliaments constitute 1.2 billion people, but China makes up 99 percent of that figure.
Individually, First Past the Post systems are the most popular, with 68 out of 211 nation-states and related territories giving them 32 percent of the total, followed by the 66 cases of List PR systems (31 percent), see First Past the Post (FPTP) and List PR. But when it comes to people, FPTP systems are used in countries which contain almost twice as many people as those in List PR countries. The 1.8 billion figure in Table One is inflated by India (913 million) and the United States (263 million), but FPTP is also used by many tiny Caribbean and Oceanian islands as well. The largest country that uses List PR is Indonesia with 191 million people, but it is predominantly a system used by middle-sized Western European, Latin American and African countries. Next in order are Two-Round Systems (15 percent) and Parallel systems (9 percent), see Two-Round System and Parallel. While TRS systems are used in more countries, Parallel systems are used by more people. This is largely because Russia (148 million inhabitants) and Japan (125 million) use classical Parallel systems.
The Block Vote is used in 13 countries and territories, 6 percent of the countries included, but its 143 million people only represent three percent of the total, see Block Vote. Conversely, Mixed Member Proportional systems are used in only seven countries, but the collective 265 million people of Germany, Venezuela, New Zealand, Mexico, Italy, Bolivia, and Hungary represent six percent of the total, see Mixed Member Proportional. The Single Transferable Vote, see Single Transferable Vote, Alternative Vote, see Alternative Vote, and Single Non-Transferable Vote see Single Non-Transferable Vote systems are the rarest electoral systems in use today, with only two examples of each. The use of AV in Australia and Nauru mean that 18 million people live under AV systems, while Jordan and Vanuatu's SNTV systems represent only five million people, and Ireland and Malta's STV systems four million.
If we look at electoral systems in 'established democracies' (i.e., those states with a population of more than a quarter of a million which have held continuing free elections for over 20 years), then we find that proportional representation systems are more numerous with 21 (59 percent) out of the 36 states, but the size of India and the United States still means that 71 percent of people living in these 36 countries live under FPTP systems. MMP systems are over-represented among established democracies at 11 percent, and in fact are used by four million more people than the more widespread List PR systems. Since Japan's switch to a Parallel system there are no examples of SNTV in established democracies, while conversely both the world's examples of STV, Ireland and Malta, fall into this category.
If we take a slightly broader view, to take in the tide of democratization which has occurred through the 1980s and 1990s, we find that 98 independent states and related territories are ranked as 'free', on the basis of political rights and civil liberties, in the 1995-96 Freedom House Freedom in the World. Among these countries the distribution of electoral systems bears a close relationship to the overall pattern-proportionately there are slightly more FPTP and List PR systems and around half the number of TRS and Parallel systems, but it is difficult to say that any single electoral system is really any more popular in the 'free' world than the world overall. However, among the 46 countries ranked as 'not free', there are a disproportionate number of Two-Round and Block Vote Systems, and considerably fewer PR systems. In all, plurality-majority systems make up 70 percent of the electoral systems of the 'not free' world.
Across continents, the distribution of electoral systems is more mixed. As Table Two and the attached map show, FPTP systems make up approximately 30-45 percent of the total in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the Americas (overwhelmingly North America and the Caribbean). The system is less common in Europe and the former Soviet Union, but relatively dominant in the island states and territories of Oceania. List PR systems are similarly spread throughout Africa, the Americas (Central and South America), and post-communist Eastern Europe. However, List PR is more dominant in Western Europe (61 percent), and together the three PR systems (List PR, MMP, and STV) constitute three-quarters of all electoral systems in Western Europe. By contrast, almost a third of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Eastern Europe use French-type Two-Round Systems, while over a third of all countries which use the Block Vote are found in Asia.
- Table Two: Regional Distribution of Systems -
| |
Africa |
Americas |
Asia |
CIS & Post-Communist |
Western Europe |
Middle East |
Oceania |
Total |
| FPTP |
19 (35%) |
19 (40%) |
10 (45%) |
1 (4%) |
4 (14%) |
3 (30%) |
14 (64%) |
70 |
| BV |
1 (2%) |
2 (4%) |
5 (23%) |
0 |
0 |
2 (20%) |
0 |
10 |
| AV |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
2 (9%) |
2 |
| TRS |
10 (18%) |
6 (12%) |
1 (5%) |
8 (30%) |
2 (7%) |
2 (20%) |
2 (9%) |
31 |
| SNTV |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 (10%) |
1 (4%) |
2 |
| Parallel |
7 (13%) |
2 (4%) |
3 (15%) |
7 (26%) |
1 (3%) |
0 |
0 |
20 |
| List PR |
17 (31%) |
16 (33%) |
3 (15%) |
10 (37%) |
17 (61%) |
2 (20%) |
2 (9%) |
67 |
| MMP |
0 |
3 (6%) |
0 |
1 (4%) |
2 (7%) |
0 |
1 (4%) |
7 |
| STV |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
2 (7%) |
0 |
0 |
2 |
| Total |
54 |
48 |
22 |
27 |
28 |
10 |
22 |
211 |
