Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2019. xi, 232 pp. (Tables, figures, map.) US$75.00, cloth. ISBN 978-0-472-13150-1.
Sarah Schair-Rosenfield’s new book, Electoral Reform and the Fate of New Democracies: Lessons from the Indonesian Case is a meticulously researched, carefully argued investigation into the effects of electoral reform in the world’s third largest democracy. The book stands apart for its uncommon combination of three feats: immense technical sophistication in mapping the origins and effects of electoral change in a developing country, empirical richness including original cross-national data on election reforms and over 100 interviews with Indonesian elites, and a bold theoretical critique of two of the most influential arguments in American political science.
Among the most influential arguments in American political science is that political parties are vote-maximizers. Take, for example, a prominent article in the American Political Science Review: “Since electoral laws are determined by policymakers, we should expect that the ruling political parties, anticipating the (varying) effects of different electoral regimes, choose the regime that maximizes their chances of staying in power” (Carles Boix, “Setting the Rules of the Game: The Choice of Electoral Systems in Advanced Democracies,” APSR, 93:3 [1999]). This view dovetails with a related argument that it is good for electoral laws to be “sticky.” If political parties are elected, then able to legislate their way to guaranteed future victory, meaningful electoral competition dies. If electoral laws are easily changed, then aspiring tyrants can simply ignore the rules of the game and democracy dies.
Schair-Rosenfield challenges both arguments. In comparative perspective, Indonesia is a democratic overachiever. What is the source of its success? Schair-Rosenfield demonstrates that electoral reforms, even by the dominant political parties, have improved political representation. This is surprising because the reforms proposed by those parties were indeed intended to entrench their power. But the proposed reforms were done by relatively inexperienced elites and the effects were uncertain. Rather than legislating their way to guaranteed future victory, their reforms and institutional flexibility have been assets to political representation. Not that the Indonesian experience is unique; drawing on original cross-national data, Schair-Rosenfield shows that a coin flip has a slightly better chance of predicting the effects of electoral reform better than the expectations of legislators.
Schair-Rosenfield meticulously develops her argument over eight chapters. The two introductory chapters explain why basic seat-maximization assumptions fail in new democracies, drawing on an impressive mapping of cases from around the globe. Although scholars assume that political elites typically act in self-interested ways with respect to obtaining and retaining office, Schair-Rosenfield’s original dataset of reform cases from 1950–2010 suggests that electoral uncertainty may drive electoral reform but does not consistently predict which reforms will be adopted, or a reform’s effects on subsequent elections.
Then, focusing on three rounds of electoral reforms in Indonesia from 1999–2012, Schair-Rosenfield previews the varieties of reform: changing electoral thresholds, registration barriers by district magnitude, and list type including individual thresholds and open or closed lists. For new and inexperienced legislators, predicting the effects of these reforms is often difficult, and even more so given limitations of data in new democracies. Time and sequencing also constrain seat-maximization since the adoption, implementation, and enforcement of intraparty reforms can set legislators on a narrow path; for example, opening up party lists in a proportional-representation election shifts the system from party-centric to candidate-centric. The result is legislators who would be averse to reversion to party control because they are likely to be the ones favoured by candidate-centric elections. In other words, subsequent reformers are unlikely to undo such changes because the beneficiaries of the change now control the process.
Chapters 3 through 6 delve deeply into the Indonesian case. Each chapter uses interviews with elites and legislative commission transcripts to describe proposed reforms. For example, chapter 4 maps the early stage of reforms from 1999–2004 amid high inexperience and uncertainty. Schair-Rosenfield’s mapping of proposed changes is truly remarkable, documenting the major party’s positions on the draft electoral laws in astonishing detail, and laying bare the surprising mix of ideological imperatives, strategic positioning, and uncertainty that drove negotiations about reforms. The debate about district magnitude reform was more complicated as the two largest parties were split in favoring either single-member districts with boundaries drawn along municipalities, or proportional representation. Medium-sized parties were also split, with a mix of ideological and experience-based arguments. The smaller parties seemed to have favoured retaining the proportional representation system simply because the implications of the change were unclear and they worried about being eliminated. The end result came, however, from consultation with the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, which provided the General Elections Commission with maps of population density to create districts based on population within provinces with less populated provinces being overrepresented.
Schair-Rosenfield ends chapters 4 through 6 with a quantitative counterfactual analysis of how election results would have varied following the reform paths that were debated but not implemented. Consistent with her theory, Schair-Rosenfield finds that the proposed reforms would have had minor effects, if any, and would not have increased the incumbents’ chances of staying in power.
The final two chapters export the theory beyond Southeast Asia, identifying nine cases of electoral reform in new democracies in Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe. Like Indonesia, reforms were driven not just by large party vote-maximization, but in the direction of greater inclusion or proportionality. Small and medium-sized parties, banding together, often pushed reform efforts. And while elites may indeed pursue seat maximization, their inexperience can moderate their effectiveness at doing so. Also like Indonesia, over time legislators became constrained and reform efforts tapered off. The final chapter suggests that electoral reforms merit greater consideration as a tool for advancing democratic consolidation, a welcome note of optimism as a time of democratic rollback.
This is an important book for scholars of electoral systems, democracy, Southeast Asia, and comparative politics. The empirical material stands out for documenting in detail the debates about election reform and the implications for consolidation of the world’s third largest democracy. The book deserves broad and deep influence on those grounds alone. Yet beyond that empirical richness, Schair-Rosenfield’s theoretical contributions should challenge scholars to rethink the origins and implications of electoral reform, an enduring concern to political scientists everywhere.
Jeremy Menchik
Boston University, Boston