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
Andrew Reynolds
Andrew Reynolds is the author of The Children of Harvey Milk: How LGBTQ Politicians Changed the World (2018).
The massive corruption revealed by Brazil’s “Operation Car Wash” points to fundamental flaws in multiparty presidential systems, where presidents must find ways to build coalitions in fragmented legislatures.
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.