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).
Direct democracy has come in for praise as being closer to the people’s will than representative democracy. A closer look at the sources of public support, however, reveals some surprises.
Since the 1970s, the U.S. presidential-nomination system has become more democratic, making primary elections crucial, reducing the influence of political parties, and making it easier for outsiders to win.
Spain’s system of Autonomous Communities had functioned fairly smoothly for decades following the country’s democratic transition, but events in Catalonia are putting it under unprecedented strain.
