Rule of the Fewer: Electoral Inversions and their Consequences
type: CreativeWork
description: The advent of democracy is supposed to represent a transition from the rule of the few to the rule of the many. In this folkloric account, majority rule is both the embodiment of democracy and its source of legitimacy. Unsurprisingly, however, democratic realities are far more complex—and sometimes more disappointing—than democratic ideals. Although democracy is often equated with the principle of majority rule, government by popular minorities is more common in modern liberal democracies than is government by popular majorities. But if the ideal of majority rule often goes unfulfilled, a redeeming quality of most elections in most democracies is that they nevertheless manage to satisfy the principle of “plurality rule.” That is, even when popular minorities govern, as is so often the case, the minority that governs is usually the largest minority. But not always. Sometimes governments are elected without even the support of a popular plurality. This phenomenon is called an electoral inversion; it is the focus of my dissertation. More precisely, electoral inversions occur when the party (or coalition of parties) that wins the most votes nevertheless loses the election. While scholars have long recognized that electoral inversions can and sometimes do occur, especially with respect to the U.S. Electoral College system for presidential elections, no systematic attempt has been made either to identify how often electoral inversions occur in the world’s established liberal democracies, or to understand what their consequences are for democracy when they do occur. I address both of these unanswered questions. My first objective is to understand where, when, and thus how often electoral inversions have occurred historically. To do so, I undertake a descriptive study of electoral inversions in 28 established democracies. The results show that electoral inversions have occurred in roughly 8% of elections between 1900 and 2022. To better understand the consequences of electo…
abstract: The advent of democracy is supposed to represent a transition from the rule of the few to the rule of the many. In this folkloric account, majority rule is both the embodiment of democracy and its source of legitimacy. Unsurprisingly, however, democratic realities are far more complex—and sometimes more disappointing—than democratic ideals. Although democracy is often equated with the principle of majority rule, government by popular minorities is more common in modern liberal democracies than is government by popular majorities. But if the ideal of majority rule often goes unfulfilled, a redeeming quality of most elections in most democracies is that they nevertheless manage to satisfy the principle of “plurality rule.” That is, even when popular minorities govern, as is so often the case, the minority that governs is usually the largest minority. But not always. Sometimes governments are elected without even the support of a popular plurality. This phenomenon is called an electoral inversion; it is the focus of my dissertation. More precisely, electoral inversions occur when the party (or coalition of parties) that wins the most votes nevertheless loses the election. While scholars have long recognized that electoral inversions can and sometimes do occur, especially with respect to the U.S. Electoral College system for presidential elections, no systematic attempt has been made either to identify how often electoral inversions occur in the world’s established liberal democracies, or to understand what their consequences are for democracy when they do occur. I address both of these unanswered questions. My first objective is to understand where, when, and thus how often electoral inversions have occurred historically. To do so, I undertake a descriptive study of electoral inversions in 28 established democracies. The results show that electoral inversions have occurred in roughly 8% of elections between 1900 and 2022. To better understand the consequences of electo…
author: Friedman, Jack Ryan Chambers
language: en
date published: 2024
date modified: 2026-07-24T03:02:17Z
provider: University of Maryland
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Maryland

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/1903/33292

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.13016/cuzr-bzmt