MAJORITY/PLURALITY SYSTEMS: THE CHOICE OF LEAST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES?

Abstract

The electoral system of a country is related to the political, economic and social areas of life. Their functioning directly or indirectly depends on it and the different types and subtypes of electoral systems produce different effects. The purpose of the current study is to identify if there is a relation between the statute of the least developed countries and their electoral system. The object of the study are countries, defined as least developed in 2018 by the United Nations. The focus is the type of electoral system for the legislative body (or its lower chamber in case of bicameralism) of these countries, their regime type, overall score and the score for electoral process and pluralism according to EIU Democracy Index 2018. For the purposes of the analysis statistical methods (frequencies, hypothesis test and chi-square test) and comparative approach are used. The results show that there is statistically significant relationship between the statute of least developed countries and their electoral system on one hand and their regime type on other. There is also a statistically significant difference in the scores of least developed countries compared to all others regarding the evaluation of democracy and the electoral process and pluralism.

Keywords

• democracy
• elections
• majority/plurality systems
• economic development