Electoral Systems and their Consequences
David Farrell
- đź“…Tuesday, May 13, 2025
- đź•Ą10:30 – 11:30
- 🏟Newtownpark Pastoral Centre (map)
Electoral systems — the mechanisms that determine how our politicians are elected into office — come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes. (A little known fact, for example, is that Ireland’s Single Transferable Vote system is hardly used by any other country.) This presentation uses data from the most recent edition of my book on this topic, to review the different types of electoral systems in use across more than 75 of the world’s democracies, examining the main ways in which electoral systems can vary, and what consequences this can have for a country’s political system.
Professor Farrell MRIA, holds the Chair of Political Science at University College Dublin. A specialist in the study of representation, electoral systems and parties, his recent books include: Electoral Systems: A Global Perspective (Bloomsbury, 2024), The Oxford Handbook of Irish Politics (Oxford University Press, 2021), and Deliberative Mini-Publics: Core Design Features (Bristol University Press, 2021). Other books include the award-winning Political Parties and Democratic Linkage: How Parties Organize Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2011). Much of his current work is focused on deliberative mini-publics (DMPs), including advice to a number of government-led DMP processes in Ireland, UK, Belgium, as well as supporting the work of one of the EU-wide citizens’ panels during the 2020-21 Conference on the Future of Europe. From 2021-24, he was Chair of Europe’s largest political science association, the European Consortium for Political Research.
