Abstract Institutions to electoral reform advocates and political scientists#x2014;both argue that variation in electoral institutions affectshow elected officials and citizens behave. Change the rules, and citizen engagement with politics can be renewed. Yeta look at the record of electoral reformreveals a string of disappointments. This book examines a variety of reforms, including campaign finance,direct democracy, legislativeterm limits, and changes to the electoral system itself. This study findselectoral reforms have limited, and in many cases no,effects. Despite reform claims, and contrary to the 2018;institutions matter literature, findings heresuggestthere are hard limits to effects of electoral reform. The explanations for this are threefold. The first is political. Reformers exaggerate claimsabout transformative effects of new electoral rules, yet their goal may simply be to maximize their partisan advantage.The second is empirical. Cross-sectional comparative research demonstratesthat variation in electoral institutions corresponds with different patterns of political attitudes and behaviour. But this method cannot assess what happens when rules are changed. Using examples from the US, UK, New Zealand, Australia, and elsewhere, this book examinesattitudes and behaviouracross time where rules were changed. Results do not match expectations from the institutional literature. The third is a point of logic. There is an inflated sense of the effects of institutions generally, and of electoral institutions in particular. Given larger social and economic forces at play, it is unrealistic to expect that changes in electoral arrangements will have substantial effects on political engagement or onhow people viewpolitics and politicians.
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