To create or to copy? electoral systems in the German Länder

Abstract

In federal countries, subnational jurisdictions may either adopt the electoral system used for federal elections, or go for distinctive electoral systems. While the system used for Bundestag elections has been thoroughly analysed in the literature, the systems used for electing the legislatures of the Länder have attracted little attention outside Germany. This article fills that gap by providing detailed descriptions of the systems used in the Länder. Of all three formulas initially used, standard PR systems gradually lost ground to Personalised PR (PPR), while a more majoritarian hybrid imposed in the British Zone disappeared in the 1950s. The article explores the working of these systems. Though PPR produces at both levels proportional outcomes, single-party majorities have been obtained much more frequently in Länder than at the federal level. PPR is found to have corrected undesirable side effects of first-past-the-post, like wiping out opposition parties from the legislature or giving a majority to the runner-up party.