G. Gallagher, P. Mitchell (eds.) Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005 ISBN: 0-19-925756-6, Paperback 672 pages, £27.50, Hardback 688 pages, £83.00.

Gallagher and Mitchell's edited volume The Politics of Electoral Systems is a collection of contributions from 31 different authors with a foreword by Arend Lijphart. The book is organized in six parts and concludes with an exhaustive appendix containing more than 50 pages. Most of the book is dedicated to country studies, covering a total of 22 national electoral systems.

The first part of the volume introduces the reader with the conceptual outline of the book and the theoretical framework guiding country chapters in the subsequent parts. Gallagher and Mitchell identify two broad topics they want to explore. First, the editors are interested in the outputs, or what they label the ‘political science of electoral systems.’ Second, they want to survey the ‘politics of electoral systems’ — that is whether and to what extent an electoral...