The primary purpose of this chapter is to develop a consistent set of abstract, non-country-specific terms that can be used to describe and classify electoral systems, especially as regards their coalition-promoting or-retarding properties. Most of the terms I use already appear in the literature, but I have found it necessary to introduce several new terms, or new usages of old terms, for the sake of clarity and consistency. Throughout the chapter, I use the term “structure” to denote a “subsystem” within the electoral system. Thus, I refer to a system's district structure (having to do with the number, size, and nature of electoral districts), its alliance structure (having to do largely with opportunities to pool votes), and even its formulaic structure (having to do with the multiplicity of different electoral formulas that can appear at different levels in a system).

Another purpose of this chapter is to give some idea of the recent state of the art in electoral design. I have taken a “snapshot” sample of the world's democracies: all 77 polities that scored either a 1 or 2 on the “political rights” index in the Freedom House survey for 1992–3. This sample excludes some countries with long democratic traditions, such as India and Venezuela, that have hit hard times more recently. It also includes about a dozen countries that have only held free and fair elections very recently, have little democratic experience, and have by no means emerged as consolidated democracies.