Cover
Contents
Figures
Tables
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction: contradictions and ambiguities of democratization
The great electoral transformation
Explaining electoral system choice
Partisan electoral engineering
Endogenous institutions
Reading history forward
1. Understanding the starting point
2. Pre-democratic parties and working-class mobilization
3. The existential threat
Engineering electoral dominance
Plan of the book
2 Strategies of containment: the role of repression and accommodation
Working-class mobilization and strategies of containment
"Right" parties
Containment: repression and accommodation
Repression
Accommodation
Strategies of containment, working-class mobilization, and the existential threat
Electoral viability
Ideological radicalism
Conclusions
3 Strategies of competition: the logic of electoral system choice, single member plurality (SMP) vs. proportional representation (PR)
Preexisting electoral systems
SMP and PR as electoral safeguards
Logic of the choice
No viable workers' party
Workers' party electorally viable, ideologically moderate
Workers' party electorally viable, mixed ideological platform
Workers' parties electorally viable, ideologically radical
Case study analysis
4 The United States: pre-industrial democratization and the origins of SMP
Pre-industrial democratization and working-class mobilization
Minority representation and the adoption of SMP
Post-war politics and the campaign for PR
The push for PR in Congress
State-level reform
New York
Illinois
Municipal reform and PR
The success of containment and the defeat of PR
Conclusions
5 The United Kingdom: safeguarding the Reform Acts with SMP
Democratization and working-class mobilization
PR and the Reform Act of 1867.

The Reform Act of 1884 and the adoption of SMP
Post-1884: SMP retained
Conclusions
6 France: the tumultuous path of electoral system choice in the Third Republic
Containment and competition in the early years
Electoral system choice in the early years: the regime question
Return to the district system
Working-class mobilization and the pre-war movement for PR
Post-war politics: the experiment with PR
Conclusions
7 Belgium: minimizing the existential threat with PR
Democratization and working-class mobilization
Early attempts to establish safeguards
The adoption of PR
Conclusions
8 Conclusions: rethinking democracy's determinisms
Findings of the study
Cross-regional analysis
Case study analysis
Within-case analysis
Implications of the work
Institutionally structured outcomes
Democratization as politics
APPENDIX The existential threat: electoral viability and ideological radicalism
Electoral viability
Ideological radicalism
Bibliography
Index.