The alternative vote and interethnic moderation: A reply to Fraenkel and Grofman

The alternative vote (AV) is a preferential electoral system that tends to reward political moderation and compromise. Fraenkel and Grofman have modeled the likely effects of AV in severely divided societies, in order to impugn AV as a tool of interethnic accommodation. In this response, I show that Fraenkel and Grofman’s model is based on extreme assumptions that bear no relation to party and voter behavior in such societies. Models based on realistic assumptions about strategic behavior and cross-national experience with AV both demonstrate that AV generally provides centripetal incentives that can contribute to interethnic coalition-building and accommodation.