Subject: Electoral systems
Deadline: February 4, 1 PM
Make sure to read this document carefully, and to contact me in case you have questions. Failure
to follow the guidelines and requirements outlined in this document will likely lead to a failing
grade.
Assignment description
The future of Canada¶s electoral system has been a divisive issue for some years now. Many
commentators and politicians disagree on the relative merits of proportional representation and
majoritarian electoral system. One way to tackle this controversy is to investigate how proportional
representation has fared in European countries that have adopted it. For this assignment, you are
asked to write an essay of about 750 words answering the following research question: 3Does the
experience with proportional representation in Europe suggest it would be a good idea to
implement a more proportional electoral system in Canada? ́
In drafting your essay, you are required to make use of the relevant course material, i.e. pp. 187-
197 of the textbook. You are also asked to review four short contributions that Policy Options
featured in July of 2016 on this subject, when the discussion was arguably more salient than ever:
Geddis, A. (2016). μAre Canadians as primed for electoral reform as the Kiwis were?¶ Policy
Options, June 23.
Heath, J. (2016). μElectoral reform and the illusion of majority rule.¶ Policy Options, June 21.
McDougall, B. (2016). μStick with the electoral system we have.¶ Policy Options, June 21.
Stephenson, L. (2016). μHow does changing the voting system impact voter preferences?¶
Policy Options, June 29.
Submission guidelines
The paper should be prepared according to the formatting requirements outlined in this document
and submitted online through the dropbox on courselink by 1 PM on February 4. In light of the
flexible set-up, late papers will receive a penalty of 15 percentage points per day and papers that
are submitted more than two days after the due date will not be considered. This means that a
2
paper submitted acter 1 PM on Friday but before 1 PM on Saturday receives a 15 point late
penalty, a paper submitted after 1 PM on Saturday but before 1 PM on Sunday receives a 30
point late penalty, and a paper submitted after 1 PM on Sunday will not be considered.
Style and formatting requirements
The paper should be written in clear academic prose. Do not use bullet points or employ a text
message style to convey your arguments. Grammatical and typographical mistakes will cost you
points. All papers should be structured according to the paper structure outlined above. Do not
leave spaces in between paragraphs, but indent instead. Use normal margins (at least 1 inch)
and double line spacing. Make use of a well-readable font such as Times New Roman, Georgia,
or Arial of size 11 or 12.
The paper should include the following six components: (1) a title section (containing the title of
your essay, the course code, your name, and my name); (2) an introduction that states the main
argument of your essay; (3) a few body paragraphs in which you develop and pursue your main
argument; (4) a conclusion that restates the main thesis and points out its relevance in light of the
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Evaluation criteria
The quality of the essay will be determined by four criteria:
1) Understanding of the material
Your essay should demonstrate that you have read and understood the relevant course
material. This does not mean that you should try to summarize everything in the assigned
readings (indeed, many sections might be entirely irrelevant to your essay). Instead, you
are expected to refer to those sections that directly speak to your argument. You are not
expected to consult literature beyond the assigned readings. You can refer to readings
previously discussed in class or to other academic material, but it will not be considered a
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2) Quality of argumentation and analysis
In this essay you are asked to develop and defend an argument. This means that you
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material, reflect on it, and then develop your own response to the question. In the past,
many students obtained lower grades than they expected because they thought of these
assignments as equivalent to exam questions, where the grade reflects how well the
student is able to reproduce the course material. To be clear, a paper that pursues an
argument that engages the readings will receive a (much) higher grade than a paper that
only summarizes the readings.
What will be assessed is the quality of the argumentation, not the stance you take. You
are free to defend as radical a position as you want. However, this does not mean you can
ignore counterarguments. Do not think that one-sidedness makes for a convincing essay.
Similarly, you are free to posit a middle-of-the-road main thesis, but by itself that does not
display good argumentation either. At any rate, your main statement needs to be specific
and argumHQWDWLYH ,I \RX DUJXH WKDW μLW GHSHQGV¶ \RX QHHG WR VSHFLI\ ZKDW H[DFWO\ LW
depends on. Similarly, if you end up with a main thesis that no reasonable human being
could disagree with it, it is probably a bad thesis.
3) Structure
Everything in the essay should directly help you to defend your main thesis. Especially in
a short essay like this, you cannot afford to dedicate space to irrelevant discussions. The
paragraphs should reflect the structure of your argument. In a poor essay, argument A, B,
and C all appear in each of the paragraphs 1, 2, and 3. In a good essay, paragraph 1 is
dedicated to argument A, paragraph 2 is dedicated to argument B, etc. Make sure the
paper includes all six components outlined above (title, introduction, core, conclusion,
works cited, word count). Finally, make sure the paper does not exceed the word limit.
4) Presentation
A good paper follows the style and formatting requirements and is both well presented
and well written. A poor paper contains (many) typographic or grammatical mistakes, does
not have a title, is printed in green ink, misspells my name, has strange margins, uses an
unreadable font, is not double-spaced, and/or contains other presentational weaknesses.