Metody porównawcze stosowane w badaniach systemów wyborczych
The use of comparative methods in the study of electoral systems

Summary/Abstract: In recent years, much attention has been paid to methodological issues within the purview of political science, what rightly reminds us that the identity and maturity of a scientific discipline is revealed in the methods employed by it. At the same time, the examination of the electoral systems’ consequences is easily submitted for quantifi cation. The ‘hard’ election data such as the number of votes and seats as well as the number of political parties and candidates are excellent materials for quantitative analysis, what is of the great value for the empirically oriented political science. Moreover, more than 60 years of research in this field have resulted in the development of various methods, techniques, tools and interpretative approaches towards aforementioned data. These methodological achievements continuously undergo the process of evaluation and evolution. The aim of this paper is to present and discuss, in a critical way, the most important research methods and methodological approaches that have until now been used to study the consequences of electoral systems. These methods and methodological approaches vary so much as far as their starting assumptions, techniques of collecting data and ways of interpreting the results are concerned, that it seems almost necessary to treat them as separate comparative methods.

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