This page lists my most useful public-facing articles and recordings. A full list is here.
Short-form articles
- "Avoiding the PR Mistakes of the Past." Democracy Journal, Sep. 12, 2023. — Distinguishes party-list from semi-proportional electoral systems and explains why this matters for American electoral-system reform.
- "Election Reform: Is History Repeating? A Q&A with Jack Santucci" (with Kevin R. Kosar). AEIdeas, Oct. 31, 2022. — Begins to describe a range of 'ranked-choice' systems, the contexts in which they were used historically, and how electoral systems change.
- "Alaska's special election illustrates an unpredictable system." 3streams, Sep. 1, 2022. — Explains why it is misplaced for either party to claim an advantage from the nonpartisan version of instant runoff (RCV) now in vogue.
- "There is a better way to run city elections — and it's native to Philadelphia." The Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 6, 2021. — Suggests open-list proportional representation as a way to fix problems with the single transferable vote in big-city elections.
- "Utah's new kind of ranked-choice voting could hurt political minorities — and sometimes even the majority" (with Benjamin Reilly). LSE's USA Politics & Policy, Jan. 23, 2020. — Explains the 'block-preferential' version of 'instant runoff,' which is hard to understand and an inadvisable reform.
- "How to map political data free-of-charge." ElectionGuide Digest, Feb. 15, 2013. — An early tutorial on making maps in the R statistical package.
Recordings
- "A Deep Dive On Parties And Political Reform," Democracy Works (Jenna Spinelle), Aug. 2, 2023 (recorded Aug. 2022).
- "History of Ranked Choice Voting" (webinar), RCV Resource Center, Sep. 8, 2017.
Long-form articles and chapters
- Santucci, Jack; Matthew Shugart; and Michael S. Latner. 2023. "Toward a Different Type of Party Government: Proportional Representation for Federal Elections" in More than Red and Blue: Political Parties and American Democracy. Washington, DC: American Political Science Association and Protect Democracy. — We ask what it might take to make proportional representation compatible with the 'separation of powers,' taking seriously the concerns of under-represented groups.
- Santucci, Jack. 2010. "What is the Future for Democracy Promotion?" Democracy & Society 7 (1): 5-7. — International democracy promotion depends on easy reform targets, which are in diminishing supply.
- Santucci, Jack and Magnus Öhman. 2009. "Practical solutions for the disclosure of campaign and political party finance." In Political Finance Regulation: The Global Experience, edited by Magnus Öhman and Hani Zainulbhai, 25-42. Washington, DC: International Foundation for Electoral Systems. — Campaign finance disclosure legislation must take account of local conditions, including potential for unintended consequences.
