All Is Changed, Changed Utterly? The Causes and Consequences of New Zealand's Adoption of MMP

Abstract

New Zealand's political landscape experienced a seismic shift in 1993, when the country replaced the First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) voting system it had inherited from its British colonial past with a new Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) voting system. This article traces how this change to New Zealand's voting system has impacted on three particular themes running through New Zealand's wider electoral laws and practices: representation of the voters' will, the constitutional balance of power, and engaging the voting population in the electoral process.