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《民主的模式——36個國家的政府形式和政府績效》
著者：
者：
本書考察了1945—2010年期間的36個民主國家，將它們置於一幅二維的民主“概念圖”之中。憑借有力的證據和深層次的比較分析，作者得出了一個重要結論：共識民主的效果比多數民主更好。作者認為，這一發現講為正處在民主化進程中的國家以及新興民主國家提供參考。
本書是美國著名學者阿倫·利普哈特最具代表性的著作，本書第一版於1999年出版後，在政治學界產生了廣泛的影響，進入了多所高等院校政治學專業的必讀書目。在本書第二版中，阿倫·利普哈特對世界範圍內的民主製度進行了比以往任何時候都更全麵的分析。本書學術視角新穎、研究領域寬廣、實證材料豐富、論證過程嚴密，是比較政治學領域的一部當之無愧的傑作。
作者簡介
阿倫·利普哈特，1936年生於荷蘭，後加入美國籍。1963年獲得耶魯大學博士學位，1989年當選為美國國家藝術與科學院院士，1995-1996年任美國政治學會會長，現為加州大學聖地亞哥分校政治學係名譽教授。其主要著作：《和解的政治：荷蘭的多元主義與民主》（1968年）、《多元社會中的民主——一項比較研究》（1977年）、《民主政治：21個國家的多數模式政府與共識模式政府》（1984年）、《議會製政府與總統製政府》（1992年）、《選舉製度與政黨製度：對27個民主國家的研究》（1994年）、《民主的模式：36個國家的政府形式和政府績效》（1999年）等。
目 錄
原文摘錄 · · · · · ·
尤其是在多元社會中，社會按照宗數、意識形態、語官、文化、民族或種族的分界線高度分化，形成了擁有各自的政黨、利益集團和傳播媒介的實際上彼此分離的次級社會，導致了多數民主模式所必需的彈性缺失。在這種情況下，多數決原則不僅是不民主的，而且是危險的，其原因是長期被排除在政權之外的少數派感到排斥、受歧視，因而失去了對體製32的忠誠。
例如，北愛爾蘭的多元社會分化為新數多數派和天主教少數派，采用多數決原則的結果是代表新教多數派利益的統一黨在1921年到1972年 的所有選舉中獲勝，壟斷了組織政府的權力。
20世紀60年代末，天主教徒 的大規模抗議活動演變成了新教徒一天主教徒的內戰，英國進行了軍事幹預 並把北愛爾蘭置於倫教的直接統治之下才控製住了局勢。 在北愛爾蘭那樣的極度分化的社會中，多數決原則的結果不是民主，而是多數專政和國內紛爭。這類社會所需要的是這樣一種民主製度：它強調 共識而非對抗、主張包容而非排斥、力求使處於統治地位的多數的規模最大化而不滿足於微弱多數，這種製度就是共識民主。
盡管英國自身實行多數 民主製度，但曆屆英國內閣都認識到了在北愛爾蘭采用共識民主的必要性： 強調北愛爾蘭的所有選舉（英國議會下院議員選舉除外）都采取比例代表製 原則；把建立廣泛的新教徒天主教徒分享權力的聯合內閣作為恢複北愛爾蘭政治自治的一個前提條件。在1998年達成的關於北愛爾蘭的協議中，比 例代表製和分權也是至關重要的原則。劉易斯（ Lewis1965，51-55，65 (查看原文)
[已注銷] 2020-07-24 22:42:15
—— 引自章節：第三章共識民主模式/25
《民主的模式：36個國家的政府形式和政府績效》多麵觀
本文為2020年秋季“比較政治製度”課程讀書筆記。
（一）綜述
課上“理論專題二”談及了民主模式的多樣性，包老師舉到阿倫·利普哈特的著作《民主的模式》（第二版）為例。我對該比較政治學領域的經典研究作品產生了濃厚的興趣，下文旨在對本書的觀點之“正論”、學者研究之“反論”並進行綜合和評論。
1. 正論：共識民主效果更好
利普哈特區分了“多數民主”與“共識民主”的差別，在兩個維度——①行政機關-政黨維度和②聯邦製-單一維度，將其具體劃分為10個基本變量進行對照。作者選取1945-2010年期間的36個民主國家，從第5章的“政黨體製”到第13章的“中央銀行”是對這十個基本變量在應用中的實證研究。作者於第14章形成了按上述兩個維度劃分的“民主的概念圖”。利普哈特認為共識民主模式在絕大多數指標（17個指標中的16個）上的績效都比多數民主模式更好，且行政機關-政黨維度上的共識民主，“對促進民主朝著更寬容、更友善的方向發展都發揮了重要的推動作用”。
那麽，共識民主模式的優勢如何在書中體現呢？
首先，作者在第3章就引用阿瑟·劉易斯對多數民主的批評（失敗的集團/小黨缺乏足額代表權），再通過對瑞士和比利時的分析，認為共識民主模式在①維度的“比例代表製”可使各政黨分得的議席與他們獲得的選票比例相當，可以減小第8章中提及的選舉製度中的“非比例性程度”。第二，作者通過回歸等定量方式得到許多相關關係圖，體現共識民主模式與多數模式的分野，突出力求分享、分散、抑製權力的“共識原則”。如作者在第6章中應用了“聯合內閣理論”，闡明有效議會政黨數目與最小獲勝一黨內閣出現概率之間的負相關關係，而較多的有效議會政黨數目恰是共識民主的特征體現。之後，作者詳細地總結了共識模式諸特點：行政機關與立法機關之間的權力更平衡，有效政黨數目較多，利益集團的多元主義水平較低（合作主義水平較高），聯邦製和地方分權從而立法權分割、中央銀行獨立性較強，憲法剛性從而需要司法審查等，（分別對應了第7-13章的內容。）第三，作者反駁了傳統觀點中對共識民主具有代表性，但“缺乏決策效率”的觀點，再從福利國家、環境保護、控製暴力等維度褒揚了共識民主“寬容、友善”的品質。
2. 反論：共識民主有那麽好嗎？
國內學者中，人大國關學院的楊光斌老師較早對本書的共識民主研究提出批評，他認為利普哈特是一個“基於行為主義的硬邦邦的製度主義者”，由果溯因地運用相關數據，忽略了經濟增長的指標；且將多數民主和共識民主進行二分對立的本身存在邏輯結構的問題。
此外，利普哈特在本書第3章中提到，高度分裂的多元社會需要的是強調共識、主張包容、“力求使處於統治地位的多數的規模最大化而不滿足於微弱多數”的共識民主製度。也有學者對此提出了自己的質疑和批評，如包老師的述評從變量過多、樣本選擇的係統性偏差、變量設計從而雙變量回歸分析幾方麵問題入手，指出：“共識民主模式不僅不能解決高度分裂社會的族群衝突，反而會加劇族群衝突，會加重政治暴力”。
（二）評論
這次從正反兩方麵看待一個學術研究的閱讀體驗很特別，似乎也照應了本課程“比較政治製度”的核心——“比較”意味著需要兼聽則明，正反兩麵的學習可以鍛煉我們批判性思考的能力，也讓我對理解政治製度圖譜的多樣性有了更多理解。
事實上，利普哈特本人在寫作時也注意到了有些國家是集兩類民主模式於一身的，如作者提到，以色列兼有行政機關-政黨維度上的共識民主特征（頻繁出現的超大型聯合內閣、多黨製、具有高度比例性的比例代表製選舉、利益集團合作主義），也體現了聯邦製-單一製維度上的多數民主特征（不成文憲法、一院製議會、中等程度的聯邦製和中央銀行獨立性），美國、加拿大等國家也都是“非典型”。而現實世界其實也難以找到都嚴格符合兩者各自的10條標準的國家，但利普哈特對此沒有仔細解釋，這成為了後來學者批評其研究的靶子。我們在學習前人的成果時，絕不應“想當然”地照搬照用觀點，也要重視其理論邏輯與研究方法。
利普哈特提到，製度傳統和政治文化可能成為共識民主在推廣和生長方麵的阻礙，但他注意到了政治文化與政治結構間的“互動”關係。然而，他沒有注意到共識民主與多數民主或許也是相互塑造的——正如楊光斌老師提到的，兩者之間其實是“共生共榮的關係”。此外，包老師提到，若將共識民主理論作為政治轉型國家憲法設計的模板，將帶來誤導性；而我們也要考慮到現有的眾多研究（有正有反）和他國的經驗教訓或許都將給現在的政治領導者以新的啟示，不斷的“學習”和動態現實政治過程的發生，將給未來的政治圖景帶來什麽，也是值得期待的。
參考文獻
[1]楊光斌.評利普哈特的“共識民主模式”[J].江蘇行政學院學報,2007(05):75-78.
[2]包剛升.共識民主理論有“共識”嗎?——對利普哈特研究方法的學術批評[J].經濟社會體製比較,2014(05):195-205.
Preface to the Second Edition
https://e-edu.nbu.bg/pluginfile.php/830138/mod_resource/content/1/Lijphart%2C%20A.%20Patterns%20of%20Democracy%20-%20Government%20Forms%20and%20Performance%20in%20Thirty-Six%20Countries%20%282012%29.pdf
Second, I extended I welcome the opportunity to publish an updated edition of Patterns of Democracy, originally published in 1999, because it gives me an opportunity to test whether my main fi ndings and conclusions continue to be valid—especially my fi nding that the great variety of formal and informal rules and institutions that we fi nd in democracies can be reduced to a clear two-dimensional pattern on the basis of the contrast between majoritarian and consensus forms of government, and my conclusion that consensus democracies (measured on the fi rst of these dimensions) have a superior record with regard to effective policy-making and the quality of democracy compared with majoritarian democracies. The basic organization of the book has not changed, but the data on which its empirical analysis is based has changed in important ways. First, my analysis continues to compare the same number of democracies—thirty-six—but three of the countries had to be removed because they are no longer free and democratic according to the criteria of Freedom House: Colombia, Venezuela, and Papua New Guinea. I replaced them with Argentina, Uruguay, and Korea, which returned to democracy in the 1980s.
Second, I extended the analysis from 1996 to 2010, which enix x PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION tails a considerable increase in the time span during which the other thirty-three democracies are analyzed: a 74 percent increase for the newest democracies included in the fi rst edition— India and Spain—smaller but still substantial increases for the countries that became democratic between the 1950s and the early 1970s, and even a signifi cant 28 percent increase for the older democracies analyzed from the late 1940s on.
Third, I made no major changes in the defi nition and measurement of the ten basic variables that make up the majoritarianconsensus contrast, with two important exceptions. In hindsight, I concluded that the way I operationalized executive dominance in Chapter 7 of the original edition was too complicated and cumbersome; I therefore use a much simpler and more straightforward operationalization in the updated edition. In Chapter 13, I was forced to change the treatment of central bank independence because from the mid-1990s on the internationalization of central banking—in particular, the creation of the European Central Bank and changes in several national central bank charters demanded by the International Monetary Fund—changed the status of central banks from domestic institutions to organizations in the international system. A less important change is that I reduced my discussion of the issue dimensions of partisan confl ict—which is not an institutional variable and is not one of the basic ten variables distinguishing majoritarian from consensus democracy— from about a third of Chapter 5 to a more appropriately short addendum to that chapter.
Fourth, the biggest changes are in Chapters 15 and 16 with regard to the variables by which I measure the performance of consensus versus majoritarian democracies. Some of these variables—like economic growth, the control of infl ation and unemployment, women’s representation, and political equality—are the same as in the original edition, but the data on them are for later periods and therefore almost completely new. A few others, like social expenditure and environmental performance, are also the same but measured by new and different indexes. And then there are PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION xi entirely new variables not used in the original edition at all. I also streamlined the presentation of the results of the regression analyses. Instead of showing the bivariate relationships between consensus democracy and the performance variables in the tables and discussing the infl uence of control varia bles, especially the impact of the level of economic development and population size, in the accompanying text, I now have tables showing multivariate regression analyses of the effects of consensus democracy with these two standard controls in place in all instances.
Generally the quality of all the new data is a great deal better than the quality of the data that I had at my disposal in the mid1990s, and they are available for many more countries. In particular, I made grateful use of two entirely new and highly relevant datasets for the measurement of the quality of government and the quality of democracy, respectively: the Worldwide Governance Indicators and the data of the Democracy Index project of the Economist Intelligence Unit. Not only have excellent data become much more available in the past decade, but they have also become more easily accessible. In the preface to the fi rst edition, I wrote that I might not have been able to write it without the invention of email. I can now add that this new edition might not have been possible, or would have been much more diffi cult to write, without all of the information that is available on the internet.
To briefl y preview my conclusions in the updated edition, I fi nd that my original conclusions are amply confi rmed. In fact, the evidence with regard to the interrelationships of my ten majoritarian versus consensus characteristics and with regard to the superior performance of consensus democracy has become even clearer and stronger.
The preparation of a study of as many as thirty-six countries is impossible without the input of many comparative and country experts. I am deeply grateful to my friends and colleagues for the valuable advice and assistance I received from them. First of all, xii PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION I want to express my thanks again to everyone who helped me with the fi rst edition of this book. Their input is still refl ected in the contents of this second edition, too.
I was especially in need of assistance with regard to the three new countries in the updated edition, and I am grateful for the excellent advice on Korean politics from Taekyoon Kim, KyoungRyung Seong, Jong-Sung You, and my Korean research assistant, Don S. Lee. For Argentina and Uruguay I had a huge team of aides and advisers, and I am deeply indebted to them all: David Altman, Octavio Amorim Neto, Marcelo Camerlo, Rossana Castiglioni, Sebastián Etchemendy, Mark P. Jones, Jorge Lanzaro, Andrés Malamud, M. Victoria Murillo, Sebastián M. Saiegh, and Andrew Schrank. For recent developments in several other countries I relied on the advice of Edward M. Dew, Fragano S. J. Ledgister, Ralph R. Premdas, and Rajendra Ramlogan (Barbados and the other Caribbean countries); Carl Devos and Luc Huyse (Belgium); Pradeep K. Chhibber and Ashutosh Varshney (India); Yuko Kasuya and Mikitaka Masuyama (Japan); Deborah Bräutigam, Jørgen Elklit, Shaheen Mozaffar, Linganaden Murday, and Nadarajen Sivaramen (Mauritius); Peter Aimer and Jack Vowles (New Zealand); Richard Gunther and Óscar Martínez-Tapia (Spain); Matthew Flinders, Michael Gallagher, and Thomas C. Lundberg (United Kingdom); and Gary C. Jacobson (United States).
I am equally grateful to all of the scholars who helped me in important subject areas: Krista Hoekstra, Hans Keman, Jelle Koedam, and Jaap Woldendorp (cabinet coalitions); Daniel M. Brinks, Isaac Herzog, Donald W. Jackson, and Mary L. Volcansek (judicial review); Christopher Crowe and Mauro F. Guillén (central banks); and Scott Desposato, Stephen J. K. Lee, Philip G. Roeder, and Sebastián M. Saiegh (statistical and computer issues). Other scholars whom I would like to thank without placing them in country or subject categories are Ernesto Alvarez, Jr., Julian Bernauer, Joseph H. Brooks, Royce Carroll, Josep M. Colomer, Zachary Elkins, John Gerring, Ronald F. Inglehart, Mona Lena Krook, Sanford A. Lakoff, Dieter Nohlen, Matt H. Qvortrup, Manfred G. Schmidt, Alan PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION xiii Siaroff, Fabia Soehngen, Rein Taagepera, Steven L. Taylor, and Adrian Vatter.
In April 2011, I gave seminars on the fi ndings of this updated edition at the Juan March Institute in Madrid and at the Madrid campus of Suffolk University, and in November 2011 a similar seminar in the Department of Politics of the University of Antwerp. The comments and questions I received from the participants in these seminars were very helpful. I would also like to thank William Frucht, executive editor at Yale University Press, for the strong encouragement he gave me to write an updated edition, and Laura Jones Dooley, who expertly copyedited both the fi rst and second editions. Above all, I owe special thanks to my two research assistants, Christopher J. Fariss and Don S. Lee. Chris was my main statistical adviser, and he prepared almost all of the fi gures in Chapters 6 to 14 as well as the factor analysis reported in Chapter 14. Don collected and organized most of the macroeconomic and violence data for Chapter 15. I am deeply grateful for their help, hard work, and friendship.
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Introduction There are many ways in which, in principle, a democracy can be organized and run; in practice, too, modern democracies exhibit a variety of formal governmental institutions, like legislatures and courts, as well as political party and interest group systems. However, clear patterns and regularities appear when these institutions are examined from the perspective of how majoritarian or how consensual their rules and practices are. The majoritarianism-consensus contrast arises from the most basic and literal defi nition of democracy—government by the people or, in representative democracy, government by the representatives of the people—and from President Abraham Lincoln’s famous further stipulation that democracy means government not only by but also for the people—that is, government in accordance with the people’s prefererences.1 Defi ning democracy as “government by and for the people” 1 1. As Clifford D. May (1987) points out, credit for this defi nition should probably go to Daniel Webster instead of Lincoln. Webster gave an address in 1830—thirty-three years before Lincoln’s Gettysburg address—in which he spoke of a “people’s government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people.” 2 INTRODUCTION raises a fundamental question: Who will do the governing and to whose interests should the government be responsive when the people are in disagreement and have divergent preferences? One answer to this dilemma is: the majority of the people. This is the essence of the majoritarian model of democracy. The majoritarian answer is simple and straightforward and has great appeal because government by the majority and in accordance with the majority’s wishes obviously comes closer to the democratic ideal of “government by and for the people” than government by and responsive to a minority. The alternative answer to the dilemma is: as many people as possible. This is the crux of the consensus model. It does not differ from the majoritarian model in accepting that majority rule is better than minority rule, but it accepts majority rule only as a minimum requirement: instead of being satisfi ed with narrow decision-making majorities, it seeks to maximize the size of these majorities. Its rules and institutions aim at broad participation in government and broad agreement on the policies that the government should pursue. The majoritarian model concentrates political power in the hands of a bare majority—and often even merely a plurality instead of a majority, as Chapter 2 will show—whereas the consensus model tries to share, disperse, and limit power in a variety of ways. A closely related difference is that the majoritarian model of democracy is exclusive, competitive, and adversarial, whereas the consensus model is characterized by inclusiveness, bargaining, and compromise; for this reason, consensus democracy could also be termed “negotiation democracy” (Kaiser 1997, 434). Ten differences with regard to the most important democratic institutions and rules can be deduced from the majoritarian and consensus principles. Because the majoritarian characteristics are derived from the same principle and hence are logically connected, one could also expect them to occur together in the real world; the same applies to the consensus characteristics. All ten variables could therefore be expected to be closely related. Previ- INTRODUCTION 3 ous research has largely confi rmed these expectations—with one major exception: the variables cluster in two clearly separate dimensions (Lijphart 1984, 211–22). The fi rst dimension groups fi ve characteristics of the arrangement of executive power, the party and electoral systems, and interest groups. For brevity’s sake, I shall refer to this fi rst dimension as the executives-parties dimension. Since most of the fi ve differences on the second dimension are commonly associated with the contrast between federalism and unitary government—a matter to which I shall return shortly— I shall call this second dimension the federal-unitary dimension. The ten differences are formulated below in terms of dichotomous contrasts between the majoritarian and consensus models, but they are all variables on which particular countries may be at either end of the continuum or anywhere in between. The majoritarian characteristic is listed fi rst in each case. The fi ve differences on the executives-parties dimension are as follows: 1. Concentration of executive power in single-party majority cabinets versus executive power-sharing in broad multiparty coalitions. 2. Executive-legislative relationships in which the executive is dominant versus executive-legislative balance of power. 3. Two-party versus multiparty systems. 4. Majoritarian and disproportional electoral systems versus proportional representation. 5. Pluralist interest group systems with free-for-all competition among groups versus coordinated and “corporatist” interest group systems aimed at compromise and concertation. The fi ve differences on the federal-unitary dimension are the following: 1. Unitary and centralized government versus federal and decentralized government. 2. Concentration of legislative power in a unicameral legislature versus division of legislative power between two equally strong but differently constituted houses. 4 INTRODUCTION 3. Flexible constitutions that can be amended by simple majorities versus rigid constitutions that can be changed only by extraordinary majorities. 4. Systems in which legislatures have the fi nal word on the constitutionality of their own legislation versus systems in which laws are subject to a judicial review of their constitutionality by supreme or constitutional courts. 5. Central banks that are dependent on the executive versus independent central banks. One plausible explanation of this two-dimensional pattern is suggested by the classical theorists of federalism—Ivo D. Duchacek (1970), Daniel J. Elazar (1968), Carl J. Friedrich (1950, 189– 221), and K. C. Wheare (1946)—as well as by many contemporary theorists (Colomer 2011, 85–100; Hueglin and Fenna 2006; Stepan 2001, 315–61; Watts 2008). These scholars maintain that federalism has primary and secondary meanings. Its primary defi nition is: a guaranteed division of power between the central government and regional governments. The secondary characteristics are strong bicameralism, a rigid constitution, and strong judicial review. Their argument is that the guarantee of a federal division of power can work well only if (1) both the guarantee and the exact lines of the division of power are clearly stated in the constitution and this guarantee cannot be changed unilaterally at either the central or regional level—hence the need for a rigid constitution, (2) there is a neutral arbiter who can resolve confl icts concerning the division of power between the two levels of government— hence the need for judicial review, and (3) there is a federal chamber in the national legislature in which the regions have strong representation—hence the need for strong bicameralism; moreover, (4) the main purpose of federalism is to promote and protect a decentralized system of government. These federalist characteristics can be found in the fi rst four variables of the second dimension. As stated earlier, this dimension is therefore called the federal-unitary dimension. INTRODUCTION 5 The federalist explanation is not entirely satisfactory, however, for two reasons. One problem is that, although it can explain the clustering of the four variables in one dimension, it does not explain why this dimension should be so clearly distinct from the other dimension. Second, it cannot explain why the variable of central bank independence is part of the federal-unitary dimension. A more persuasive explanation of the two-dimensional pattern is the distinction between “collective agency” and “shared responsibility” on one hand and divided agencies and responsibilities on the other suggested by Robert E. Goodin (1996, 331).2 These are both forms of diffusion of power, but the fi rst dimension of consensus democracy with its multiparty face-to-face interactions within cabinets, legislatures, legislative committees, and concertation meetings between governments and interest groups has a close fi t with the collective-responsibility form. In contrast, both the four federalist characteristics and the role of central banks fi t the format of diffusion by means of institutional separation: division of power between separate federal and state institutions, two separate chambers in the legislature, and separate and independent high courts and central banks. Viewed from this perspective, the fi rst dimension could also be labeled the joint-responsibility or joint-power dimension and the second the divided-responsibility or divided-power dimension. However, although these labels would be more accurate and theoretically more meaningful, my original labels—“executives-parties” and “federal-unitary”—have the great advantage that they are easier to remember, and I shall therefore keep using them throughout this book. The distinction between two basic types of democracy, majoritarian and consensus, is by no means a novel invention in political science. In fact, I borrowed these two terms from Robert G. Dixon, Jr. (1968, 10). Hans Hattenhauer and Werner Kaltefl eiter 2. A similar distinction, made by George Tsebelis (2002), is that between “institutional veto players,” located in different institutions, and “partisan veto players” such as the parties within a government coalition. 6 INTRODUCTION (1986) also contrast the “majority principle” with consensus, and Jürg Steiner (1971) juxtaposes “the principles of majority and proportionality.” G. Bingham Powell, Jr. (1982), distinguishes between majoritarian and broadly “representational” forms of democracy and, in later work, between two “democratic visions”: majoritarian and proportional (Powell 2000). Similar contrasts have been drawn by Robert A. Dahl (1956)—“populistic” versus “Madisonian” democracy; William H. Riker (1982)—“populism” versus “liberalism”; Jane Mansbridge (1980)—“adversary” versus “unitary” democracy; and S. E. Finer (1975)—“adversary politics” versus centrist and coalitional politics. Nevertheless, there is a surprisingly strong and persistent tendency in political science to equate democracy solely with majoritarian democracy and to fail to recognize consensus democracy as an alternative and equally legitimate type. A particularly clear example can be found in Stephanie Lawson’s (1993, 192– 93) argument that a strong political opposition is “the sine qua non of contemporary democracy” and that its prime purpose is “to become the government.” This view is based on the majoritarian assumption that democracy entails a two-party system (or possibly two opposing blocs of parties) that alternate in government; it fails to take into account that governments in more consensual multiparty systems tend to be coalitions and that a change in government in these systems usually means only a partial change in the party composition of the government—instead of the opposition “becoming” the government (Lundell 2011). The frequent use of the “turnover” test in order to determine whether a democracy has become stable and consolidated betrays the same majoritarian assumption. Samuel P. Huntington (1991, 266–67) even proposes a “two-turnover test,” according to which “a democracy may be viewed as consolidated if the party or group that takes power in the initial election at the time of transition [to democracy] loses a subsequent election and turns over power to those election winners, and if those election winners then peacefully turn over power to the winners of a later INTRODUCTION 7 election.” Of the twenty countries with the longest democratic history analyzed in this book, all of which are undoubtedly stable and consolidated democratic systems, no fewer than three— Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Switzerland—fail even the one-turnover test during the more than sixty years from the late 1940s to 2010, that is, they experienced many cabinet changes but never a complete turnover, and six—the same three countries plus Belgium, Finland, and Germany—fail the two-turnover test. This book will show that pure or almost pure majoritarian democracies are actually quite rare—limited to the United Kingdom, New Zealand (until 1996), and the former British colonies in the Caribbean (but only with regard to the executives-parties dimension). Most democracies have signifi cant or even predominantly consensual traits. Moreover, as this book shows, consensus democracy may be considered more democratic than majoritarian democracy in most respects. The ten contrasting characteristics of the two models of democracy, briefl y listed above, are described in a preliminary fashion and exemplifi ed by means of sketches of relatively pure cases of majoritarian democracy—the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Barbados—and of relatively pure cases of consensus democracy— Switzerland, Belgium, and the European Union—in Chapters 2 and 3. The thirty-six empirical cases of democracy, including the fi ve just mentioned (but not the European Union), that were selected for the comparative analysis are systematically introduced in Chapter 4. The ten institutional variables are then analyzed in greater depth in the nine chapters that comprise the bulk of this book (Chapters 5 to 13). Chapter 14 summarizes the results and places the thirty-six democracies on a two-dimensional “conceptual map” of democracy; it also analyzes shifts on the map over time and shows that most countries occupy stable positions on the map. Chapters 15 and 16 ask the “so what?” question: Does the type of democracy make a difference, especially with regard to effective policy-making and the quality of democracy? These chapters show that consensus democracies score signifi cantly higher 8 INTRODUCTION on a wide array of indicators of democratic quality and that they also have better records with regard to governing effectiveness, although the differences in this respect are not as large. Chapter 17 concludes with a look at the policy implications of the book’s fi ndings for democratizing and newly democratic countries.
