Consensus and majoritarian distinction

Definition of consensus democracy

• A model of governance with a focus on dispersal of power.

• Characterised through executive power sharing - multi-party systems, PR, and negotiation/compromise.

Definition of majoritarian democracy

• Governance system in which decision-making power within the hands of a dominant executive.

• Characterised through single-party systems, centralised government, and often disproportional majoritarian voting systems.

My operationalisation of effectiveness (based on Ljiphart’s)

• Legislative efficacy

• Macroeconomic indicators

• Political stability

• Representation

  • Female representation

• Political outcomes

  • Environmental policy

• Public political participation

Conventional wisdom + Ljiphart’s challenge

• Associates majoritarianism with efficient/decisive government.

• Ljiphart challenges this implied trade-off between quality and effectiveness of democratic government between consensus democracy and majoritarian democracy.

Exec-parties variables

1. Single-party majority vs broad multiparty coalition cabinets

2. Dominant exec in legislature vs balance of power.

3. Two-party vs multiparty systems.

4. Majoritarian vs PR

5. Pluralist interest group and competition systems vs “corporatist” interest group systems aimed at compromise and concertation.

Federal-unitary variables

1. Unitary + centralized govt vs federal + decentralized govt.

2. Unicameral legislature vs bicameral with equal strengths.

3. Flexible constitutions vs rigid constitutions.

4. Legislatures have the final word vs laws are subject to judicial review

5. Dependent on exec CBs vs independent CBs.

What did ljiphart do?

• Regression analyses on 36 democracies

• Controls: economic development, population size, and social divisions.

• Conc: consensus democracy has a highly favourable impact on performance indicators for a govt, compared to majoritarian, specifically in the executive-parties dimension, encouraging “kinder and gentler” governance.

Effective decision making

• Consensus had the better record on 16/17, with statistical significance for 9/16.

  • Only in per capita growth between 1991-2009 did majoritarian democracies outperform consensus - not to a statistically significant degree.

• Average consensus democracy scores 0.25 points higher on government effectiveness, almost a whole point higher on corruption indexes, and 0.4 to 0.7 points higher on measures of violence than the average majoritarian democracy.

Why was majoritarian govt deemed effective?

• Mistaken understanding of majoritarian democracies - concentrated power in exec, so faster decision-making ≠ wise decision-making.

  • The introduction of a poll tax in Britain in 1990 under Thatcher was the product of fast decision-making, having disastrous consequences as a result.

• Alternation of govts under majoritarian systems damages economic outcomes (political/economic instability) by creating a pattern of negation as the incumbent party is replaced with the opposition.

Why is consensus potentially more effective?

• Consensus democracy maintains civil peace in divided societies, encouraging conciliation and compromise by including several groups in decision-making.

  • Policy likelier to be centrist and stable, supported by a plurality of voters (not just a small subset of the population).

• Suggestive evidence that the decisiveness-inclusiveness trade-off is false.

Democratic quality

• Average consensus democracy had very strong highly statistically significant effects on 4/5 measures of democratic quality, scoring more than 0.5 points higher than the average majoritarian democracy.

• Consensus democracies have a better record than majoritarian on all measures of democratic quality used by Ljiphart, at a statistically significant level. Supports claim that consensus delivers higher quality of democratic outcomes.

Representation

• Women were better represented by ~8 points in the average consensus democracy than in the average majoritarian democracy.

Political equality

• The average consensus democracy has a Gini index that is >9 points lower than the average majoritarian democracy, indicating lower levels of inequality in consensus democracies.

Satisfaction with democracy

• Ave consensus has a voter turnout that is >7 points higher than the turnout in the average majoritarian democracy, when controlling for frequency of elections and multitude of electoral choices.

EVAL 1: how significant were effects?

• Most effects were only significant on the executive-parties dimension.

  • Analyses on the federal-unitary dimension failed to provide positive results, often giving weak, statistically insignificant relationships or even unfavourable ones.

  • Any explanatory power for effectiveness of consensus comes from exec-parties dimension.

EVAL 2: Westminster model

• The typology risks reifying ideal types.

  • Use of the “Westminster model” as the exemplar of majoritarianism.

  • Citing an ambiguous term Russell & Serban (2021), arguably referring to a cultural and historical phenomenon rather than an empirically established benchmark for comparative analysis, suggests that majoritarianism is not a singular, consistent, or highly effective model, but rather a set of often mismatched, flexible features - estimated effects are fragile.

EVAL 3: Westminster model example

• Even consensus democracy may not be characterised by consensus, as proven by Namibia and South Africa, in which consensual institutions still return dominant-party systems (Bogaards, 2017). If his model exists only within an ideal realisation of democracies, the problem with his classification then is that it is conceptual, not empirical (Coppedge, 2018).

EVAL 4: Representation

• Flawed assessment of representation.

  • By only looking at representation of women in political systems, he assumed that this could serve as an indirect proxy of how well minorities are generally represented.

EVAL 5: Causality

• Ljiphart glosses over causality.

  • He doesn’t adequately consider the effect of prior social trust and political culture on type of democracy set up.

  • Perhaps consensus institutions were set up because of corporatism and lack of social cleavages to exist, creating a correlation, but not a causal relationship.

EVAL 6: Corporatism

• Many economic outcomes attributed to consensus institutions were driven by corporatism instead; when separated from “executive-parties” dimension, these supposed benefits of consensus democracies would lessen.

  • Giuliani (2016) found that corporatism allowed for concrete inclusion rather than theoretical representation within simply consensual decision-making processes.

  • Perhaps there are more than just 2 classifications of types of democracy.

EVAL 7: 3rd dimension?

• Vatter (2009) suggests a third dimension of democracy exists.

  • Direct democracy in Switzerland suggests that governments can use corporatist elements, combined with oversized cabinets to broaden their support.

  • Political polarisation or homogeneity and maturity of a democracy may affect its stability and overall effectiveness.

    • Proposed effects of consensus democracy could be attributed to other factors. Ljiphart’s 2D map is insubstantial to delineate nuances in democratic performance.

EVAL 8: Environmental policy

• Poloni-Straudinger - environmental policy for consensus tends to be more mundane and centrist - lots of parties involved dampens potentially greater strides in policy so green parties usually can only make small impact.

Duverger’s Law

• In support of Ljiphart - Majoritarian electoral system tends to produce 2-party system

  • Small parties disincentivised to form because they have great difficulty winning seats or representation.

  • Voters restrain from voting for smaller party whose policies they actually favour because they do not want to waste their votes → gravitate to one of the 2 major parties that is more likely to achieve a plurality.

Poloni-Staudinger 1

• Consensus democracies measured on the executive-parties dimension are positively correlated with increased mundane environmentalism (everyday, routine environmental policies) but negatively correlated with conservation-orientated policies.

  • Wider range of parties included under PR, so substantive representation increases, but number of veto players does too, decreasing likelihood of costly or polarising conservation legislation.

Poloni-Staudinger 2

• Effect of consensus institutions on the federal-unitary dimension are positively correlated with both mundane environmentalism and conservation. Devolved power/decentralisation means greater responsiveness to local environmental concerns. By

Different explanatory mechanism + different effect, so distinction is limited in explaining political outcomes when treated dichotomously.

MY OPINION

• Ljiphart’s distinction alone is inadequate; advantages are often also outlined by party-system fragmentation, bargaining institutions (like corporatism), and social cleavages.

  • “is it a cluster of features, or individual political institutions such as corporatism?” (Bogaards)

  • Consensus democracy itself may not be a practically coherent type of democracy, but rather one that combines distinct logics: “power-sharing and power-division” (Bogaards).

NI

Consociationalism