Abstract
This contribution builds on the work of the group of comparativists, Gerhard Lehmbruch among them, who took up the challenge to study the various forms in which the normative principles of democracy have been implemented in the real world. More specifically, it builds on the basic distinction between majoritarian and proportional systems that has been at the core of their reflections ever since the late 1960s when this distinction has been systematically introduced for the first time. In replicating Arend Lijphart’s original analysis for a larger set of countries, I first try to show that his focus on established democracies led him to neglect the liberal dimension of liberal democracy. Second, singling out the case of Switzerland, a case of particular interest to the distinction between majoritarian and proportional systems, it argues that Switzerland is special for reasons which have not been properly appreciated by the comparativists outside of Switzerland: as a matter of fact, it is not the paradigmatic case of a consensus democracy, but it is special because of its direct-democratic institutions in combination with its exceptional degree of federalism in a rather small country.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Seven of the countries studied by Lijphart are not (yet) documented in the democracy barometer: Bahamas, Barbados, Botswana, Jamaica, Mauritius, Papua New Guinea, and Trinidad and Tobago.
- 3.
There are several other indicators in the democracy barometer which could have been used to characterize this dimension (e.g. the ‘freedom of speech’, the ‘adequate representation of women’, or the ‘effective unconventional participation’ as an indicator of the effective use of the freedom to associate, and of the effective use of freedom of speech), but they would not have added any greater precision to what it is intended to measure.
- 4.
Following Vatter (2009), I add an indicator for fiscal federalism. Indicators for judicial review, central bank independence, and constitutional rigidity have been dropped, however. Central bank independence is not inherently related to federalism, nor is judicial review. The democracy barometer does not include a measure for constitutional rigidity.
- 5.
With the exception of Gallagher’s index of disproportionality, these indicators are not the same as the ones used by Lijphart. Partly, I try to improve on Lijphart (by replacing the much criticized measure of cabinet duration (Tsebelis 2002: 110) with an indicator for constitutional control of the executive by parliament, and by not including a measure characterizing the system of interest associations as critics (Roller 2005: 111f.) had suggested, too), partly I am constrained by the indicators available in the democracy barometer (no indicator for minimal winning coalitions, but indicators for the number of parties in the coalition and for their share of seats in parliament), partly the indicators Lijphart used did not appear to be part of the dimension in the larger sample analyzed here (the effective number of parties).
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Kriesi, H. (2015). Varieties of Democracy: ‘Proporzdemokratie’, ‘Consensus Democracy’, Liberal Democracy and Direct Democracy. In: Schneider, V., Eberlein, B. (eds) Complex Democracy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15850-1_2
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