Patterns of democracy reconsidered: The ambiguous relationship between corporatism and consensualism

Abstract

Lijphart's Patterns of Democracy, similar to most of his work, elicited fierce scientific debate. We replicate some of the analyses proposed in its second edition (2012) in the light of the critiques of the first edition (2009). We primarily examine the relationship between institutional setup and interest group representation, disentangling the effect of consensualism from that of corporatism on issues such as macroeconomic performance and governance capabilities. We further deepen our understanding of the complex causal mechanisms connecting these variables, proposing a more sophisticated empirical investigation that emphasizes selection effects and conjunctural causation.

Electoral Rules, Labor Market Coordination and Macroeconomic Performance

“…Our study parallels a smaller literature criticizing and re-investigating the findings of Lijphart (1999) Lijphart's 'Consensus Democracy' concept is encompassing, capturing political-institutional characteristics such as electoral and party systems, but also corporatist economic institutions. Anderson (2001) and Giuliani (2016) criticize Lijphart for including corporatism, and find that the residual effects of consensus democracy on inflation and unemployment vanish once accounting for corporatism. Our analysis differs from these studies.…”

“…We re‐investigate these relationships using cross‐country time‐series data. We propose a simple, but important, adjustment to extant studies: Paralleling studies that disentangle effects of (the broader concepts) ‘Consensus Democracy’ and ‘Corporatism’ (Anderson ; Giuliani ), we simultaneously account for electoral system and labor market institutions. Given their strong interrelationship, failing to do so could bias regression coefficients for electoral systems and labor market institutions on, respectively, inflation, unemployment and economic growth.…”

Rethinking Consensus vs. Majoritarian Democracy

“…Anderson (2001) shows that any macroeconomic benefits of consensus democracy were due solely to two of its components -corporatism and central bank independence (which were the only two components added in 1999 compared to the 1984 book). Similarly, Giuliani (2016) argues that corporatism is a separate concept from consensualism, and empirically demonstrates that all of the alleged benefits of consensus democracy for macroeconomic performance are due solely to corporatism.…”

Conflict, choice or geography? Explaining patterns of democracy in continental Europe

“…1. See Anderson and Guillory (1997), Armingeon (2002), Bernauer and Vatter (2012), Gerring and Thacker (2008), Lijphart (1999Lijphart ( , 2012 and Roller (2005) Lijphart's (2012) concepts of consensus and majoritarian democracy, and in particular the inner logic and stability of politicalinstitutional configurations, are subject to critical scrutiny (Ganghof 2012;Giuliani 2016;Taagepera 2003). 3.…”

“…A number of studies challenge Lijphart's () conclusion that consensus democracy outperforms majoritarian democracy (see, e.g., Roller ; Schmidt ). Furthermore, Lijphart's () concepts of consensus and majoritarian democracy, and in particular the inner logic and stability of political‐institutional configurations, are subject to critical scrutiny (Ganghof ; Giuliani ; Taagepera ).…”