Consensus democracies are inferior to majoritarian democracies.

Discuss whether this

statement is empirically convincing.

Creating a stable and effective democratic system for a newly democratised state is a difficult task.
gh discusses the difficulties Hungary has faced over the last three decades whilst switching
between a predominately consensual and majoritarian democracy (gh, 2001, pp. 89 -112). Even
today, the Hungarian democracys accountability is regularly called into question (see Jovanovski,
2013, and Rose-Ackerman, 2007, pp. 34-46). Political theorists analyse and compare democratic
systems in order to advise states such as Hungary, one which is struggling to establish a stable and
effective democratic system, which type of democracy, for example either majoritarian or
consensual, works best.

This essay will conclude that the terms majoritarian democracy and consensus democracy are
difficult to apply empirically to modern democracies; many democracies have both majoritarian
and consensual democratic characteristics. There also lacks sufficient empirical evidence that
democracies with more majoritarian characteristics are superior to more consensual democracies.
Consensus democracies typically have higher voter turnout than majoritarian democracies and
have more minority views represented in parliament, both of which are beneficial for democracy.
This essay is split into three main sections. In section one, the extent to which Lijpharts
democratic model creating consensus and majoritarian democracies is useful and applicable
empirically is analysed. The second section focuses on levels of turnout within consensus and
majoritarian democracies; Tavits conclusion that majoritarian democracies always tend to have a
median voter skewed towards the right (Tavits, 2004, p. 345) is scrutinized. Section three
demonstrates how all the strengths majoritarian democracies obtain by reducing minority
representation in parliament tend to cut both ways. Consensus democracies, although having a

slower legislative process, incorporate a larger scope of views than majoritarian democracies,
creating a more representative and therefore a more democratic government.

By creating the majoritarian and consensus democracy typology, Lijphart attempted to perform
the difficult task of simplifying a complex political phenomenon (Lehnert, 2007, pp. 62-79). The
attributes linked to each typology are outlined in the table below.

Table 1: Lijpharts typology of democracies

Majoritarian Model

Consensus Model
Executive/parties dimension

Single-party majority governments

Multi-party coalitions

Dominant executive

Power balance executive-legislative

Two-party system

Multiparty system

Majoritarian Electoral System

Proportional Representation

Pluralism

Corporatism
Federal - Unitary Dimension

Unitary, centralized government

Federal, decentralized government

Unicamerlism

Bicameralism

Flexible constitutions

Rigid Constitutions

Parliamentary sovereignty

Judicial Review

Central Banks under executive control

Independent Central Banks

Source: Lijphart (1984, 1999).

Critics of Lijphart argue that his typology fails to reflect how complex democratic systems can be.
As Table 1 indicates, each typology has numerous characteristics assigned to it and each
characteristic is too specific. Due to the typologys lack of generality, it is difficult for political
analysts to find a democracy which encompasses only the majoritarian democratic attributes or

only the consensual ones. Bormann summarises the main difficulty for those trying to determine
which typology is superior by stating the question is whether democracies can be reduced to
electoral rules (Bormann, 2010, p. 4). The Swedish democracy for example, although first
appearing to be a consensus democracy, has demonstrated majoritarian characteristics in the past,
such as the grand coalitions during the First World War (Lewin, 1998, pp. 201-202). The United
States, although generally regarded as a majoritarian democracy, has given various federal powers
to states. However, whenever a typology becomes more generalised, a trade-off is involved.
Although a generalised typology will have more specific empirical examples to support it, it will
also provide less value to comparative political analysts because its discriminatory capacity is
reduced (Fuchs, 2000, as cited by Lehnert 2007, p. 64). Despite its setbacks, Lijpharts typology
presents two contrasting ways to practice democracy. Within the field of comparative politics,
being able to split countries into typologies such as the one Lijphart presents is useful; its
stringency makes placing states into certain categories easier, and therefore makes the states
easier to compare. For this reason, the United States and Sweden will be used as empirical
examples of majoritarian and consensus democracies respectively throughout this essay. Despite
showing attributes from the opposite typology, they are both close examples to Lijpharts
typologies as lined out by Table 1.

Theoretically, a superior democratic system will have a high voter turnout as high turnout creates
a representative and legitimate democracy. Countries struggling to engage the electorate in the
political process have generally created a perception that politics, and by extension democracy, is
no longer something that belongs to the citizens; instead it is something that is done by
politicians (Mair, 2005, p. 21). Lijphart writes, Consensus democracies have approximately 7.5
percentage points higher turnout than majoritarian democracies (Lijphart, 1999, p. 285). This
trend continues today, with Swedish voter turnout in 2010 being 21 percentage-points higher than

the 2008 American presidential elections (Idea.int, 2013). Tavits goes further and shows how
these contrasting turnout levels between consensus and majoritarian democracies have a further
consequence: they influence where on the political scale a democratic regime will be. Tavits used
a small-n within his case study (comparing only Sweden and the United States) to generate an indepth hypotheses. As shown in Figure 1, your socio-economic background was a huge influence on
whether you turn out to vote in the United States. Although the highly educated and middle-class
were highly likely to vote, voters on the extreme left, such as those within the working-class or the
less educated, were 25% and 38% less likely to vote respectively. Contrastingly, socio-occupational
classification does not affect whether a Swedish voter is likely to vote as much. From this, Tavits
concludes that the nature of voter turnout in majoritarian democracies tends to make the median
voter skewed towards the right (Tavits, 2004, p. 345) whereas the median voter in consensus
democracies, such as in Sweden, are more likely to be reflective of the entire electorate.

Figure 1: Percentage point difference between voter turnout in Sweden and United States by
Socio-occupational classification

Source: Burnham, 1978, as cited by Tavits, 2004, p.344.

The statistics Tavits uses to support his theory were from over thirty years ago. Therefore, more
recent empirical evidence must be analysed to validate whether Tavits theory remains applicable
today.

Figure 2: Percentage point difference between likelihood of voting according to socio-economic

classification, 2001-2011

Source: Module 2 and 3 of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), 2001-2011 as cited
by OECD, 2011.
The data in Figure 2 gives an indication of voter turnout trends within certain socio-economic
groupings more recently. The data indicates, with the gap in likelihood of turnout between
contrasting sectors in society being higher in United States than in Sweden, that Tavits hypothesis
is applicable even today. The results presented in Figure 2, however, should be treated with
caution, since data from surveys may be different from official voter turnouts (OECD, 2011). Like
Tavits, Pacek and Radcliff also conclude that depleting turnout has made democracy lean towards
the right (Pacek and Radcliff, 1995, pp. 137-143). We can draw from all this empirical evidence
that consensus democracies enjoy a higher turnout, having successfully engaged the electorate in
the democratic process, and consequently will create a government which is more reflective of the
electorate.

Minority parties have great difficulty gaining seats in majoritarian democratic governments,
especially compared to minority parties in consensus democracies. As shown in Table 1,
majoritarian democracies typically have two-party systems. Consequently, debates over policies
are conducted between the two main parties within power, meaning minority views are seldom
included in the decision making process. In the United States, no parties other than the Democrats
and Republicans have representation in the House of Representatives and only two other parties
are within the Senate (Office of the Clerk, 2013). Contrastingly, over a third of the Riksdag1, as
shown in Figure 3, is made up of minority parties. This ensures that minority views are
represented in the decision making process.
Figure 3: Parties Represented in the Riksdag, 2013

Source: Riksdagen.se, 2013.

The advantages majoritarian democracies gain in reducing minority representation in the decision
making process tend to cut both ways, as will be demonstrated in the following two examples.
Firstly, defenders of majoritarian democracy will argue that two-party systems have a superior
system of accountability. The governments opposition and minority parties, although excluded
1

The national legislative assembly and the supreme decision-making body in the Kingdom of Sweden.

from the decision making process, criticise the government and ensure that the government
remains legitimate. Lewin, however, argues that consensus democracies promote legitimacy in a
different way. Although accountability is a term that rarely comes into the political literature
surrounding consensus democracies, the theme of legitimacy is a prevailing one. Lewin writes
that by including the opposition in the decision-making process, the government is supposed to
be regarded as representative for the people as a whole (Lewin, 1998, p. 203). This links to the
second defence put forward for majoritarian-democracies, that by having fewer views involved in
the decision-making process, the legislative and reform process tends to be faster. Bovens, Hart
and Peters demonstrate that consensus democracies tend not to be very reactive to
circumstances (Bovens, Hart and Peters, 2001, pp. 18-19). Although only eight countries are
included in this study, the idea that consensus democracies tend to take longer to pass legislation
is a consistent one throughout Comparative Politics (see Armingeon, 2002 and Schmidt, 2002).
This is to be expected since more opinions have to be incorporated into the process. Consensus
democracies instead aim to the fulfil the will of the people as a whole by collaborating with a wide
scope of views, hoping to implement policies and reforms which will be long term (even if this
takes longer); this creates stability. Majoritarian governments see incumbents raising spending,
and abolishing previous policies; long term policies are rarely implemented as a consequence,
creating instability. The stability of consensus democracies and instability of majoritarian
democracies is clearly indicated in Bjar and Mukherjees study of level of spending volatility
within democracies. Their study, including 111 countries analysed between 1960 and 2007,
concludes that government spending in majoritarian democracies grew at an average rate of 5.6
percent every year whereas PR democracies saw a growth rate of just 1.1 percent (Bjar and
Mukherjee, 2011, p. 469).

Three conclusions are made within this essay. Firstly, Lijpharts typologies hold analytical value for
comparative political analysts, due to their stringency and ability to categorise democracies.
Secondly, consensus democracies enjoy a higher turnout therefore are more legitimate, and
reflective of the electorate. Thirdly, all advantages majoritarian democracies gain from removing
minority views from the decision-making process are teamed with drawbacks. Despite the findings
of section two and section three, labels such as consensus and majoritarian democracy will not
necessarily help political analysts effectively pinpoint what makes a superior or inferior democracy.
The labels themselves have proven to be inaccurate, with few democracies embodying what
Lijphart believed it meant to be wholly consensual or majoritarian. I believe political theorists and
analysts should focus more on the nature of a states parliamentary history, and suggest
parliamentary attributions accordingly, with help from previous empirical cases, regardless of
whether these attributions are considered consensual or majoritarian. Examples of countries
incorporating various aspects of the typology not typically attributed to them have already been
presented in this essay. Democracies should experiment with various methods of governance in
order to develop their democracy further and to see whether their democracy can be changed for
the better.

1635 words

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