The Calculus of Consensus Democracy Rethinking Patterns of Democracy Without Veto Players

We present a theory of comparative political institutions based on the concept of consensus democracy and social choice theory. Unlike Lijphart, we argue that “consensus democracy” is not a special form of democracy characterized by mutual vetoes, but rather the simplest form of democracy, which we...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inComparative political studies Vol. 46; no. 7; pp. 823 - 850
Main Authors McGann, Anthony J., Latner, Michael
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.07.2013
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
Democracy
Government spending
Governmental reform
Welfare
institutions
consensus
proportional representation
veto players
democracy
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Summary:We present a theory of comparative political institutions based on the concept of consensus democracy and social choice theory. Unlike Lijphart, we argue that “consensus democracy” is not a special form of democracy characterized by mutual vetoes, but rather the simplest form of democracy, which we refer to as PR-majority rule. We construct a typology of political institutions based on differences with this simple model. Contra Tsebelis’s veto players approach, our theory predicts that PR-majority rule should be the most flexible form of democracy. We test this with data on overall patterns of government spending and on welfare state reform.
ISSN:0010-4140
1552-3829
DOI:10.1177/0010414012463883