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Taking the multidimensionality of democracy seriously: institutional patterns and the quality of democracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 May 2015

Julian Bernauer ,
Marc Bühlmann ,
Adrian Vatter  and
Micha Germann
Julian Bernauer
Affiliation:
Institute of Political Science, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Marc Bühlmann*
Affiliation:
Année Politique Suisse, Institute for Political Science, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Adrian Vatter
Affiliation:
Institute of Political Science, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Micha Germann
Affiliation:
ETH Zurich and Centre for Democracy Studies Aarau, Villa Blumenhalde, Aarau, Switzerland
*
*E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Democracies come in all shapes and sizes. Which configuration of political institutions produces the highest democratic quality is a notorious debate. The lineup of contenders includes ‘consensus’, ‘Westminster’, and ‘centripetal’ democracy. A trend in the evaluation of the relationship between empirical patterns of democracy and its quality is that the multidimensional nature of both concepts is increasingly taken into account. This article tests the assertion that certain centripetal configurations of proportionality in party systems and government, and unitarism in the remaining state structure, might outperform all other alternatives both in terms of inclusiveness and effectiveness. Analyzing 33 democracies, the results of interactive regression models only partially support this claim. Proportional–unitary democracies have the best track record in terms of representation, but there are little differences in participation, transparency, and government capability compared with other models.

Keywords

patterns of democracyconsensus democracymajoritarian democracyquality of democracycentripetalism
Type
Research Article
Information
European Political Science Review , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , August 2016 , pp. 473 - 494
Copyright
© European Consortium for Political Research 2015 

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