Suchergebnisse

Scholarly experts can be more helpful to democratic constitution-writers in ethnically divided countries by formulating specific recommendations than by overwhelming them with a barrage of options. Especially the following deserve the highest priority and should be the points of departure in constitutional negotiations: elections by proportional representation (specifically, closed-list proportional representation in not overly large districts), a parliamentary form of government, a cabinet in which power-sharing is prescribed in ethnic or partisan terms, a constructive vote of no confidence, a head of state elected by parliament or whose office is combined with the prime minister's, federalism and decentralization, a federal chamber that is less powerful than the lower house and in which the smaller states are only slightly over-represented, publicly funded autonomous schools for religious groups, and little or no use of the referendum.

Consociational theory, launched in the 1960s, at first focused mainly on the "classic" European cases, but was soon also applied as an analytical tool &/or a normative model to many other small & large countries in all parts of the world. It has been refined & improved as a result of the constructive interaction among consociational scholars. Its prominence in comparative politics has also been underscored by the frequency & intensity with which many critics have attacked it in prominent political science journals. As an empirical phenomenon, consociationalism has declined since the late 1960s in Austria, Germany, Luxembourg, & the Netherlands, but is has remained strong in multilingual Switzerland & has increased in strength in linguistically split Belgium. 1 Table, 30 References. Adapted from the source document.

Abstract. In spite of a large number of disagreements concerning methodological and classificatory questions between Klaus Armingeon and myself, our substantive conclusions are very similar. Armingeon concludes that all three aspects of his negotiation democracy (consociationalism, corporatism, and counter‐majoritarian institutions) result in superior government performance in selected areas – a finding that I interpret as supportive of my similar claims for the executives‐parties dimension of consensus democracy (which consists of consociationalism plus corporatism) as well as for the federal‐unitary dimension (which is the same as Armingeon's counter‐majoritarian institutions). We are therefore also in broad agreement on the advice we can give to democratic constitutional engineers.

Over a period of about 40 years, my thinking has evolved from undiluted admiration for British-style majoritarianism to an overall preference for the contrasting consensus (& consociational) models of democracy. I agree that consensus democracy has some drawbacks, but these are outweighed by its many & strong advantages. Majoritarian democracy may offer greater accountability, but this advantage does not translate into close government-voter proximity, & in practice often fails to enable voters to dismiss governments of which they disapprove. Right-wing populism in consensus democracies is probably less attributable to the lack of competition among the major parties than to the opportunity that proportional representation offers small parties to get elected, & its dangers should not be exaggerated. Finally, parties in Western democracies continue to be significantly divided on many crucial policy issues, contrary to my 1968 prediction. 15 References. Adapted from the source document.

The concept of consociational democracy - synonymous with the less polysyllabic and more readily understandable term power-sharing democracy - can be defined in terms of the four elements of grand coalition, autonomy, proportionality, and mutual veto, and it is preferable not to narrow it by including plural society as a fifth element. It is closely related to, but not coterminous with, the concept of consensus democracy. Both can be used for empirical as well as normative purposes. The comparative evidence shows convincingly that consociational and consensus democracy can make a vital contribution to democratic stability in deeply divided societies - a finding that has significant policy implications.