Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries

by Arend Lijphart

In this updated and expanded edition of his classic text, Arend Lijphart offers a broader and deeper analysis of worldwide democratic institutions than ever before. Examining thirty-six democracies during the period from 1945 to 2010, Lijphart arrives at important—and unexpected—conclusions about what type of democracy works best. Praise for the previous edition : "Magnificent. . . . The best-researched book on democracy in the world today."—Malcolm Mackerras, American Review of Politics "I can't think of another scholar as well qualified as Lijphart to write a book of this kind. He has an amazing grasp of the relevant literature, and he's compiled an unmatched collection of data."—Robert A. Dahl, Yale University "This sound comparative research . . . will continue to be a standard in graduate and undergraduate courses in comparative politics."— Choice

Genres: Politics, Political Science, Nonfiction, Academic, Law, History, International Relations

368 pages, Paperback

First published July 11, 1999

About the author

Arend d'Angremond Lijphart is a Dutch American political scientist specializing in comparative politics, elections and voting systems, democratic institutions, and ethnicity and politics. He is Research Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego. He is influential for his work on consociational democracy and his contribution to the new Institutionalism in political science.

Reviews

[✨ Helena ✨ · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was quite similar to some of his other works that I've read. Despite being informative, it was depressingly dry, as well. Good for educational purposes; poor for personal enjoyment.

[Aslihan · Rating 1 out of 5]

By far the most boring book I have read in a very long time! I assigned this book for my Comparative Politics course, because it covers democratic practice in 36 cases in its analysis, only that it does not reallt have an analysis. It starts out with a definition of demcoracy and the parameters that it will use to compare the 36 cases, then goes on to explain the choice of the cases. So far so good. But the thing is, it's sort of stating the obvious saying that pluralist systems are more democratic than majoritarian ones, federalist systems more democratic than unitary ones and so on. Not only that, but after lengthy and tedious 16 chapters, the last chapter says to establish a consensual democracy you need a consensual political culture! So you need to read all the quantitative abstractions only to find out that it's CULTURE that leads to a certain concensual democracy.
The essential problem is the detachment of American social sciences from the philosophical roots of European enlightenment to create a sui generis scientific paradigm that is purely objective and rational and positivist. But then you have much deeper problems. You don't suddenly become more scientific just because you rely heavily on numbers, you ignore historical background. You can't overcome Eurocentricism, Orientalism or any kind of ethnocentric, Western oriented thinking just by adding Botswana to your sample. I don't buy it. Institutional and cultural traditions cannot be reduced to a "bad news" that spoils your research, just the opposite, it's the icing on the cake, it's the thing that you can't reduce to numbers and you can't easily measure, that you should go after.

[Emily Ekins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book. It contrasts the political institutions across 36 countries. Arend is not at all objective however in his evaluation of consensual versus majoritarian institutions. He does a great job convincing us of why consensual governments are better, however he doesn't explain why any country would adopt majoritarian institutions. So essentially he lacks a cost benefit analysis of what either system is better. I guess I prefer when economist write political books because they do a much better job contrasting different options. (cause there is no such thing as a free lunch! :) )

[Oliver Bjørshol Eliassen · Rating 5 out of 5]

SAMPOL106 Bibelen

[Luna Vercruysse · Rating 2 out of 5]

supersaai omg

[Leopold Benedict · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably Lijphart's most influential book on the difference between a majoritarian (UK) and a consensual (Germany) democracy.

[Tobi ﾄﾋﾞ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lijphart presents a comparative analysis of democratic systems worldwide, distinguishing between majoritarian (Westminster) and consensus models. Examining thirty-six democracies from 1945 to 2010, Lijphart evaluates how institutional differences affect governance outcomes, including representation, policy effectiveness, and economic performance. The book offers a comprehensive framework for understanding the tradeoffs between different democratic structures.

Lijphart's comparative approach provides a detailed and a combination of quantitative and qualitative ideas to analyse democratic institutions and their performance. The distinction between majoritarian and consensus models is particularly useful for understanding the diversity of democratic governance. However, I definitely believe that the analysis might benefit from a deeper exploration of how cultural, historical, and social factors interact with institutional structures to shape democratic outcomes. Additionally, considering recent developments in global politics could enhance the relevance of the findings to contemporary democratic challenges. A difficult read, but absolutely inspiring and rewarding.

[Lea · Rating 2 out of 5]

Musst ich für die Uni lesen und NOP, das war ne Qual…

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 1 out of 5]

Personally I think there were some egregious examples of cherry picking in this one.

Any country with 'inappropriate values' just get removed from the analysis.

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Definitely something to have on the same shelf as Huntington's 1975 book: The Crisis of Democracy: On the Governability of Democracies

Huntington made a few points:

- a legitimation and governability crisis stemming from a loss of trust in government and in major nongovernmental institutions

- The democratic surge involved a more politically active citizenry, which developed increased ideological consistency on public issues, and which then lost its confidence in public institutions and leaders when governmental policies failed to correspond to what they desired

- a loss of trust at least in part on ideological development. Polarization over issues generated distrust about government, as those who had strong positions on issues became dissatisfied with the ambivalent, compromising policies of government. Thus strategies of compromise backfired.

- Huntington argues that political leaders, unable to win favor through their domestic policies, look to foreign policy achievements to rebuild their popularity.

[But the dynamics of this search for foreign policy achievements by democratic leaders lacking authority at home gives to dictatorships (communist party states or oil sheikdoms), which are free from such compulsions, a major advantage in the conduct of international relations]

- Huntington endorses the liberal consensus view: American society is characterized by a broad consensus on democratic, liberal, egalitarian values. For much of the time, the commitment to these values is neither passionate nor intense. During periods of rapid social change, however, these democratic and egalitarian values of the American creed are reaffirmed. The intensity of belief during such creedal passion periods leads to the challenging of established authority and to major efforts to change governmental structure to accord more fully with those values.

- Huntington’s theory of political cycles, which is implicitly a prescription for system restabilization:

a. Increased political participation leads to increased policy polarization within society

b. Increased policy polarization leads to increasing distrust and a sense of decreasing political efficacy among individuals

c. A sense of decreasing political efficacy lead to decreased political participation.”

- Discouragement and apathy are, for Huntington, desirable, since they facilitate smoother system management.

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The wilde Amazone

I can't understand why Lijphart is so highly praised.

The choice of 36 democracies that Lijphart wants to investigate is adventurous, not to say absurd.

To compare the 'democracy' in Trinidad and Tobago with Swedish democracy is daring and ultimately unfeasible.

Lijphart 'examines' democracies on two levels for which different variables are applied.

!!!!!!!!!!
All countries that produce inappropriate values as a result are removed from the analysis.
The recurring sentence in the book is: 'was removed from the analysis'
The author makes it very easy. What doesn't fit, flies out.
??????????

In addition, he draws up a thesis, but does not draw a conclusion. Rather, Lijphart avoids the outcome of his own investigation by suddenly beginning to speak of the “quality of democracy”.

He stresses again and again that consensus democracy is “the kinder and gentler democracy”.
Absolutely unscientific!

The entire work is inconclusive in itself.
The end of the book is completely confused.
Lijphart certainly had a good idea, but unfortunately it cannot be implemented.

Alex, Germany

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Excellent but not perfect

This book covers 36 democracies (according to the standards of Freedom House) with the purpose of distinguishing between majoritarian and consensus democracies and see which one is better in several fields. The "centralized vs federal" debate is also covered.

The classification of those countries is made using ten variables:
1) One party executives vs broad coalition cabinets

2) Cabinet dominance over the Parliament vs Executive-legislative balance of power

3) Two party system vs Multipartism

4) Disproportional vs Proportional representation

5) Multiple interest groups trying to influence the government vs Concentration of interests to pact with the government

6) Centralized government vs federalism

7) Unicameral vs bicameral legislative (one to represent citizens and another to represent territories)

8) Constitutional flexibility (is the constitution easy to reform by Parliament?) vs special majorities, referendum, etc.

9) Absence of judicial review (does the Parliament interpret the constitutionality of law?) vs Constitutional courts

10) Central bank controlled by the executive vs independence

There is roughly a chapter covering each of those variables. One of the points made by the book is that these variables tend to be clustered in two blocks: the first five variables in one block and the last five in the other. This allows the author to classify the 36 democracies in a two dimensional map.

Of the first five variables, being a country that by a large has the first option (for instance, a two party system) means that the country is majoritarian. The second would be a consensus democracy (in this example it would be a multiparty system).

Of the last five, the first option of each variable means centralization.

After explaining all that the author shows how do these countries perform in terms of: government effectiveness, control of corruption, GDP per capita growth, inflation, unemployment, budget balance, economic freedom, political stability, women representation, inequality, voter turnout, net social expenditure, environmental performance, incarceration rates, and some more.

The conclusion for most of them is that consensus democracy tends to perform better in almost any of these items, although usually not by a very large margin.

He also finds no significant differences in those performance measures when he compares centralized and decentralized countries.

The conclusion is that consensus is a better model and decentralization is irrelevant (so you can calmly choose a "federal" system if you think It's necessary for the stability of your country).

Personal comment:

Virtually no previous knowledge is required, any undergraduate could read this. It's full of useful data in lots of tables, but as said it is still very readable. The author gives you an explanation of everything he is going to analyze, why is it important and some of the problems measuring it.

There are nevertheless some shortcomings:

1) He measures performance of the two dimensions, that is, of five variables clustered together, but he doesn't address the question of how much difference do they individually make.

This is important because of the last five the unicameral vs bicameral and centralization vs decentralization seem to be far more relevant than the other three, and yet when clustered together they are given the same importance. The conclusion that centralization is irrelevant might be different if only those two variables are put together.

2) The definition of central bank independence is rather odd, and it doesn't really fit very well with the other two. The logic behind its inclusion is that more than decentralization what the second dimension tells you is how dispersed the power is.

The definition of independence, on the other hand, is odd because it mixes the goals of the Central Bank with whether It is independent from the executive. In particular, if a central bank is concerned not only with inflation but with unemployment also is considered to be less independent. While It's true that such a central bank has to design monetary policy coordinated with the executive, It's not at all clear that that would undermine It's independence.

3) When he studies the performance he removes outliers sometimes without sufficient explanation.

Furthermore, for economic variables such as unemployment, GDP per capita growth and inflation, he eliminates 5 to 16 countries out of 36!

So the chapters on performance and conclusions have to be read carefully. And I wouldn't consider that he proves his point in those fields.

4) The chosen period of the analysis is too short and too peaceful.

Basically it's the second half of the twentieth century. It has to be that way because there weren't many democracies before that, but you won't see these democracies under a lot of stress to see how they perform. (Happily)

5) The topic of the use of referendum is almost untouched even when the author recognizes that It should be considered a whole third dimension.

6) Some of the measures of both the ten variables and the performance variables don't have enough explanation.

However, you have the references of the studies of which they come from, so maybe not a big problem. For these shortcomings I give it four stars instead of five.

Pablo, Spain

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Trivia

Lijphart work on methodology drew on ideas developed by Neil Smelser. It was also the point of departure for the work by David Collier on the comparative method.

Neil Joseph Smelser (1930–2017) was an American sociologist who served as professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He was an active researcher from 1958 to 1994. His research was on collective behavior, sociological theory, economic sociology, sociology of education, social change, and comparative methods. Among many lifetime achievements, Smelser "laid the foundations for economic sociology."

David Collier (born February 17, 1942) is an American political scientist specializing in comparative politics. He is Chancellor's Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He works in the fields of comparative politics, Latin American politics, and methodology. His father was the anthropologist Donald Collier.

In The New Authoritarianism in Latin America (1979), Collier and several leading scholars in the field, explore alternative explanations for the rise of authoritarianism in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s. This work brought the literature on Latin American politics in dialogue with the modernization theory dominant in comparative politics at the time. Focusing on the fact that the most industrialized Latin American countries were not the more democratic ones, it articulated several critiques of the prevailing view of Third World politics put forth by modernization theorists (e.g., Seymour Martin Lipset). Thus, at a time when comparative politics sought to provide a general theory of politics in a way that largely disregarded insights developed by regional experts, Collier's New Authoritarianism provided an alternative, demonstrating that area studies could be a site of creative theorizing. Consequently, The New Authoritarianism in Latin America was a landmark study in the literature on national political regimes and in the study of politics in Latin America, and is one of the most cited political science texts on this region.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Arendt Lijphart's Patterns of Democracy was a massive undertaking. Using the 36 consolidated democracies which he was able to identify, he attempted no less than categorizing each of them on two axes to identify their degree of political consensuality or majoritarianism. He stumbles along the way more than just once, remaining self-admittedly vague when it comes to some issues such as party classifications or point scales for measuring different characteristics of federalism, and his statistics seem a bit curious at times, but overall his endeavor, especially at the time when it was produced, cannot be described as anything else than a success in the field of political science.

Lijphart makes a compelling point for consensus democracy, and why it is a sensible alternative to rigid majoritarianism that every government should at least consider. Continuing in the tradition of his Yale colleague Robert Dahl, his oeuvre proved to be fundamental in erecting the comparative politics subfield of quality of democracy studies that this work is so concerned with. Many questions remains to be answered when it comes to accurately measuring governmental responsiveness and representation, but Lijphart throws us a bone with plenty of meat to chew on.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfectly draws out the case for proportional representation and more open government. I read this book as my book report in my year of University while studying Politics. I was brought towards this book because I had heard of Lijphart (what a funny name) in my European Politics module and he seemed to have been an academic, although like many others, to analyse the mechanical effects of the very different systems in the Anglosphere and the European Continent; vast changes, from turnout to representation to styles of Governance. The book, too, explores all sorts of variables, although I'm rather surprised that, from memory, it had little to say about Presidentialism. If you are somebody who truly does not understand the appeal of electoral reform in countries like the UK, America, Canada and so on, this book will undoubtedly give you very few reasons to have very much regard for our current political proclivities.

[Anderson Paz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Esse é um dos estudos comparativos mais robustos entre democracias. Liphart se propõe a, por meio de 10 critérios agrupados em duas dimensões (executivo-partido e federal-unitária), realizar um estudo comparativo entre 36 democracias até o ano de 2010 (nessa edição). Para isso, o autor considera os modelos majoritário (de Westminster - governo conforme os interesses da maioria absoluta) e consensual (governo para o máximo de pessoas possível). Por meio de dados e regressões, o autor conclui que a democracia consensual, em geral, produz melhores resultados que a democracia majoritária, sendo mais gentil e branda que o modelo majoritário.

[Graham Cammock · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an awesome book! I love the methodological, almost mathematical way in which Arend Lijphart defines and explains the different forms of government around the world. In fact, there is a little mathematical formulae in this book. You really get to understand the structures of modern governments, such as the cabinet etc. This book is definitely worth a read!

[Pinko Palest · Rating 4 out of 5]

makes many interesting points, but is dry as dust. Really parched my throat trying to read this. But it is a very useful piece of work

[Şilan Jakab · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oldukça bilgilendirici bir kitap. Ampirik verilerle bezenmiş olması okumayı zorlaştırmakta. Adeta bir ders kitabı niteliğinde yazılmış bir eser. Lakin analizler oldukça kaliteli.

[Zebedy Pebedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found this book a little confusing. An analysis of 36 countries, based mainly in statistics and surveying countries through to lens/dimensions: executive-parties, federal-unitary. Lijphart uses 10 different factors to then classify countries as either majoritarian, consensus, or a mix.

The array of different numbers did go over my head, although I understood that Lijphart is left convinced that there is sufficient evidence to show clear benefits of consensus democracy over majoritarian (i.e. Westminster model) democracy. This is done carefully - more as a rejection that majoritarian politics has an inherent efficiency over consensus politics, than an affirmation of the latter. Lijphart is firmer on the idea that consensus politics has a deeper intrinsic value - it leads to a 'gentler, kinder form of politics'. This is a compelling argument - higher degree of representation, shift in focus to co-operation, etc.

There are some areas I questioned. On a fundamental basis, I'm unsure how much can really be taken away from this book - to what extent are the conclusions coloured by the fact that it might not be consensus v majoritarian systems causing the differences between these democracies? Lipjhart also dismisses the possibility that PR can lead to more extremist parties taking hold, which I think is a viable concern. Another point of issue is the fact that these 36 democracies are so different - Lipjhart himself acknowledges different outliers throughout the stats, and the fact that different international/geographical/ethnic situations will lead to different types of democracies. Put simply, I think that an attempt to introduce an objective framework amongst a constantly shifting, subjective group of countries is a difficult task.

Generally, I enjoyed the final 3 chapters (the 'so what' chapters) for proposing an argument, some of which was very convincing. Looking forward to studying this book in greater detail later.

[Michael Sypes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was really fantastic!
I'm not a political scientist, but an acquaintance who is recommended this to me when I posed two groups of questions that have long been of interest to me:
1. The US founding fathers had Britain's parliamentary system as a model democratic government yet chose to create something very different. Why? Similarly, lots of democracies have been created since then, and it seems that they, seeing both models, have mostly chosen the parliamentary path. Again, why? What advantages and disadvantages do each of these systems have versus the other?
2. When the US was founded, the senate would have had 26 senators and maybe 30 - 40 people in the House of Representatives. Twenty-six guys can get together and hash out policy in a way that a hundred can't, and there's no way 435 people can work together the way 30 - 40 can. I once read that human groups cannot remain cohesive beyond the 100 - 150 range. It's impossible for everyone to know everyone else beyond that scale. Has anyone ever designed a government system that takes that into account?

This book addresses the first question. Of course, my question is overly simple and naive. There's more complexity to these systems than what I've stated, and Lijphart does a great job of breaking that complexity down into a 2-dimensional spectrum of majoritarianism vs consensualism. The majority of the book delves into the divers factors that distinguish modern democracies and then briefly describes the benefits, which somewhat surprisingly all fall in favor of the latter.
I thought a lot of the math was nonsense, claiming correlations with coefficients that I, as a natural scientist, would never give credence to, but I really liked the analysis of the variations seen. I highly recommend this book to those who ask, "How do they run things in other countries?" You'll see there's a great multitude of variety in how modern democracies run themselves.

[Max · Rating 5 out of 5]

To start with the negative: the book is written in a somewhat dry fashion. It basically reads as a long paper published in a journal like the Journal of Political Economy. This includes extensive discussion of methodologies and robustness tests. I myself just glanced over these parts.

That being said, this book provides an excellent framework on how to compare the different governmental designs nations across the world have come up with. It is an excellent study of the benefits of majoritarian democracies compared to consensus-driven democracies. Lijphart studies ten variables (split into two groups) that are used to classify democracies, with ample discussion and examples of each variable.

Would recommend to anyone who is interested in thinking about constitutional design

[Will Spohn · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the most poorly written books I have read. It is my understanding that it is a translation, however, that does not make up for it. Content aside, this books made me angry because of how poorly written it was. As far as the content, the author doesn’t seem to offer any shocking conclusions. While I find it good for introductory purposes, it is extremely dry.

[Jake · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aspects of this book are undoubtedly brilliant. It is a much needed peice of comparative politics that is effective in finding a pattern in the seemingly diverse democracies of the world. It has one major problem though, it is almost unreadable dry. This is not altogether unexpected from a book based on data analysis of technical political systems, however something could have been done to make it marginally more readable.

What is interesting is quite how much has changed in the past 7 years. The book would be even more interesting with another update in 2024. It is this solidifying and comparing the evolution of democracy that makes this book so useful.

A book to read for the experienced political science nerd, not for the weak hearted, but with some useful chapters.

[Joseph Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must-read for anybody interested in political science, particularly the sub-field of comparative politics. Although Lijphart is not, perhaps, the most gifted of writers, his conclusions are of the utmost significance.

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed this as I wanted to expand my understanding of democracy.

[Iona · Rating 4 out of 5]

Too biased towards consensus but the empirical evidence does favour consensus so I can reason with this.

[Caleb Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lijphart has done well to keep his book updated with new editions, keep it ever-relevant and completely necessary for any political scientist.

[Gustė Vaivilavičiūtė · Rating 4 out of 5]

skaitau, galvoju knyga apie politika yra saugi zona, math-free zona. klydau, atradau daug formulių. visas jas nufotkinau, galiu atsiųst, PM

[Gus]

A great empirical study comparing and contrasting majoritarian and consensus democracy.

[Paul Furey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actually not that coma inducing

[Reko Wenell · Rating 2 out of 5]

I certainly learned stuff and it was interesting to see this sort of a social science analysis done, but it was not an enjoyable read.

[Walter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pulled it out in the end highkey fire

[Liam Peterson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Incredibly informative, exceptionally dry, and painfully challenging to read at points