Patterns of Democracy
Subtitle: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: July 11, 1999
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 368
ISBN-13: 9780300078947
Subjects: Political economy; Political structures: democracy; Democracy; Political Science; Politics / Current Events; Politics/International Relations; Reference; Political Science / Reference; Political Ideologies - Democracy; Comparative Government
First sentence: There are many ways in which, in principle, a democracy can be organized and run; in practice, too, modern democracies exhibit a variety of formal governmental institutions, like legislatures and courts, as well as political party and interest group systems.
Description: "In this updated and expanded edition of his book Democracies, Arend Lijphart offers a broader and deeper analysis of worldwide democratic institutions than ever before. Examining thirty-six democracies during the half-century from 1945 to 1996, Lijphart arrives at important - and unexpected - conclusions about what type of democracy works best.

Although conventional wisdom suggests that majoritarian democracies like those in the United States and Great Britain are superior to consensual systems like those in Switzerland and Israel, Lijphart shows this is not so. In fact, consensual systems stimulate economic growth, control inflation and unemployment, and limit budget deficits just as well as majoritarian democracies do.

And consensus democracies clearly outperform majoritarian systems on measures of political equality, women's representation, citizen participation in elections, and proximity between government policies and voter preferences."--BOOK JACKET.