1

Representation and Accountability

Jacques Thomassen

1.1 Introduction

This volume addresses the contrast between the view that elections are a
mechanism to hold government accountable and the view that they are a
means to ensure that citizens’ views and interests are properly represented in
the democratic process. It intends to explore how far this contrast and its
embodiment in institutional structures influence vote choice, political par-
ticipation, and satisfaction with the functioning of the system of political
representation and democracy in general. The volume is mainly based on
data from the second module of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems
(CSES) which had the same purpose.1 In this introduction we will further
expand on these different models of democracy and summarize how the fol-
lowing chapters contribute to our knowledge of the effects of different insti-
tutional arrangements on people’s political behaviour and their evaluation of
the functioning of democracy.
Ever since Schumpeter defined ‘the democratic method’ as ‘that institu-
tional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals
acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the peo-
ple’s vote’ (Schumpeter 1976, 1942), there is a broad consensus that competi-
tive elections are the identifying property of the contemporary democratic
process (Powell 2000).
However, as much consensus there is on the importance of competitive
elections for democracy, so little agreement there is on the precise function of
elections. Different theories of political representation have different views
on this. Most modern conceptions of democracy agree that the basic function
of elections is to connect the policy preferences of the people to public policy.

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Jacques Thomassen

However, they differ in what is meant by ‘the people’ and in the mechanism
that is supposed to connect the policy preferences of the people to govern-
ment policy. The two main views of democracy are the majoritarian and the
consensus or proportional view of democracy (Lijphart 1984; Lijphart 1999;
Huber and Powell 1994; Powell 2000). According to Lijphart (1984: 4) the
main characteristic of the majoritarian view is that when the people are in
disagreement and have divergent preferences, the government should pri-
marily be responsive to the majority of the people. In the consensus view
government policy should be responsive to as many people as possible. These
different principles lead to different views on the function of elections and
are embodied in different political institutions.
In this volume we focus on the distinction between the majoritarian and
consensus models of democracy. These models are the embodiment in insti-
tutional structures of the two different views of democracy and reflect a dif-
ferent view on the functions of elections.2 In the majoritarian view the single
most important function of an election is the selection of a government. It
requires that the voters have a clear choice between two competing (groups
of) parties. The concentration of power in the hands of an elected majority
government brings the government under tight control of the majority of the
electorate. This control can be based on two different mechanisms, depend-
ing on voters’ time perspective or rather the considerations they take into
account when they decide how to vote. If voters base their choice on what the
(two) competing parties have on offer in their party manifestos, the winning
party can be said to have a policy mandate from a majority of the electorate
(Powell 2000: 8). This is basically the mechanism assumed by the Responsible
Party Model (Schattschneider 1942; APSA 1950; Thomassen 1994; Klinge-
mann et al. 1994).
However, this model of political representation is very demanding, in par-
ticular with regard to what is required of the voters. Also, a single vote can
hardly provide a policy mandate for a multiple package of issue dimensions.
Therefore, this model is often claimed to be totally unrealistic and unfeasible
(Riker 1982; Thomassen 1994). An alternative and perhaps more feasible
model is based on Schumpeter’s idea of a competitive democracy. In this
model elections are an accountability mechanism, where the sanctions are to
extend or not to extend the government’s tenure (Schumpeter 1976 (1942),
Chapter 22).
The major difference with the policy mandate model is that voters make
their vote choice on the basis of their evaluation of the performance of the
incumbent government. If they are satisfied with that performance, they will
vote for the party or parties in government; if they are dissatisfied, they will
‘throw the rascals out’. This model of accountability is far less demanding of
the voters because all they need to know is which party, or coalition of

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parties, is in power and which one is the opposition. Their information about
the content of government policy can be limited. Being satisfied or dissatis-
fied with the government, its policies, or the outcomes thereof is all it takes
(Fiorina 1981).
An essential requirement of this model of accountability at the system level
is the clarity of responsibility (Manin et al. 1999; Powell 2000; Lundell 2011).
Accountability is by definition close to impossible if it is not perfectly clear
who, i.e. which political party or coalition of parties, is responsible for gov-
ernment policy. But not only the incumbent but also the possible alternative
future government must be identifiable. A second requirement is that the
voters’ sanction of the party or parties in power is effective, i.e. that they
really can throw the rascals out without the risk that these (or some of them)
will return to power after having lost the elections. This mechanism can only
work in a majoritarian system where two (blocks of) parties compete for a
majority of the votes and the winner automatically takes (over) government
responsibility. A final requirement is that the voters do indeed hold the gov-
erning party or coalition of parties accountable for their performance while
in office, i.e. when they vote retrospectively.
In consensus models of democracy, or proportional systems, the major
function of elections is to elect the members of parliament who together
should be as representative as possible of the electorate as a whole. The crite-
rion for the democratic quality of the system is how representative parlia-
ment really is. There is no deterministic relationship between the election
outcome and the formation of the government. As a multiparty system is one
of the characteristics of a consensus model of democracy, usually a coalition
of several parties will be needed to form a majority government. Coalitions
will usually be broad, doing justice to the principle that not just a bare major-
ity but as many people as possible can influence government policy.
Between them, the two models of democracy fulfil the two most important
functions elections in a representative democracy have, according to main-
stream normative democratic theory. First, elections allow voters to deter-
mine the political colour of their government, making government
accountable to the judgement of the people. Second, elections produce a leg-
islature that is representative of the distribution of policy preferences amongst
the electorate. However, it may be obvious that there is a certain tension
between these two functions (Manin et al. 1999; Powell 2000; Lord and Pollak
2010; Aarts and Thomassen 2008a; Dalton et al. 2011a; Dalton et al. 2011b).
Electoral and more generally democratic systems cannot optimally serve both
functions at the same time. An important criterion of democracy underlying
the consensus model of democracy is inclusiveness, i.e. the part of the elector-
ate represented in government is as large as possible (Lundell 2011; Kaiser
et al. 2002). However, the better this criterion is met, the lower the clarity of

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Jacques Thomassen

responsibility and the lower the possibility of an alternation of government,

making it close to impossible to hold accountable and sanction a government
that no longer has the confidence of a majority of the people, a main criterion
of democracy.
The key question then is which model serves democracy best. This, how-
ever, is hard to tell because the two visions of representative democracy rep-
resent two different normative views on democracy and incorporate different
electoral institutions precisely because they are supposed to serve different
purposes or at least different aspects of democracy. As Powell argues: ‘empiri-
cal predictions about the nature of the citizen–policymaker relationship will
focus on dissimilar dependent variables and not really be alternative theories
about achieving the same goal’ (Powell 2000: 7).
We will follow two ways out of this dilemma (cf. Aarts and Thomassen
2008a:7). First we will focus on these different dependent variables. We will
see how well the two models achieve the goals they are supposed to achieve
and to what extent they achieve these goals better than the other model: how
well do majoritarian systems serve the function of electoral accountability and do
they serve this function better than consensual systems? And how well do consen-
sual systems serve the function of representativeness, and do they serve this function
better than majoritarian systems?
A second way out of this dilemma is to transform these dependent variables
into independent variables, and make a comparative assessment of the extent
to which majoritarian and proportional systems of government are instru-
mental for democracy, defined at a higher level of abstraction. This is the
approach taken in several major pieces of previous research. Powell, for
instance, starts from the normative assumption that democratic policymak-
ers should do what their citizens want them to do. The role of elections then
is to link the preferences of citizens to the behaviour of their policymakers
(Powell 2000: 251). His initial empirical findings prove that if this is taken as
the main function of democratic elections, ‘the proportional vision and its
designs enjoyed a clear advantage over their majoritarian counterparts in
using elections as instruments of democracy’ (Powell 2000: 254). More recent
research suggests, though, that this clear advantage applies to most of the
post-war period but vanishes after the mid1990s (Powell 2009; Golder and
Stramski 2010).
In a similar vein Lijphart in his Patterns of Democracy (Lijphart 1999) tries
to assess whether the distinction between majoritarian and consensus
democracy makes a difference for how well democracy works. By comparing
majoritarian and consensus democracies on a number of performance indi-
cators he comes to the conclusion that consensus democracies perform bet-
ter in almost every respect and provide a ‘kinder and gentler’ democracy.
They score better on the best-known indexes of democracy, women are better

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represented in parliament, consensus democracies are more egalitarian, turn-

out is higher, and last but not least citizens in consensus democracies are
significantly more satisfied with the functioning of democracy in their coun-
tries than citizens in majoritarian democracies (Lijphart 1999). Also, possible
conflicts in society and politics are subdued in consensus democracies
because of their inclusiveness. The best known example is the difference in
satisfaction with democracy between winners and losers of the elections
among the voters. In all political systems the winners of elections (i.e. the
voters of parties included in the government), are more satisfied with the
functioning of democracy than losers. However, this difference between win-
ners and losers is bigger in majoritarian than in consensus models of democ-
racy. The explanation for this phenomenon is that in majoritarian systems
(the representatives of) the losers of elections are totally excluded from the
policymaking process, whereas in a consensus model with its mechanisms of
power-sharing they are not (Anderson and Guillory 1997; Lijphart 1999;
Anderson et al. 2005).
A clear limitation of many of these studies is that they are limited to the
macro level. In the typical study institutional characteristics like the distinc-
tion between majoritarian and consensus democracies are related to aggre-
gate measures like the level of turnout or the level of satisfaction with
democracy. But what remains hidden is which individual perceptions of the
democratic process make people in one type of democracy more satisfied
with the functioning of democracy than the other, or which individual calcu-
lus explains why turnout is different in different types of democracies.
It is the purpose of this volume to unveil these hidden perceptions and
mechanisms. For this purpose we rely on the second module of the Compara-
tive Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) as our main database. It is the power of
the research design of CSES that it enables us to unravel these hidden mecha-
nisms by relating system characteristics to the attitudes and behaviour of
individual people. The main characteristics of the CSES research design are
illustrated in Figure 1.1.3 Its main innovation compared to traditional elec-
toral research is the possibility it creates to relate micro-level data to macro-
level data. Traditional electoral research tends to focus either on micro–micro
relations (arrow BC) or on macro–macro relations (arrow AC) in which the
dependent variable often is an aggregate variable (for instance the level of
satisfaction with democracy in a country). CSES opens up totally new ave-
nues of research by making it possible to study the interactions between
macro and micro variables. These are mainly of two kinds. A first kind of
interaction occurs when the strength of the relationship between two micro
variables (arrow BC) depends on a macro variable (A). A second kind of inter-
action occurs when a micro variable (B) can be interpreted as an intervening
variable explaining the relationship between a macro and a micro variable

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Jacques Thomassen

A. Macro characteristics
of democratic systems
Majoritarian vs. consensual
Institutional quality
Policy performance
Clarity of responsibility
Polarization

B. Micro-level independent (or C. Micro-level dependent

intervening) variables variables
social position party/candidate choice
perceptions choice options casting a vote
perceptions institutional quality political participation
policy preferences perceptions of accountability
perceptions of government perceptions of representation
performance satisfaction with democracy
(perceptions of accountability)
(perceptions of representation)

Figure 1.1.  The CSES research design

(AC). Most of the research questions in this volume can only be answered by
taking into account one of these types of interaction.

1.2  Main Findings

As argued above, we try to answer two kinds of questions. First, we examine to

what extent political institutions matter for how well the functions of account-
ability and representativeness are met: do majoritarian systems of democracy
serve the function of accountability better and do consensus systems of
democracy serve the function of representativeness better (­Chapters  3–5)?
The second question is whether consensus democracy leads to a higher qual-
ity of democracy in terms of a higher political participation (Chapters 6–7), a
higher satisfaction with how well citizens are being represented (Chapter 8),
and a higher satisfaction with democracy (­Chapters 9–10). The final question
is to what extent consensus democracy subdues the political effects of social
and political conflicts (Chapters 11–12).

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1.2.1  Patterns of Democracy

As explained above, Lijphart’s distinction between majoritarian and consensus
types of democracy and its specific components can be considered as the insti-
tutional embodiment of the two views of democracy. Therefore, the main inde-
pendent variable at the system level throughout this book is the distinction
between majoritarian and consensus democracies. A clear conceptualization as
well as a detailed operationalization of this distinction was first introduced by
Arend Lijphart (1984 and 1999). For our purposes Lijphart’s measurements
needed an update. First, his most recent measurements were over ten years old
and, second, they were not available for all countries represented in CSES. In
Chapter 2 Bernauer, Giger, and Vatter develop an updated measure of majoritar-
ian vs consensus democracy. Their efforts lead to a more recent data set,
improved measurements of variables, and an extended set of countries, cover-
ing 35 of the 36 democratic countries included in the second module of CSES.
They discuss several possible improvements of Lijphart’s original measure-
ments, among others the inclusion of direct democracy as an indicator of con-
sensus democracy. Adding this variable to the original set of variables proposed
by Lijphart leads to a three-dimensional rather than the original two-­dimensional
structure. Leaving out this newly developed indicator, but improving some of
the original measurements, yields a two-­dimensional structure (an executives–
parties and a federal–unitary dimension) very similar to Lijphart’s original typol-
ogy. Therefore, for the sake of comparability with Lijphart’s original findings it
was decided to use this two-­dimensional typology as the main institutional vari-
able throughout this book.

1.2.2  Political Institutions and Party Choice

Our first major research question is how well majoritarian and consensus
systems of democracy serve the functions of electoral accountability and rep-
resentativeness respectively. Chapters 3 and 4 try to answer this question
from the perspective of the role of the voters in the process of political repre-
sentation. The main relevant questions then are: (a) do voters in consensus
systems focus more on which party represents their policy preferences best
and (b) do voters in majoritarian political systems base their vote more on
their perception of the performance of the incumbent government than do
voters in consensus systems?
Chapter 3 starts from Lijphart’s claim that in consensus democracies gov-
ernment policy is more in line with the policy preferences of (the majority of)
the people than in majoritarian democracies. Wessels and Schmitt try to
unravel the possible democratic mechanism behind this finding. They test
the possibility that elections are more meaningful in consensus than in

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Jacques Thomassen

majoritarian democracies. In their view elections can only be meaningful and

therefore function as an instrument of democracy if (a) political parties offer
meaningful choices, i.e. offer different policy platforms to the voters, and
(b) if the voters behave accordingly, i.e. vote for the party that is closest to
their own policy preferences. They examine to what extent these two condi-
tions are related to each other, i.e. does the extent to which voters vote
according to their policy preferences depend on the clarity of the choices
offered to them? Both the clarity of policy choices and policy voting are oper-
ationalized in terms of the left–right dimension. The clarity of policy choices
is assumed to be higher the stronger the policy stands of political parties are
related to their left–right position as perceived by the voters. Policy voting
means that voters vote for the party that is closest to their own position on
the left–right dimension.
The variation in clarity of the policy positions of political parties between
countries appears to be huge. These differences in clarity are strongly related
to the extent to which people vote according to their policy preferences. In
other words, the extent to which voters perform their democratic duty strong-
ly depends on the political supply side: clear parties produce clear p­ olicy-based
vote choices. Where the policy stands of political parties are unclear, voters
cannot be expected to base their choice on their policy preferences.
The chapter also clearly demonstrates that the extent to which people vote
according to their policy preferences is not related to institutional differenc-
es, i.e. to the distinction between consensus and majoritarian democracies.
Political institutions are probably too far away from the real world of politics,
i.e. the clarity of policy supplies, to have a direct effect on people’s calculus of
voting.
In Chapter 4 Burlacu and Toka continue the discussion about the extent to
which policy-based voting is related to the type of democracy. Their approach
is somewhat different, though, than that of Chapter 3. Rather than focusing
on the effect of institutional differences on the relationship between voters’
policy preferences and their vote choice, the emphasis in this chapter is on
the responsiveness of aggregate election outcomes to shifts in citizens’ pref-
erences. It examines the extent to which this responsiveness is related to
institutional differences and the polarization between political parties. The
authors also try to answer the question whether there is a trade-off between
policy-based voting and performance-based (i.e. retrospective) voting. They
hypothesize—in line with the argument developed above—that Lijphart’s
executive–parties dimension of consensus democracy promotes policy-based
voting partly through ideological polarization between the parties, but also
independently of that. The reverse applies to performance-based voting: the
more majoritarian a country’s institutions, the stronger the impact of voters’
performance evaluations on the vote will be. These expectations are only

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partly borne out. There is indeed a trade-off between policy-oriented voting

and performance-oriented voting, but there is hardly any support for the
hypothesis that performance-oriented voting is typical for majoritarian
democracies and policy-oriented voting for consensus democracies. As it
turns out, policy-oriented voting seems to be typical for the multiparty sys-
tems in Western Europe whereas performance-oriented voting occurs more
often in a non-European context. This might at least partly be due to the fact
that left–right orientations are less common in these non-European con-
texts. Still, features associated with the executive–parties dimension make
consensus democracies somewhat more responsive to the electorate’s policy
preferences than majoritarian democracies. This institutional effect is at least
partly mediated by consensus democracy facilitating slightly more ideologi-
cal polarization between parties than majoritarian systems. However, the
statistical evidence of these findings is anything but impressive. Therefore,
this chapter concludes that institutional differences add little to explaining
why the world’s democracies show such a striking variation in policy
responsiveness.
One of the classic questions in electoral research is to what extent people’s
electoral choices are determined by the social structure they are part of. The
extent to which this is the case varies from country to country and within
countries over time. However, what explains why the vote is more socially
anchored in some countries than in others is hardly known. Chapter 5 by
Magalhães addresses this shortcoming in the literature and examines the
extent to which variations in political institutions can explain the variations
between countries in terms of the social anchoring of the vote in legislative
elections. The hypotheses tested are that, first, consensual democracies
should display higher levels of structural voting and, second, presidential
regimes should display lower levels of structural voting. Alternative hypoth-
eses possibly explaining structural voting refer to the level of economic devel-
opment and the length of experience with democracy a country has. The two
hypotheses on the effect of political institutions are borne out. Structural
voting is indeed related to consensual democracy: in democracies where elec-
toral systems are less permissive, where party system fragmentation is lower,
and executive dominance over policymaking is more pronounced, the
anchoring of the vote on religious and gender differences turns out to be
weaker. Also, on average, structural voting is lower in presidential than in
parliamentary or semi-presidential regimes. In presidential systems the insti-
tutional rules that separate the origin and survival of parliaments and execu-
tives seem to create disincentives for the adoption, in legislative elections, of
appeals to socially defined and rooted groups of voters, thus promoting great-
er social heterogeneity of party constituencies. There is hardly any support
for the alternative hypotheses. These findings show the failure of a purely

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Jacques Thomassen

sociological approach to the explanation of voters’ alignments with parties

and the importance of political institutions for the development of voters’
alignments with political parties.

1.2.3  Consensus Democracy and Political Participation

Chapters 6 and 7 examine the relationship between political institutions and
political participation. As observed above, Lijphart’s claim that consensus
democracy is superior to majoritarian democracy is based on several argu-
ments. One of them is that political participation, voting in particular, is
more widespread in consensus than in majoritarian democracies. Chapter 6
examines to what extent consensus democracies are indeed conducive to
turnout and if so why this is the case. Chapter 7 widens the question to less
institutionalized forms of political participation. Chapter 6, by Blais, Singh,
and Dumitresco, starts from the expectation that the decision to vote or not
to vote strongly depends on people’s belief that one of the parties represents
their views reasonably well. Therefore, a logical further expectation is that as
far as consensus democracy is conducive to turnout this relationship is medi-
ated by feelings of being represented. In other words, consensus democracy
has a positive effect on people’s belief that there is a party representing their
views reasonably well, which in turn has a positive effect on turnout. A fur-
ther expectation is that this is mainly due to the proportional electoral sys-
tem (proportional representation, or PR), one of the main characteristics of a
consensus democracy. PR leads to the presence of more parties running in the
election and this automatically increases the probability of finding a party
that one agrees with. Also, PR produces a more polarized party system. Such
polarization means that a greater diversity of highly differentiated viewpoints
is presented to the electorate and that it is easier to identify at least one party
that represents reasonably well their own political preferences. So the main
hypothesis tested in this chapter is that the relationship between the electoral
system and turnout should disappear when we take into account feelings of
representation. The empirical analysis clearly shows that the propensity to
vote is indeed much higher among those who feel represented than among
those who do not. The hypothesis that citizens are more likely to feel that a
party represents them in a consensual or PR system is also corroborated.
The analysis further demonstrates that it is purely the electoral system that
matters and not the more encompassing dimensions of the consensus model
of democracy. There is no empirical evidence for the beneficial effect of other
aspects of consensualism on turnout in the same manner as found for PR. The
relationship between PR and the feeling of being represented is at least par-
tially mediated by the degree of polarization of the party system. The mere
presence of a greater number of parties is not necessarily conducive to

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individuals becoming more prone to say that a party represents their views.
When perceptions of representation are taken into account the—modest—
relationship between PR and turnout loses its significance, i.e. proportional
representation has no direct, independent effect on electoral participation
once political attitudes are taken into account. In other words, the relation-
ship between PR and turnout is indeed mediated by individuals’ ability to
identify a party representing their views.
Chapter 7, by Weldon and Dalton, examines how democratic institutions
affect citizens’ political behaviour beyond the act of voting. The starting
point is again Lijphart’s presumption that consensual institutions incorpo-
rate more citizens into the electoral process and lessen political inequality,
because they give citizens effective voice and representation. This presump-
tion seems to imply that consensualism has spillover effects that stimulate
participation more broadly. However, in contrast to the effect of consensu-
alism on turnout, these further implications of consensualism have hardly
been examined and are not uncontested, not even at a theoretical level.
According to a competing view, consensualism may have the opposite
effect, actually decreasing citizen involvement beyond voting, precisely
because citizens already feel better represented through the electoral pro-
cess in these systems. In addition, majoritarian electoral systems tend to be
candidate-centred, with MPs elected from single-member districts. Because
of this, majoritarian systems offer greater incentives for participation
beyond voting, such as campaigning and contacting public officials. On the
second dimension of political institutions, the federal–unitary dimension,
federal systems may suppress voter turnout, because individual elections
are less critical, but they also offer more opportunities for participation at
the sub-national level than do unitary systems. Because elections occur
more often, civic organizations may stay stronger over time, helping to
mobilize and encourage non-voting forms of participation. These hypoth-
eses are corroborated by the empirical analysis. Participation in all other
political activities than voting is lower in consensual systems when opera-
tionalized on the basis of the executives–parties dimension—often mark-
edly so as in the case of campaign activity, persuading others how to vote,
and contacting a politician. In short, consensual systems seem to demobi-
lize citizen participation beyond casting a ballot. These correlations are
even more outspoken when only the electoral system is taken into account.
As shown in the previous chapter, a proportional electoral system might
encourage people how to vote, but it apparently discourages people from
showing their support during the campaign or trying to persuade others
how to vote. These patterns are unanticipated by the consensualism litera-
ture, which presumes that voting turnout is symptomatic of general involve-
ment in the political process.

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Jacques Thomassen

When political systems are distinguished on the basis of the federal–­

unitary dimension, all other forms of participation than voting are more
common in federal systems. The participation stimulus of decentralized fed-
eral systems is especially apparent for interpersonal forms of participation
such as trying to persuade others how to vote, contacting a politician, or
working with a group.
Taken together, the two chapters paint an interesting picture of how the
institutional context shapes individual political activity and the develop-
ment of a democratic civil society. Lijphart has long argued that consensual-
ism produces a kinder, gentler form of democracy by bringing more of the
population into the democratic process and representing a broader range of
societal interests and viewpoints. From a formal institutional perspective,
there is some evidence that this is indeed true. But this relationship appears
to be due only to the electoral system, not to the wider characteristics of con-
sensus democracy. Chapter 7 raises more fundamental doubts about consen-
sualism being conducive to a more involved democratic citizenry for
non-voting forms of participation. A constitutional and electoral system
designed to maximize voting turnout may have unintended negative conse-
quences on other forms of political participation.

1.2.4  Political Institutions and Satisfaction with Political Representation

and Democracy
The remaining chapters of the book all focus on how people’s evaluation of
the system of representative democracy is related to the democratic institu-
tions they live under. The main dependent variables are people’s perceptions
of the quality of representation and their satisfaction with the functioning of
democracy in their country. These variables refer to two indicators of the qual-
ity of democracy Lijphart uses as evidence for his general claim that the qual-
ity of democracy in consensus democracies is higher than in majoritarian
democracies. The first one is the quality of representation, operationalized as
the proximity of government policy to the policy preferences of the people.
Referring to earlier work of Huber and Powell, Lijphart claims that this dis-
tance is smaller in consensus than in majoritarian democracies. A second indi-
cator is people’s satisfaction with the functioning of democracy. Referring
again to earlier empirical work, he claims that satisfaction with the f­ unctioning
of democracy is higher in consensus than majoritarian democracies. In this
part of the book these claims will be brought to a further test. ‘Objective’ meas-
ures for the quality of representation, comparing people’s policy preferences
with government policy, are not available for a range of CSES countries.
Instead, we rely on people’s subjective perception of how they are represented
by political parties and political leaders for the assessment of the quality of

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political representation, just as in the case of people’s assessment of the quality

of democracy in their country. Obviously, as Holmberg argues in Chapter 8, a
subjective measure of policy representation is not the same thing as an objec-
tive measure. However, it is not necessarily less important. Subjective percep-
tions of how political parties and their leaders represent the people define the
legitimacy of the system of political representation, not objective measures,
however important the latter may be.
Holmberg presents a first straightforward test of the hypothesis that people
in consensus democracies feel better represented than in majoritarian democ-
racies. The outcome of the test is as straightforward as the test itself: there is
hardly any relationship between institutional design and people’s perception
of how they are represented by parliament, political parties, and political
leaders. According to Holmberg, the mechanisms of political representation
in consensus democracies are somewhat different than in majoritarian sys-
tems but the one is not necessarily better or more effective than the other.
What really matters is the age of democracy. People in older established
democracies feel better represented than people in developing democracies.
Chapter 9, by Sanders, Clarke, Stewart, and Whiteley, tries to explain vari-
ations in the satisfaction with the functioning of democracy. It examines the
relative importance of factors at the individual and institutional levels. At the
individual level it was found that satisfaction with democracy is positively
affected by citizens’ assessments of overall government performance, their
feeling of being represented by existing political institutions, and their belief
that the current regime effectively delivers democratic values. From the over-
all perspective of this book the effects of political institutions are the most
interesting ones. In line with Lijphart’s arguments the hypothesis is tested
that plurality rules exert a negative impact on satisfaction with the function-
ing of democracy. This is because of the unfairness of plurality systems by
producing a disparity between parties’ vote shares and their respective seat
shares.
A counter-hypothesis implicitly recognizing the potential practical bene-
fits of plurality electoral systems is that satisfaction with democracy will be
higher where there is greater clarity of (cabinet) responsibility.
The empirical analysis shows that there is no statistically significant effect
of any measure of consensualism on satisfaction with democracy. However,
when the practical electoral outcomes of these institutional rules rather than
the rules themselves are taken into account, the effects are clearly significant.
Both disparity and clarity of responsibility have significant effects in the pre-
dicted directions—negative for disparity and positive for clarity.
This suggests that plurality and consensualism have no direct effects on
satisfaction with democracy but their consequences do. Two main conse-
quences of plurality—disproportionality and clarity—both affect satisfaction

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Jacques Thomassen

with democracy, but they do so in opposing directions. People tend to dislike

the unfairness associated with disproportionality, but they simultaneously
tend to like clarity of responsibility since it strengthens their ability to iden-
tify the ‘rascals’, who may need to be ‘thrown out’ in subsequent elections.
Ceteris paribus, the former mechanism reduces satisfaction with democracy;
the latter enhances it. As a consequence, the authors of this chapter argue,
would-be institutional reformers find themselves in a somewhat paradoxical
position. If the objective of reform is to maintain, or even to increase, the
overall level of approval for the regime, the abandonment of plurality rules is
very much a double-edged sword. Though a switch to PR, on the one hand,
might serve to increase democracy satisfaction by removing unfairness to
minor parties and ‘wasted votes’, on the other hand it is also likely to reduce
clarity of responsibility and therefore simultaneously to reduce such
satisfaction.
Chapter 10, by Peffley and Rohrschneider, examines the relationship
between the quality of political representation and people’s support for
democracy. It extends the research questions examined in previous chapters
in two ways. First, rather than focusing on the idea of substantive representa-
tion, or the correspondence between the outcomes citizens want and those
produced by the government, it focuses on an equally important component
of representation, its procedural dimension, or its procedural fairness. Proce-
dural fairness is concerned less with outcomes and more with the processes
by which governmental policies are made and administered. Citizens’ evalu-
ations of procedural fairness can be assumed to be based on assessments of
whether authorities are motivated to be fair, are honest, and follow ethical
principles of conduct, whether opportunities for representation are provided,
and whether authorities behave in a biased fashion. Also, this chapter adds
another dependent variable. It examines not only the effect of people’s evalu-
ation of the quality of representation on their satisfaction with the function-
ing of democracy, but extends this question to people’s support for democracy
as such, a level of support that is far more consequential for the stability of
democracy. Citizens’ perceptions of the procedural fairness mainly refer to
their experiences with so-called output institutions, like the police, bureau-
crats, and legal authorities.
The main hypothesis tested in this chapter is that procedurally fair output
institutions increase public evaluations of a regime. This hypothesis is clearly
borne out. The empirical findings unequivocally show that well-functioning
output institutions have a positive effect, not only on people’s satisfaction
with the functioning of democracy but on their support for the ideals of
democracy as well. The latter effect is even stronger than the former one.
Thus, the character of output institutions not only affects democratic perfor-
mance evaluations but public support for democratic ideals as well. Also,

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citizens’ evaluations of regime procedures, i.e. their beliefs that human rights
are respected, their perceptions of corruption and the representation process,
are shaped by objective indicators of the quality of output institutions.
The alternative explanation that popular evaluations of regime procedures
are due to the ‘kinder, gentler’ consensus institutions that Lijphart envisioned
is hardly supported by the data. There is some evidence that citizens residing
in federal regimes are more likely to think that human rights are respected in
their country; and they also believe that corruption is lower. But all in all
there is fairly weak evidence in support of the idea that consensus systems
have more procedural integrity than majoritarian institutions.

1.2.5  Does Consensus Democracy Subdue Social and Political Conflicts?

In Chapter 11, by Aarts, Thomassen, and Van Ham, two alternative hypoth-
eses on the development of citizens’ support for representative democracy are
put to a test. According to the modernization thesis, social modernization has
gradually transformed the relationship between citizens and the state. Great-
er political skills and resources—that is, higher levels of cognitive mobiliza-
tion—lead the contemporary electorate towards elite-challenging forms of
political action, which places them in conflict with politicians and govern-
ment officials. These better-educated citizens are inclined to question demo-
cratic politics as it is currently practised not because they do not endorse
strong democratic ideals but because they demand a greater role in the politi-
cal process. Therefore, the hypothesis derived from modernization theory is
that over time people’s confidence in the processes of representative democ-
racy has disproportionally declined among people at the upper end of the
economic order: the better educated, the more skilled, and those with higher
incomes.
The main hypothesis tested in this chapter is exactly the opposite and is
derived from the globalization literature. According to this literature at least
in Western Europe a new structural conflict is developing, the conflict between
‘winners’ and ‘losers’ of globalization. Whereas better-educated cosmopoli-
tan citizens in general profit from the effects of globalization, the people at
the margins of the economic order, the less educated, the less skilled, and
those with lower incomes tend to be the losers of globalization. They feel
threatened by the consequences of globalization, by the open economy lead-
ing to—at least in their perception—the loss of jobs, and the immigration of
people with different economic and cultural backgrounds, often from the
Muslim world. As political elites traditionally tended to be little responsive to
these feelings, the expectation derived from these developments is that not
the better-educated but the lower-educated and less-skilled groups in society
are gradually losing their confidence in the responsiveness of political parties

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Jacques Thomassen

and political leaders and therefore are becoming less satisfied with the func-
tioning of democracy.
The additional hypothesis tested in this chapter is that in consensus democ-
racies this effect will be subdued because one of the main characteristics of a
consensus democracy is that it is responsive to minority groups. Because of its
proportional electoral system, new political movements based on new con-
flict lines, such as globalization, have easy access to the process of political
representation.
The main hypotheses in this chapter are not borne out. Although in general
less-educated and less-skilled citizens do feel less well represented by any polit-
ical party and are less satisfied with the functioning of democracy, there is no
evidence for a differential development of these feelings: there is no growing
gap in this respect between the winners and losers of globalization. Since no
effect of globalization was found, this by definition means that the political-­
institutional context is not relevant either.
Chapter 12, by Chang, Chu, and Wu, focuses on the well-known winner–
loser gap. Previous research has shown that among voters the losers of elec-
tions tend to be less satisfied with the functioning of democracy than the
winners. It has also been shown that this gap between winners and losers is
larger in majoritarian than in consensus democracies. In these previous stud-
ies electoral winners and losers are distinguished on the basis of a single elec-
tion and the interaction between winners and losers is treated as a one-shot
game. However, since elections in democracies are held routinely, winners
can become losers when electoral alternation occurs. In this chapter two con-
secutive elections are taken into account to define winners and losers. This
logically leads to four categories: two-time winners, two-time losers, winners-
losers, and losers-winners. In this chapter this distinction is connected to
Huntington’s two-turnover test in the comparative democratization litera-
ture. According to Huntington, a nascent democracy is considered consoli-
dated if it has experienced two peaceful electoral alternations. However, the
relevant literature on this subject consequently neglects the importance of
ordinary citizens’ democratic attitudes during electoral alternations in young
democracies. And yet, it is generally agreed that citizens’ attitudes towards
democracy are essential for the legitimacy and stability of democratic regimes,
in particular new democratic regimes. Therefore, this chapter, by examining
how citizens’ experience as winners or losers in successive elections influ-
ences their support for democracy is an important complement to the two-
turnover test literature. Because of their limited experience with democracy,
the expectation is that the gap between winners and losers will be larger in
developing than in established democracies.
The main hypothesis at the individual level in this chapter is that the
experience of having been a winner at least once is more likely to develop a

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f­ avourable attitude towards democracy than never having experienced win-

ning before. Only repeated losers are expected to be less satisfied with the
system than other groups. This expectation is borne out. It is the experience
of winning at least once that matters in shaping individuals’ support for dem-
ocratic practices and principles. Being electoral winners matters more to citi-
zens in young democracies than to those in developed democracies. Without
a longer experience with democratic elections, constant losers may easily
blame the democratic system for their loser status. By contrast, as demo-
cratic practices are repeated and consolidated, constant losers may either
have experienced winner status or have more good beliefs of becoming win-
ners in the future. From this finding a clear lesson for developing democra-
cies can be learned. It is important for current losers to realize that the recent
defeat is merely temporary and that sooner or later there will be another
opportunity to determine who holds political power. Therefore, in order to
forge a consensus about new rules of the game after the democratic transi-
tion, it is imperative that current losers will not be permanently excluded
from political power but will have chances to contest and win subsequent
elections.

1.3  In Conclusion: Do Institutions Matter?

The purpose of this volume is to assess to what extent consensus systems of

democracy serve democracy better than majoritarian systems and, if so, why
this is the case. We argue that this question can hardly be answered because
the two models of democracies reflect different normative views on democ-
racy and the function of elections. Empirical research cannot decide which
normative view on democracy and the function of elections is best. We found
two ways out of this dilemma. First, we examined how well the two models
achieve the goals they are supposed to achieve and to what extent they do
this better than the other model. Second, we examined how conducive the
two models are for the quality of democracy, measured by indicators recog-
nized from both views as important indicators of the quality of democracy,
political participation and people’s satisfaction with the functioning of repre-
sentative democracy.
Consequently, we try to answer four questions. First, do majoritarian sys-
tems of democracy serve the function of accountability better and do consen-
sus systems of democracy serve the function of representativeness better
(Chapters 3–5)? Second, does consensus democracy lead to a higher degree of
political participation (Chapters 6–7)? Third, does consensus democracy lead
to a higher satisfaction with how well citizens are being represented (Chapter
8) and a higher satisfaction with democracy (Chapters 9–10)? The final

17
Jacques Thomassen

question is to what extent consensus democracy subdues the political effects

of social and political conflicts (Chapters 11–12).
What the findings in all these chapters have in common is that formal
political institutions and in particular the distinction between consensus and
majoritarian system of democracy are far less relevant for people’s attitudes
and behaviour than often presumed.
First, we hardly found any evidence that retrospective voting is typical for
majoritarian democracies and policy-oriented voting for consensus democra-
cies. Policy voting is related to characteristics of the party system, like the
clarity of policy choices and polarization but not to more formal political
institutions.
Second, consensus democracy as such does not seem to have a positive
effect on people’s decision to cast a vote, although a proportional electoral
system, one of its main elements, indirectly does. This is because under a
proportional electoral system people more often feel themselves to be repre-
sented by a political party. Once people’s perception of being represented is
controlled for, the relationship between the electoral system and voting dis-
appears. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly the executive–parties dimension of
consensus democracy seems to have the opposite effect on political participa-
tion beyond casting a ballot. This negative effect is even stronger when only
the electoral system is taken into account.
Third, we found no relationship between institutional design and people’s
evaluation of the system of political representation and democracy in gener-
al. There is no difference between the two systems in how people feel repre-
sented by parliament, political parties, and political leaders. The expectation
that majoritarianism and a plural electoral system have a negative effect on
satisfaction with democracy is based on the unfairness of plurality systems.
They are unfair because they produce a disparity between parties’ vote shares
and their respective seat shares. On the other hand, plurality electoral sys-
tems lead to a greater clarity of responsibility. This in turn might have a posi-
tive effect on satisfaction with democracy. As it turns out, although plurality
and consensualism have no direct effects on satisfaction with democracy,
their consequences do. Disproportionality reduces satisfaction with democ-
racy whereas clarity of responsibility enhances it.
Also, as far as institutions are relevant for people’s satisfaction with democ-
racy, this seems to depend more on their perceptions of the fairness of so-
called output institutions like the police, bureaucrats, and legal authorities,
than on input institutions.
The fourth question we try to answer is to what extent social and politi-
cal conflicts are subdued by the institutions of consensus democracy. Our
findings suggest they do not. The gap in satisfaction with democracy
between different social classes is no less in consensus than in majoritarian

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­ emocracies. Still, these findings are too preliminary to justify strong con-
d
clusions, the more so since we did not really (re)examine to what extent
the winner–loser gap is larger in majoritarian than in consensus democra-
cies. Nevertheless, by extending the definition of winners and losers to two
consecutive elections the final chapter seems to deliver strong support for
Lijphart’s initial argument that different societies ask for different political
institutions. If winners and losers do not regularly change places because
solid social cleavages always yield the same political majority, a majoritar-
ian system is disastrous for the legitimacy of the political system among
the (permanent) minority of the people (Lijphart 1984).
But the general conclusion of this volume is that formal political institu-
tions are less relevant for people’s attitudes and behaviour than often pre-
sumed. This is not to say that characteristics of the political system do not
matter. But rather than formal political institutions like the electoral system
it seems to be characteristics of the party system like polarization and the clar-
ity of responsibility that really matter. This is in line with the growing body
of empirical knowledge, mostly based on the Comparative Study of Electoral
Systems, on the relationship between aspects of the political system and the
attitudes and behaviour of individual citizens (Thomassen 2005b; Klinge-
mann 2009; Dalton et al. 2011a; Dalton and Anderson 2011).
This conclusion should be a lesson in modesty for institutional engineers.
If institutional differences have as little effect as this volume suggests, or if
their effects cancel out each other, institutional reforms based on the pre-
sumption that a change in institutions will improve the functioning of
democracy are doomed to lead to frustration among both the reformers and
the citizenry at large.

Notes

1. See <http://www.cses.org/>.
2. The following characterization of the two models of democracy is from Aarts and
Thomassen (2008a: 6–7).
3. This figure was first presented by Bernhard Wessels in 1998 at a CSES conference in
Berlin. Also, see Thomassen (2000) and Klingemann (2009).

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