Patterns of accountability and representation: Why the executive-parties dimension cannot explain democratic performance
| DOI | 10.1177/0263395717710566 |
| Author | Steffen Ganghof,Sebastian Eppner |
| Date | 01 February 2019 |
| Published date | 01 February 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
710566POL0010.1177/0263395717710566PoliticsGanghof and Eppner
research-article2017
Article
Politics
2019, Vol. 39(1) 113 –130
Patterns of accountability
© The Author(s) 2017
and representation: Why
https://doi.org/10.1177/0263395717710566
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the executive-parties
DOI: 10.1177/0263395717710566
journals.sagepub.com/home/pol
dimension cannot explain
democratic performance
Steffen Ganghof and Sebastian Eppner
University of Potsdam, Germany
Abstract
Arend Lijphart uses an average of five standardized variables – the executive-parties dimension
(EPD) – to describe patterns of democracy and explain differences in democracies’ performance.
The article suggests ways to improve the descriptive part of the project. It argues that the EPD
maps different approaches to achieving accountability and representation, rather than differences
in consensus. This re-conceptualization leads to a more coherent and valid measurement. It is also
argued that more systematic adjustments are needed for differences in constitutional structures
(presidentialism and bicameralism). The article presents data on a revised EPD and its components
for 36 democracies in the period from 1981 to 2010. As to the explanatory part of the project, we
contend that the EPD often hinders adequate causal analysis rather than facilitating it. We show
this by re-analysing democracies’ performance with respect to turnout and capital punishment.
Keywords
bicameralism, consensus democracy, death penalty, democratic performance, effective district
magnitude, executive-parties dimension, turnout
Received: 26th August 2016; Revised version received: 5th January 2017; Accepted: 22nd February 2017
Introduction
Arend Lijphart’s (2012) Patterns of Democracy is one of the most influential studies
in the comparative analysis of democracy. It uses an average of five standardized vari-
ables – the so-called executive-parties dimension (EPD) – to (1) describe political
process patterns in 36 established democracies and to (2) explain differences in their
Corresponding author:
Sebastian Eppner, Chair of Comparative Politics, University of Potsdam, August-Bebel-Straße 89, 14482
Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany.
Email: eppner@uni-potsdam.de
114
Politics 39(1)
performance. The core claim of the descriptive project is that the EPD measures the
degree of consensus democracy in a country; the core claim of the explanatory project
is that consensus democracies perform better.1 Both projects have been controversially
discussed (e.g. Bormann, 2010).
This article contributes three arguments. First, we suggest that a coherent interpreta-
tion of the EPD requires that it be re-conceptualized as measuring different visions of
how representation and accountability can be achieved and reconciled, rather than differ-
ent degrees of consensus (cf. Powell, 2000). Lijphart’s two cabinet-related measures –
cabinet types and stability – can only be valid, if the underlying concept is not inclusiveness,
but ‘clarity of responsibility’. This re-conceptualization leads to a more adequate aggre-
gation of these two variables, it renders impressionistic value adjustments unnecessary
(Lijphart, 2012: 97, 118–123), and it provides a new argument for measuring electoral
systems in a purely institutional manner.
Second, more attention should be paid to the way in which Lijphart accounts for popu-
larly elected presidents. We highlight the implicit assumption behind this adjustment and
argue that consistency requires that it also be applied to directly elected upper houses.
When this is done, the overall empirical patterns remain similar, but particular countries
change their relative position. Most notably, Switzerland shows a substantially more
‘majoritarian’ profile.
Our third argument concerns the explanatory project: Even if it may be useful to average
variables for descriptive purposes, it does not follow that the same is true for causal analysis.
Using the EPD for causal explanation might be based on the idea that it captures a ‘latent
variable’ which cannot be measured directly but is causally efficacious. We are sceptical
about this idea. The causal understanding of democratic performance will often improve, and
spurious causal claims are more easily avoided, when we connect a causal effect to one spe-
cific component of the EPD. This line of criticism is not new (e.g. Gerring and Thacker,
2008: 190), but it has mainly been spelled out with respect to corporatism (Anderson, 2001;
Armingeon, 2002; Giuliani, 2016). Here, we want to develop it further and apply it to two of
Lijphart’s performance tests: for turnout and criminal justice (death penalty).
‘The EPD’ section briefly summarizes the construction of the EPD. The
‘Re-conceptualizing the EPD’ section explains our re-conceptualization of the EPD and
suggests specific improvements. Section ‘Adjustments for executive-legislative systems’
proposes a systematic adjustment for upper houses. Section ‘A revised EPD’ compares
the resulting revised EPD (with and without corporatism) to Lijphart’s version. Section
‘From description to explanation?’ then criticizes the explanatory use of the EPD. Section
‘Final remarks’ is a brief conclusion.
The EPD
The EPD is a standardized average of the following variables (Lijphart, 2012: 243): (1)
Laakso and Taagepera’s (1979) effective number of parliamentary parties, (2) Gallagher’s
(1991) index of electoral disproportionality, (3) Lijphart (2012: 98–101) own indicator of
cabinet types, (4) Dodd’s (1976) indicator of cabinet stability and (5) Siaroff’s (1999)
indicator of interest group systems. Its measurement has changed over time. Initially, it
included a measure of the number of issue dimensions in the party system but no indicator
of the interest group system (Lijphart, 1984: 214). Furthermore, it initially represented the
countries’ scores in a factor analysis, so that the component variables were weighted
according to their involvement in the factor (Lijphart, 1984: 215).
Ganghof and Eppner
115
Many authors believe that the EPD measures a ‘latent variable’ (e.g. Bernauer et al.,
2014: 28), but we are sceptical about this idea. It is not clear to us what this latent variable
is. A prominent idea is that the EPD measures a country’s consensual culture (e.g.
Bormann, 2010: 8), yet this is clearly not the case. Countries such as Belgium or Israel
have high values on the EPD (Lijphart, 2012: 244), but ‘they do not have consensual
cultures’ (Lijphart, 2012: 302).2 Also, the idea of a latent variable seems superfluous to us
because each of the five above-mentioned indicators is well-understood and the strong
correlations between them can largely be explained by straightforward logical and empir-
ical relationships (Lijphart, 2012: 170; Taagepera, 2003) – although some of the empirical
relationships maybe temporally and spatially bounded (Croissant and Schächter, 2010;
Fortin, 2008; Roberts, 2006).
In our view, the EPD simply does what any average does: it summarizes data and
thereby reduces complexity. If we view the EPD in this more pragmatic manner, it
becomes important to clearly separate the descriptive from the explanatory project. We
start with the former and suggest reconsidering what the EPD summarizes.
Re-conceptualizing the EPD
Our re-conceptualization draws on the work of Powell (2000). We argue that the EPD
summarizes different approaches to achieving, and reconciling, the goals of accountabil-
ity and representation. We start by briefly reviewing the subtle but important differences
between the concepts of Powell and Lijphart.
Lijphart focuses on the size of majorities needed to change the status quo. The consen-
sus model aims at including ‘as many people as possible’ and is characterized by ‘inclu-
siveness, bargaining, and compromise’; in contrast, the majoritarian model is ‘exclusive,
competitive and adversarial’ (Lijphart, 2012: 2). The distinction is one between exclu-
siveness and inclusiveness.
The problem is that many authors have questioned whether these conceptual ideas are
coherent and whether all variables within the EPD are valid measures of them (Ganghof,
2010; Gerring and Thacker, 2008: 190; McGann and Latner, 2013; Tsebelis, 2002).
Importantly, part of this scepticism is shared by authors who follow Lijphart’s general
approach. For example, Adrian Vatter (2009) has changed or replaced the cabinet-related
indicators (numbers 3 and 4 in the above list) to achieve a more valid measurement. Here, we
adopt the opposite approach: rather than changing the measurement to better match Lijphart’s
concepts, we consider the concepts that might coherently justify the measurement.
Powell’s (2000) emphasis is more on the stages of the democratic process at which
majorities are formed and on the basic tension between representation and accountability.
The normative rationale of the majoritarian vision is not exclusion, but giving voters a
certain type of control over policymakers by essentially completing the process of demo-
cratic majority formation before the election. Voters should ideally be able to identify
competing options for government and clearly recognize who is responsible for the past
policies. The polar alternative to the majoritarian vision is a ‘proportional’ vision that
shifts majority formation to the post-electoral stages of the democratic process: cabinet
formation and legislative coalition-building. Powell’s...
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