An Analysis Of Lijphart' Consensus Democracy

In an increasingly diversified society with increasing heterogeneity, how did the western democracies respond? To solve this problem, there appeared some models, such as pluralist democracy,negotiation democracy etc, among which consensus democracy praised highly by Lijphart is an classic one. After the development of consociational democracy, consensus democracy has become a model description, and has had an important impact on democratic politics in western societies.According to the research of Lijphart, majoritarian democracy and consensus democracy separately has ten characters at the system, institutions and rules of democracy, which belong to two dimensions: executives-parties dimension and federal-unitary dimension. The five variables of each dimension are highly correlated. Lijphart elaborated the characteristics of consensus democracy through the study on the ten elements. He drew a two-dimensional map of democracy according to the correlation of ten variables which belong to two groups. He chose 36 countries to study. He studied the 10 variables in the 36countries, and located these countries in the two-dimensional map.Through empirical analysis, Lijphart has proved that consensus democracy prevails to majoritarian democracy at the overall performance and the quality of democracy. The charm of consensus democracy prompts people to seek ways to build it. The most direct way is institutional design. It is not difficult to establish consensus democracy by formulating the Constitution and other basic laws. But in the process of building consensus democracy, two factors may become possible obstacles. That is the institutional and cultural traditions. However, the elements of consensus democracy in the traditions of these countries will drive the construction of consensus democracy.Lijphart's consensus democracy is a great contribution to western comparative politics and institutional research. It has had a profound impact on the development of constitutional government in the modern world. It will also provide ideas to solve problems emerged in the increasingly diversified Chinese society. However, there are some arguments about the definition, elements, case analysis and the final conclusion of consensus democracy, which need further in-depth study.