Power Sharing And Balance

In a pluralistic society,stable-democracy is a difficult problem in the study of Western democratic theory.Arend Lijphart examined the democratic experience of European countries,in response to the shortcomings of Majority democracy,he put forward the theory of Consociationam democracy in the 1960 s,and developed into a theory of Consensus democracy in the 1980 s.Lijphart believed that majority democracy was extremely repulsive,competitive and confrontational,but consensus democracy theory can achieve power separation and power sharing,which was extremely inclusive,negotiative and compromising.Consensus democracy conducived to the establishment of a stable democratic country.Although Lijphart's theory of consensus democracy has aroused criticism from many scholars,and the accuracy of his argument process and content remains to be discussed,it is undeniable that consensus democracy theory provides us with a new perspective to understand Western liberal democracy,which provides a certain reference for the democratic construction of multi-social countries and international alliances.This paper is divided into the following four parts:The first part introduces the theoretical background and realistic background of the consensus democracy,and the process from the development of consociational to consensus democracy.The second part elaborates consensus democracy.According to research on 36 countries,it is found that there are 10 institutional characteristics in the theory of majority democracy and consensus democracy,which belong to two dimensions:executive-parties dimension and federal-unitary dimension.Executive-parties dimension includes the types of administrative organs,political parties,the relationship between administrative and legislative organs,the electoral system,and the interest group system;the federal-unitary dimensionm includes the state structure,the type of legislature,the constitutional nature,judicial review and the independence of the central bank.He drew a two-dimensional map of democracy according to the correlation of ten variables which belong to two groups.In the third part,in order to better understand Lijphart's consensus democracy,I compare Lijphart's though with deliberative democracy,elitism and corportism.The fourth part briefly evaluates Lijphart's Consensus Democracy and points out conceptual ambiguity,logical loopholes,and deficiencies in behavioral methodology.