1. Global Comparative Politics (3)
Luca Verzichelli
University of Siena
Master Program
Public and Cultural Diplomacy (LM-81)

2. “Western” democracies: genus or species?
Western democracies as consolidated democracies: realities and myths
Presidential vs. Parliamentary democracy. Which works better?
Consensus vs. Majoritarian democracy. Unclear virtues
Democratic senility? Main challenges for the Western democracies today:
immigration and new multi-cultural relations
Health and safety: inequalities and long terms effects of welfare reduction
Changing structure of social and family relationships

3. Definition of Parliamentary democracy
In a classic parliamentary democracy, the prime minister is answerable to the elected element of Parliament and may be dismissed by it.
Variations
Parliamentary Confidence: active or passive. Types of confidence votes. Constructive no confidence ….
Semi-presidentialism. The Prime minister is accountable to parliament but a representative Head of State is also part of the Executive body
Monocratic vs. collegial management of the Executive body

4. Definition of Presidentialism
In a presidential system, the legislature and executive are independent. Both the legislature and the chief executive have their own fixed schedule for election and their own political mandate. Legislators and presidents have been elected independently of each other. They have different constituencies and often have different political agendas.
Each may even gain credibility and support by opposing the other.
Presidential system is not semi-presidentialism ! - Variation in the powers of Congresses
Variations in the structure of separation of power

5. Perils of presidentialism (Juan Linz)
The only presidentialism with a long constitutional continuity is the US
only Chile had a relatively undisturbed constitutional continuity until the 1970s.
Difficult aspects: relationships among political and administrative officials; separation of power; concentration of presidential power; unstable party system

6. Westminster vs. Consensus democracies (Lijphart)
Executive-parties dimension
concentration of executive power in single-party majority [MWC] cabinets versus executive power-sharing in broad [not MWC] multiparty coalitions.
the executive (president or cabinet/prime minister) is dominant over the legislature vs. a legislative-executive balance of power
two-party vs. multiparty system.
pluralistic first-past-the-post electoral rules (which lead to disproportionate results) vs. proportional representation (PR)
pluralist (i.e. atomistic) interest groups vs. 'corporatist' interest group systems aimed at compromise and concertation
Federal-unitary dimension
unitary vs. federal/decentralized structure
unicameral vs. bicameral legislature (with two "equally strong but differently constituted houses")
flexible, easily amended (or non-existent) constitutions vs. rigid, supermajority-amended constitutions
legislatures determine constitutionality of own legislation vs. judicial review of constitutionality by an independent court
executive control of central bank vs. central bank independence

7. UK. Still an example of Westmister Democracy ?
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8. Italy: the limits of majoritarian shift
PR system until 1992
Fragmented party system until Difficult bipolarization and new fragmentation (2013)
Coalition Governments and high degree of government instability
Centrality of parliament. Slight changes in the parliamentary rules of procedures
Collegial executive.
Traditional use of concertative arenas
Regional system. Increase of decentralization after 1990
Perfectly symmetrical bicameralism
Rigid Constitution and peculiar process of amendment (art. 138)
Strong Constitutional review (Constitutional Court)
Strong Central Bank independence since 1981
Goals and limits of change
Rationalization of the executive and political stability
Reduction of cost of political institutions
Effectiveness of policy making
- Difficult process of reduction of partisan veto players
Resilience of parliamentary actors, weakness of the executive actors
Multilevel governance and “liquidity” of political parties as brakes to the pro-majoritarian shift

9. Consensus and Westminster democracies. Longitudinal Trends
Shifts on the two-dimensional map by 27 democracies
from to 1981–2010
Great stability
Prevalence of mixed models
Conflicting shifts (centripetal trend between the ideal types?)
Effects of decentralization in many large democracies

10. A kindler, gentler democracy?
… The second important conclusion has to do with the policy performance of democratic governments: as far as the executives- parties dimension is concerned, majoritarian democracies do not outperform the consensus democracies on effective government and effective policy-making … but the consensus democracies do clearly outperform the majoritarian democracies with regard to the quality of democracy and democratic representation as well as with regard to what I have called the kindness and gentleness of their public policy orientations.
[Lijphart 2012, 295]
Empirical-Methodological critique: if so many cases fall in the middle is there a need of a typology based on two opposed idealtypes?
Normative critique:
the good performance of the Consensus democracies is due mainly to corporative practices
Size seems to be an important variable for introducing majoritarian institutions