Review Article: Democratic Inclusiveness: A Reinterpretation of Lijphart’s Patterns of Democracy

This contribution to the study of democratic inclusiveness advances three main claims, based on Lijphart’s original data. First, his measurement of executive inclusiveness is incoherent and invalid. Secondly, executive inclusiveness is best explained by the interaction of many parties and strong legislative veto points. This implies that executive inclusiveness should not be contained in either of Lijphart’s two dimensions of democracy. Thirdly, parties have incentives to economize on the costs of inclusive coalitions by avoiding strong legislative veto points, and these incentives are greater in parliamentary than in presidential systems. Hence, Lijphart’s favourite version of consensus democracy – characterized by a parliamentary system and a high degree of executive inclusiveness – is unlikely to be a behavioural-institutional equilibrium.