descriptive but also normative. All too often, it displays both a preference for strong
leadership and a belief that majority party systems deliver more eVective government.
The most wide-ranging attempt to measure, rather than assert, the diVerences
between majoritarian and consensual parliamentary governments is Lijphart ( 1999
[ 1984 ]). Lijphart ( 1999 , chs. 15 and 16 ) asks whether consensus democracy makes a
diVerence. He challenges the conventional wisdom on the trade-oVbetween quality
and eVectiveness in which proportional representation and consensus government
provide better representation whereas plurality elections and majority government
provide more eVective policy-making. He concludes that consensus democracies
do outperform majoritarian democracies but, because the statistical results are
‘‘relatively weak and mixed,’’ he phrases his conclusion as a negative: ‘‘majoritarian
democracies are clearlynotsuperior to consensus democracies in managing the
economy and in maintaining civil peace’’ (Lijphart 1999 , 274 ; emphasis in original).
However, consensus democracies combine, on the one hand, better women’s
representation, great political equality, and higher participation in elections, with
‘‘gentler qualities,’’ such as persuasion, consultation, and ‘‘more generous policies’’
on, for example, the environment. So the good news is there is no trade-oV
between eVectiveness and democracy. The bad news is that ‘‘institutional and
cultural traditions may present strong resistance to consensus democracy’’ (Lij-
phart 1999 , 305 ). Also, as Peters ( 1999 , 81 – 2 ) argues, the advantage of majoritarian
government is that the executive can act as it wants—a prime minister can shape
policy more eVectively. The fact they are less eVective could well be a function of
poor policy choices not of institutional diVerences—in a phrase, ‘‘leaders do not
know best.’’ In turn, this criticism begs the question of whether policy choices
would be better if they were the product of persuasion and consultation rather than
of adversary politics (on how ‘‘leaders knowing best’’ can lead to policy disaster see
Butler, Adonis, and Travers 1994 ).
And so it goes on, but the key point is there can be no easy assumption about the
eVects of diVering institutional arrangements. The eVortless superiority enshrined
in the conventional wisdom that attributes decisiveness and eVectiveness to the
Westminster approachXounders on the sheer variety of political practice within
and between regime types (see also Blondel and Mu ̈ller-Rommell 1993 b; Weaver
and Rockman 1993 , 445 – 6 , 454 ; Strøm, Mu ̈ller, and Bergman 2003 ).
6 Comparative Analysis
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In part, the complexity we seek to understand is compounded by confusions about
‘‘what are we comparing?’’ It may seem straightforward to ask this question but the
336 r. a. w. rhodes