IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jothpo/v12y2000i4p395-423.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Uneasy Relationship between Empirical and Normative Types in Consociational Theory

Author

Listed:
  • Matthijs Bogaards

Abstract

Consociationalism has enriched comparative politics with a whole lineage of non-majoritarian types of democracy: from consociational democracy to consensus democracy and power-sharing. This article unravels the development, interaction and succession of empirical and normative typologies in 30 years of consociational literature as embodied in the work of Lijphart. It argues that consociational theory is plagued by serious conceptual problems which remain undetected by current inquiries into proper concept formation. The problem lies both in Lijphart's empirical typology of democracies and in the presence of a complementary but incongruent normative typology. The conclusion is that in the end the two kinds of typology weaken instead of strengthen each other and lay bare fundamental weaknesses in consociational theory. It is suggested that the empirical investigation of the normative rival types of consociational and majoritarian democracy, properly defined and operationalized, should be at the heart of new research strategies.

Suggested Citation

  • Matthijs Bogaards, 2000. "The Uneasy Relationship between Empirical and Normative Types in Consociational Theory," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 12(4), pages 395-423, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:12:y:2000:i:4:p:395-423
    DOI: 10.1177/0951692800012004002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0951692800012004002
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0951692800012004002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sartori, Giovanni, 1970. "Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 64(4), pages 1033-1053, December.
    2. Lijphart, Arend, 1996. "The Puzzle of Indian Democracy: A Consociational Interpretation," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 90(2), pages 258-268, June.
    3. Lijphart, Arend, 1971. "Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 65(3), pages 682-693, September.
    4. Giovanni Sartori, 1994. "Comparative Constitutional Engineering," International Economic Association Series, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-349-22861-4, December.
    5. Anderson, Christopher J. & Guillory, Christine A., 1997. "Political Institutions and Satisfaction with Democracy: A Cross-National Analysis of Consensus and Majoritarian Systems," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 91(1), pages 66-81, March.
    6. Collier, David & Mahon, James E., 1993. "Conceptual “Stretching†Revisited: Adapting Categories in Comparative Analysis," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(4), pages 845-855, December.
    7. Lijphart, Arend & Crepaz, Markus M. L., 1991. "Corporatism and Consensus Democracy in Eighteen Countries: Conceptual and Empirical Linkages," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(2), pages 235-246, April.
    8. Lijphart, Arend, 1975. "Review Article: the Northern Ireland Problem; Cases, Theories, and Solutions," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(1), pages 83-106, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gustav Lidén, 2013. "What about theory? The consequences on a widened perspective of social theory," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 213-225, January.
    2. André Kaiser, 1997. "Types of Democracy," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 9(4), pages 419-444, October.
    3. Jaap Woldendorp & Hans Keman, 2010. "Dynamic institutional analysis: measuring corporatist intermediation," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 44(2), pages 259-275, February.
    4. Mathieu Rousselin, 2012. "The EU as a Multilateral Rule Exporter - The Global Transfer of European Rules via International Organizations," KFG Working Papers p0048, Free University Berlin.
    5. Louise Tillin, 2013. "National and Subnational Comparative Politics: Why, What and How," Studies in Indian Politics, , vol. 1(2), pages 235-240, December.
    6. Suraj Jacob, 2015. "Towards a Comparative Subnational Perspective on India," Studies in Indian Politics, , vol. 3(2), pages 229-246, December.
    7. Giovanni Capoccia, 2002. "Anti-System Parties," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 14(1), pages 9-35, January.
    8. Victoria Finn, 2022. "A qualitative assessment of QCA: method stretching in large-N studies and temporality," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 56(5), pages 3815-3830, October.
    9. Thomas Rixen & Lora Anne Viola, 2015. "Putting path dependence in its place: toward a Taxonomy of institutional change," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 27(2), pages 301-323, April.
    10. Sandra Fachelli & Pedro López-Roldán, 2021. "Comparative Perspectives on Social Indicators," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 154(3), pages 755-765, April.
    11. Prokic-Breuer, Tijana, 2011. "The relative importance of social and cultural capital for educational performance: Eastern versus Western Europe," Discussion Papers, Research Professorship Demographic Development, Social Change, and Social Capital SP I 2011-403, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    12. Michener, Gregory, 2015. "Policy Evaluation via Composite Indexes: Qualitative Lessons from International Transparency Policy Indexes," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 184-196.
    13. Rosemary H. T. O'Kane, 1993. "The Ladder of Abstraction," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 5(2), pages 169-193, April.
    14. Gong, Cheng & Ribiere, Vincent, 2021. "Developing a unified definition of digital transformation," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    15. Rodrigo Barrenechea & Isabel Castillo, 2019. "The many roads to Rome: family resemblance concepts in the social sciences," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 107-130, January.
    16. Einig, Klaus, 2011. "Vergleichende Institutionenanalyse der Planzeichen zur Infrastruktur in Regionalplänen," Forschungs- und Sitzungsberichte der ARL: Aufsätze, in: Tietz, Hans-Peter & Hühner, Tanja (ed.), Zukunftsfähige Infrastruktur und Raumentwicklung: Handlungserfordernisse für Ver- und Entsorgungssysteme, volume 127, pages 117-141, ARL – Akademie für Raumentwicklung in der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft.
    17. Octavia MOISE, 2017. "Nato-Eu Partnership: Fostering Resilience For A Cooperative Security Space," EURINT, Centre for European Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, vol. 4, pages 131-148.
    18. John Gerring & Paul A. Barresi, 2003. "Putting Ordinary Language to Work," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 15(2), pages 201-232, April.
    19. August Wierling & Valeria Jana Schwanitz & Sebnem Altinci & Maria Bałazińska & Michael J. Barber & Mehmet Efe Biresselioglu & Christopher Burger-Scheidlin & Massimo Celino & Muhittin Hakan Demir & Ric, 2021. "FAIR Metadata Standards for Low Carbon Energy Research—A Review of Practices and How to Advance," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-20, October.
    20. Stefano Bartolini, 1993. "On Time and Comparative Research," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 5(2), pages 131-167, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:12:y:2000:i:4:p:395-423. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.