Do “consensus” democracies outperform “majoritarian” democracies with respect to the performance of government? Lijphart’s (1999, 2012) analysis yields this conclusion. We expect more ambiguous effects of empirical types of democracies, enriching his behavioural-institutional approach with a micro-foundation, a measurement theoretical model, and interactions between more informal (behaviourally shaped power dispersion in elections, party systems, and cabinets) and formal (veto players including presidents and direct democracy) elements of democracy. We use a fresh data base on power dispersion in 61 democracies between 1990 and 2010. Taking the uncertainty of estimates of power dispersion into account, the results indicate that power dispersion in party systems and executives yields lower levels of economic inequality. The concentration of power does not lead to higher levels of government effectiveness, while there are limited differences in terms of migrant integration policies. Veto players and interactions have no unambiguousness effects when measuring latent dimensions of democracy properly.
