Legislative Votes and Visions of Democracy

Conflict and consensus are dimensions that constitute politics, including legislatures to which voters elect political parties. They express positions and take action, and votes in parliament are among the most important manners to do so. Hence, legislative voting data presents various opportunities to measures the performance of democracies. As an example, we can assess to what extend a democracy corresponds to the idea of consensus democracy by using the concept of legislative inclusiveness – i.e. the share of legislators supporting a bill (Williams, 2012). Building on recent innovations in the study of different visions of democracy (Ganghof, 2015; Ward and Weale, 2010), we use legislative voting data to assess the varying extent to which democracies empower the median on each dimension. The four dimensions focus on whether and how majorities form inside cabinet or in parliament, and we explore theoretically guided the connection between structural setup (majority government, coalition etc.) and actual majority formation. To measure party distance we draw on the tradition opened by Pedersen (1967). We expect and try to show that the flexible legislative coalitions formed by some minority governments (e.g. Denmark, Sweden) are much more likely to include the median party than rigid majority coalitions (e.g. Germany). When we combine legislative voting data with categories of democracy, we aim to develop an empirical assessment of how and for what reasons modern democracy work, and to discuss implications hereof. Ganghof S. (2015) Four Visions of Democracy: Powell's Elections as Instruments of Democracy and beyond. Political Studies Review 13: 69-79. Pedersen, M.N. (1967) Consensus and Conflict. Scandinavian Political Studies 2: 143-166. Ward H. and Weale A. (2010) Is Rule by Majorities Special? Political Studies 58: 26-46. Williams BD. (2012) Institutional Change and Legislative Vote Consensus. Legislative Studies Quarterly 37: 559-574.