Majoritarian and consensual democracies: The seat product connection

Abstract

This study connects two apparently disparate fields of inquiry in a specific quantitative way. In Lijphart’s Patterns of Democracy, the majoritarian–consensual “executives–parties” score ( L) combines five indices. Four of these largely or entirely derive from factors that Shugart and Taagepera, Votes from Seats, logically deduced from the product of two numbers: the number of seats in an average electoral district ( M) and in the first or only chamber of representative assembly ( S). Hence L connects to the purely institutional seat product MS (logged) along a simple logistic pattern. It can be predicted from [Formula: see text], with R2 = 0.59. Thus, surprisingly, the majoritarian–consensual typology largely stems from the number of seats available.