Summary
Political scientist whose distinction between majoritarian and consensus democracy, and whose concept of consociationalism, supply the framework Dowty uses to classify Israeli democracy (The Jewish State: A Century Later, lines 250-330).
Details
- As Dowty presents him, Lijphart contrasts majoritarian democracy — the “Westminster model”, in which majority rule is the essence of democracy and is not to be diluted — with consensus democracy, which regards the diffusion and sharing of power according to some principle of proportionality as the ideal (The Jewish State: A Century Later, lines 250-330).
- The eight characteristics of consensus democracy Dowty takes from Lijphart fall on an executive-parties dimension (executive power-sharing; executive–legislative balance; multiparty system; multidimensional party system; proportional representation) and a federal-unitary dimension (federalism and decentralization; strong bicameralism; written and rigid constitutions) (The Jewish State: A Century Later, lines 250-330).
- Consociationalism is Lijphart’s related, broader concept for nonmajoritarian power-sharing practices — grand coalition, segmental autonomy, proportionality and mutual veto — covering informal practices as well as institutional structures, which Dowty finds especially applicable to Israel (The Jewish State: A Century Later, lines 285-335).
- Dowty cites Lijphart’s Democracies: Patterns of Majoritarian and Consensus Government in Twenty-One Countries (1984), Democracy in Plural Societies (1977), his 1989 and 1994 articles, and his chapter “Israeli Democracy and Democratic Reform in Comparative Perspective” (1993), on whose listing Israel also appears among the continuously democratic states (The Jewish State: A Century Later, lines 230-250, Chapter 1 notes 26, 30, 32-35 as ordered).