ABSTRACT
In my article ‘‘Constitutional Choices for New Democracies,’’ I presented
systematic empirical evidence concerning the relative performance of var-
ious types of democratic systems in an effort to transcend the usual vague
and untestable claims and counterclaims that surround this topic. I com-
pared four parliamentary-plurality democracies (the United Kingdom,
Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) with nine parliamentary-propor-
tional representation (PR) democracies (Germany, Italy, Austria, the Neth-
erlands, Belgium, and four Nordic countries – Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland) with regard to their performance records on minority representa-
tion and protection, democratic quality, the maintenance of public order
and peace, and the management of the economy. I found that, where dif-
ferences between the two groups of democracies appeared, the parliamen-
tary-PR systems showed the better performance. There were sizable
differences with regard to minority representation (as measured by the
representation of women in national parliaments), the protection of minor-
ity interests (measured by innovative family policy), democratic quality (measured by voter turnout), and control of unemployment; smaller differ-
ences on income inequality and control of inflation; and little or no differ-
ence with regard to the maintenance of public order (as measured by riots
and deaths from political violence) and economic growth. Since, according
to the conventional – but also rather old-fashioned – wisdom, PR may be
superior to plurality as far as minority representation is concerned but leads
to less effective decision making, even my finding of minor or no differences
on some of the performance indicators must be counted in favor of the parliamentary-PR type.
