Resilient patterns of democracy. A comparative analysis

摘要

The present article analyses types of democracy as combinations of institutions and of behaviour patterns which become resilient through the self-interest of political actors in the face of numerous possible influences. It takes up Philip Pettit’s analysis of ‘resilience’ as an independent explanandum of the Social Sciences as well as Josep Colomer’s concept of behavioural-institutional equilibria. The explanatory power of the resilience perspective as put forward is emphasised by partially reanalysing Lijphart’sPatterns of Democracy. It will be shown that even in representative party systems, the formation of inclusive cabinets is not a resilient pattern, and that the type or ‘pattern’ of democracy a given country has is shaped primarily by its form of government. This resilience perspective supplements the normative analysis of democracy patterns.