Bernhard Miller

The Democratic Quality of Institutional Regimes: a Conceptual Framework

Lijpharts spectrum of democracies – recently expanded by Jack Nagel to a sub-majoritarian sphere of pluralitarian systems which use disproportional electoral systems in order to manufacture majority governments from minorities in the electorate – is based on only one dimension: inclusion of preferences. Political scientists in the Lijphartian tradition wrongly assume that inclusion of preferences, which is an input characteristic, automatically leads to responsiveness, which refers to actual policy decisions and hence is an output characteristic. We therefore add ‘responsibility’ as a second input characteristic and employ it alongside the inclusiveness of institutional regimes. We argue that in representative democracies there exists a trade-off between inclusiveness and responsibility. This trade-off helps us to measure the democratic quality of institutional regimes. The now expanded spectrum of democracies based on these two dimensions shows that majoritarian democracy proper – in which governments represent a majority of individual preferences but not more than necessary – is the best possible combination of the two democratic values.

Making Measures Capture Concepts: Tools for Securing Correspondence between Theoretical Ideas and Observations

‘Perhaps the most fundamental barriers to good comparative research are measurement and the problems of comparability of measures.’ (Peters, 1998, p. 80) A quick glance at the contents of this book reveals that this is a bold statement. Given the sheer number of challenges we face designing our research projects, it might even be an overstatement. But whether or not we share Peters’ view, measurement as the link between theory and empirical reality is the backbone of empirical research and therefore at the core of research design, irrespective of whether research is quantitative or qualitative (based on large-n or small-n), or, for that matter, whether it is comparative or not. The central role of measurement in research design goes some way to explain the skepticism of one distinguished commentator on the subject who is ‘doubtful, that any amount of study … can teach you how to measure social phenomena, though it can conceivably be helpful in understanding xactly what is achieved by a proposed method of measurement or measuring instrument’ (Duncan, 1984, p. 154). This is what this chapter sets out to do.

Increasing the Relevance of Research Questions: Considerations on Theoretical and Social Relevance in Political Science

Most introductions to the methodology of social inquiry start somewhere in the middle of the research process. They do not, however, shed light on the first stage of a research project (e.g., Brady and Collier, 2004; George and Bennett, 2005; Pennings, Keman and Kleinnijenhuis, 1999). Others touch upon the issue — but in some rather vague way (Geddes, 2003; Gerring, 2001; King, Keohane and Verba, 1994). Most importantly, such companions do not say anything about how to find appropriate research questions. Experience tells us that determining the question one sets out to answer is by no means an easy task. In this chapter, we offer some guidance in this respect. The concept of relevance which we use builds on three pillars: methodological appropriateness, theoretical relevance and social relevance. Methodological appropriateness is the subject of the chapters which follow in this book. We will therefore only briefly discuss it here. Theoretical relevance refers to the analytical value a research question adds to the scientific discourse of the subdiscipline — such as international relations, comparative political science, political sociology — it addresses. Socially relevant research furthers the understanding of social and political phenomena which affect people and make a difference with regard to an explicitly specified evaluative standard.

Consensus by Default? Interaction of Government and Opposition parties in the committees of the German Bundestag

Consensus implies accommodating opposition. In the parliamentary process evidence on the interaction of opposition and governing parties is sketchy and theoretical approaches are manifold and ambivalent. Most prominently, there are contradicting hypotheses about the role of parliamentary committees in this interaction. While some authors consider committees as arenas for opposition influence and consensus others regard them as an apex of majoritarian dominance only. We argue that behavioural patterns in committees do not follow a static majoritarian or consensual pattern but a dynamic one which varies with context. This article elaborates this argument with regard to the committees of the German Bundestag. Based on novel data we show that different majority constellations in the Bundesrat induce different behavioural patterns in Bundestag committees. Under an opposition-controlled Bundesrat and consent bills decision-making in committees follows a more consensual approach.

Koalitionsmechanismen in einer Großen Koalition: Das Beispiel der Regierung Merkel

Kaum ein Jahr nach Beginn der Amtszeit der zweiten Grosen Koalition in Deutschland hatte also in den Augen der Beteiligten das Konfliktmanagement versagt. Dennoch erreichte es sein vielleicht wichtigstes Ziel: Die Regierung unter Angela Merkel uberstand die gesamte Legislaturperiode, obwohl die Koalition viele schmerzhafte Entscheidungen treffen musste.