J.E. Keman

Economic performance and institutions: Capturing the dependent variable

In the debate about the relationship between institutions and overall economic performance, the dependent variable has received scant attention – in contrast to the independent variable(s). This paper tries to enhance the understanding of the link between institutions and performance by presenting and assessing a substantively grounded conceptualization and operationalization of overall economic performance based on economic growth, employment, and public debt. A fuzzy-set ideal-type analysis of performance of 19 OECD countries between 1975 and 2005 reveals substantial variation across countries and over time that cannot sufficiently be accounted for by two key institutional features: corporatism and consensus democracy. Corporatism and consensus democracy may account for policy formation and implementation, but hardly for economic performance.

State Format, Shape of Government and Democratic Performance

Representative government can be considered as the ‘engine room‘ of any democracy. It is the political executive transforming societal needs and preferences into public policy. In this paper we focus on 44 democracies across the world. First, we discuss the institutional format and shape of democratic government and ask to what extent cross-system differences affect policy performance as regards welfare services. We find that both the format of the democratic polity and the organisation of government are relevant for policy performance. Second, we explore the question to what extent this performance is associated with degrees of ‘democratic performance’ and an enhanced ‘quality of life’ and what factors may hinder this. We find that parliamentary democracies within unitary states with a decentralised policy organisation show a positive relationship between public welfare and democratic performance. State Format, Shape of Government and Democratic Performance Publication History: Received: January 29, 2016 Accepted: May 09, 2016 Published: May 11, 2016