Types of democracy - From classical to new institutionalism

Discussion of concepts in empirical democratic theory has proceeded down two main lines: in terms of theory, from classical institutionalism to new institutionalism; in terms of substance, from the traditional notion of the separation of powers to ever more refined versions of that doctrine. The article contrasts three stages of development and discusses their relevance for contemporary research: the conventional types of parliamentary vs presidential democracy; consociational democracy as a behaviouralist conception; and Arend Lijphart's differentiation of majoritarian and consensus democracy. It is argued that, although these types remain valuable frameworks in some respects, they are unsatisfactory tools for the sort of research which has come to the fore in recent years: the effects of different types of democracy on policy outputs; the structural implications of political institutions for political action; and political institutions as outcomes of constitutional engineering processes. For purposes like these a new institutionalist framework for analysis is proposed which develops further the idea of veto points.