The Janus-Face of Negociation Democracy. The Effects of Consensus Democracy, Direct Democracy and Decentralization on State Intervention in Swiss Cantons

Vatter, Adrian; Freitag, Markus (2002). The Janus-Face of Negociation Democracy. The Effects of Consensus Democracy, Direct Democracy and Decentralization on State Intervention in Swiss Cantons. Swiss political science review / Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft, 8(2), pp. 53-80. Wiley 10.1002/j.1662-6370.2002.tb00394.x

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This essay explores the relationships between policy performance profiles and types of negotiation democracy in Swiss Cantons between 1988 and 1998. To what extent are variations in public policies caused by institutions like consociational democracy, and regimes of veto players such as direct democracy and decentralized power sharing? In dealing with this question, this paper starts with the assumption that consociational democracy, and regimes with veto players have diametrical effects on policy outcomes. Our findings rely on the advantages of the comparison of Swiss cantons and provide strong evidence that consociational democracy promotes state inter-vention, while regimes of veto players, e.g. patterns of direct democracy and decentralized power-sharing, constrain the expansion of the public sector. Our results persist even after controlling for the effects of political power distribution, as well as cantonal and federal contexts of policymaking.

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