French Politics: the Virtues of Majoritarian Democracy
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Review Article
French Politics: the Virtues of Majoritarian Democracy Jan-Erik Lanea and Svante Erssonb a Department of Political Science, University of Geneva, Uni Mail, 40, Bd du Pont d’Arve, CH-1211 Gene`ve 4, Switzerland; bDepartment of Political Science, Umea˚ University, SE-901 87 UMEA˚, Sweden E-mail: [email protected]
France, i.e. the French Republic IV and Republic V, is a true test case for institutional analysis. It may be seen as a crucial experiment testing some implications of the adherents (Duverger) and the adversaries (Lijphart) of Majoritarian democracy. This question is studied through an institutional evaluation of whether the Fifth Republic has performed better than the Fourth Republic. We use two research strategies to throw light upon the question: (1) Longitudinal evaluation of France from 1945 to the late 1990s; (2) Cross-sectional evaluation of the French semi-presidential system, comparing France to other democratic regimes, presidential or parliamentary during the 1990s. Our findings suggest that France under the Fifth Republic has shown that Majoritarian democracy can be made workable in terms of all the requirements of a constitutional democracy. French Politics (2003) 1, 119–134. doi:10.1057/palgrave.fp.8200013 Keywords: Consensus democracy; Duverger; Lijphart; Majoritarian democracy
Introduction French politics has not lost any of its strong flavour. It is full of surprises all the time including stunning reversals as well as unexpected events. Where does this democratic vitality come from? In no other democracy are the people so prepared to show their political preferences so openly. In particular, is French politics shaped by its institutions or by its culture? If Montesquieu arrived in Paris today to write French Letters, what would he underline as the essence of French politics (Elgie and Griggs, 2000; Guyomarch et al., 2001)? French political institutions are biased towards centralization and uniformity. The emphasis on equality is a standard feature of French political culture, which is dominated by civic republicanism and which is contested only by old-fashioned nationalism. Can France cope with the social heterogeneity that is induced by globalization? The capacity of French politics to muddle through is better than institutional theory claims, especially the consensual theory of democracy.
Jan-Erik Lane and Svante Ersson Virtues of Majoritarian Democracy
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We can approach the study of French politics by way of an institutional framework in which the emphasis is upon the performance of political institutions. In fact, it is possible to view the French polity as a critical experiment in the evaluation of institutional theory. According to one theory, France should be politically stable, since it contains power-concentrating institutions (Duverger, 1996). However, on the basis of consociational theory, which emphasizes power-sharing institutions, proportional representation (PR) and over-sized government coalitions, France should not perform as well as other
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