The Consociational Democracy Theme

Abstract

The books that are the subject of this review share three important characteristics. 1. They deal exclusively, or at least predominantly, with the political experiences of some smaller European countries which have traditionally been terra incognita on the map of comparative politics. Most writing in the field of comparative politics has centered eidier on the larger developed countries or on the developing states in die Third World. The Scandinavian and Benelux countries, Austria, and Switzerland have eidier been neglected or treated as isolated phenomena, mainly of folkloristic interest. As a category, they have been written off (widi die exception of Austria) as “the sober parliamentary democracies,” or as examples (listed with a note of surprise) of “working multi-party systems.”