Arend Lijphart

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Arend D'Engremont Lijphart (b. 17 August 1936, Apeldoorn, the Netherlands) is a political scientist specializing in comparative politics, elections and voting systems, democratic institutions, and ethnicity and politics. He is currently Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego. Dutch by birth, he has spent most of his working life in the United States and is an American citizen. He has since regained his Dutch citizenship and is now a dual citizen of both the Netherlands and the United States.

In 1963 he was awarded the Ph.D. at Yale University. In 1989, he was elected to the National Academy of Arts and Sciences and from 1995-1996 served as President of the American Political Science Association. He was awarded the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science in 1997.

Lijphart is best known for his work on consociationalism, or the ways in which segmented societies manage to sustain democracy through power-sharing, which was based on his first major work, The Politics of Accommodation, a study of the Dutch political system. He expanded on the concept of consociationalism in Democracy in Plural Societies. In later work he has focused on the broader study of consensual and majoritarian elements in political systems.

In, Patterns of Democracy - Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries (1999) Lijphart constructs ten basic variables through which an analysis of thirty-six democracies is made possible: party systems, cabinets, executive power, electoral systems, interest groups, decentralization, and division of legislative power, constitutions, judicial review, and central banks. He finds consensus democracy a ‘kinder, gentler” democracy: possessed of a less abrasive political culture, with more functional businesslike proceedings, a results orientated ethic, and transparent interest group corporatism; qualities he feels “should appeal to all democrats.”

[edit] Publications

The Trauma of Decolonization: The Dutch & West New Guinea. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966.
The Politics of Accommodation. Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968.
Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977. ISBN 0-300-02494-0.
Democracies: Patterns of Majoritarian & Consensus Government in Twenty-one Countries. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984. ISBN 0-300-03182-3.
Power-Sharing in South Africa. Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, University of California, 1985. ISBN 0-87725-524-5.
Grofman, Bernard, and Lijphart, Arend (eds.). Electoral Laws & Their Political Consequences. New York: Agathon Press, 1986. ISBN 0-87586-074-5.
Electoral Systems and Party Systems: A Study of Twenty-Seven Democracies, 1945-1990. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. ISBN 0-19-828054-8.
Lijphart, Arend, and Waisman, Carlos H. (eds.). Institutional Design in New Democracies. Boulder: Westview, 1996. ISBN 0-8133-2109-3.
Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms & Performance in Thirty-six Countries. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-300-07893-5
Grofman, Bernard and Lijphart, Arend (eds.). The Evolution of Electoral & Party Systems in the Nordic Countries. New York: Agathon Press. ISBN 0-87586-138-5.