Democracies at work Democracies change through time. Proportional democracies may introduce some majoritarian elements. Majoritarian democracies may use some proportional devices. Structural adjustments are often accompanied by behavioral transformations. The same democratic system may undergo significant changes because of the conscious and deliberate behavior of its political elites. Leaving aside some important conceptual shortcomings, Lijphart’s classification of the patterns of democracy does not allow for an appreciation and an analysis of the true dynamics of existing democracies. The task is complex and requires a deep knowledge of quite a number of democratic political systems. In this paper, I will first offer a reformulation of Lijphart’s classification. Then, I will suggest which data ought to be collected and which elements ought to be taken into account to produce a more convincing classification. Finally, I will focus on two countries: France and Italy. My intention is to explore what kind of democracies the two countries have been and are today. In substance, we have four cases that can be usefully compared: on the one hand, the Fourth and the Fifth French Republic and, on the other, the Italian Republic from 1948 to 1993 and from 1994 up to now. Though not in a highly systematic way, I will attempt a comparison of the “most similar” type with special reference to the institutional arrangements, the party system, and the behavior of the elites. This paper aims at providing the first step toward a better classification of the complex dynamics of contemporary democracies.
