State Format, Shape of Government and Democratic Performance

Representative government can be considered as the ‘engine room‘ of any democracy. It is the political executive transforming societal needs and preferences into public policy. In this paper we focus on 44 democracies across the world. First, we discuss the institutional format and shape of democratic government and ask to what extent cross-system differences affect policy performance as regards welfare services. We find that both the format of the democratic polity and the organisation of government are relevant for policy performance. Second, we explore the question to what extent this performance is associated with degrees of ‘democratic performance’ and an enhanced ‘quality of life’ and what factors may hinder this. We find that parliamentary democracies within unitary states with a decentralised policy organisation show a positive relationship between public welfare and democratic performance.