Institutional design and polarization. Do consensus democracies fare better in fighting polarization than majoritarian democracies?

Figures & data

Figure 1. Evolution types of polarization over time. Source: own calculation based on the Varieties of Democracy dataset.¹⁰³

Figure 2. Average strength of polarization by type and country (2000–2019). Source: own calculation based on the Varieties of Democracy dataset.¹⁰⁴

Table 1. OLS regressions predicting levels of issue-based and identity-based polarization in 36 countries over time (2000–2019).

	Identity-based polarization		Idea-based polarization
	B (SE)	Sign.	B (SE)	Sign.
Constant	.292 (.078)	.000	.359 (.112)	.000
Electoral proportionality	-.037 (.015)	.018	-.010 (.002)	.051
Effective number of parties on the seats level	-.003 (.004)	.473	.003 (.020)	.875
Executive-legislative relations Presidential or semi-presidential system (REF) Parliamentary system	-.004 (.037)	.919	-.063 (.046)	.175
Government type Single-party or minimal winning cabinet (REF) Multiparty coalition cabinet	-.138 (.051)	.031	-.112 (.065)	.103
Federalism No or weak federalism (REF) Strong federalism	-.161 (.059)	.006	-.242 (.076)	.001
Bicameralism Unicameralism or weak bicameralism (REF) Medium or strong bicameralism	.000 (.069)	.995	-.037 (.088)	.676
Identity-based polarization (T-5)	1.006 (.015)	.000
Idea-based polarization (T-5)			.969 (.023)	.000
Adjusted R^2	85.7%		82.5%
N obs	515		532
N countries	36		36

5- year lagged dependent variable. Clustered robust standard errors in parentheses. Year dummies included in both models (not shown).