Abstract: This book offers a description and explanation of the performance of western democracies. It addresses two main questions: Is the performance of western democracies in decline? Do institutions matter for political performance? It aims at a comprehensive stock-taking for twenty-one OECD countries by systematically examining all major domestic policy areas — domestic security policy, economic policy, social policy, and environmental policy — from 1974 to 1995. The quality of democracy is assessed at the level of the four policy areas, and at a general level encompassing all areas. The question of trade-offs between policy areas is studied in an unprecedented way. The empirical findings confront widely-held beliefs about the performance of democracies: Western democracies as a whole did not converge at a lower level of performance, and trade-offs between different policy areas did not increase. The question ‘do institutions matter?’ can only partially be answered in the affirmative. Political institutions do matter, but formal and informal institutions cause different effects; both matter only sometimes and only to a limited degree.

Keywords: performance, democracy, political institutions, domestic security policy, economic policy, social policy, environmental policy, effectiveness, globalization, veto players