Consociational Power-sharing Research Articles

Protesting power-sharing: citizenship acts and eventful protest in divided societies

ABSTRACT This article examines waves of citizen protest against the ethnic citizenship regime of consociational power-sharing. It seeks to contribute to research on power-sharing by bringing together the literature on “acts of citizenship” and “eventful protest” to show how protest waves in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iraq and Lebanon seek to contest, destabilize, reimagine, and enact new forms of inclusive citizenship in ethnically divided societies. While research suggests that popular mobilization has destabilizing effects on power-sharing, this paper indicates that protest forms offer important forms of democratic participation and renewal for consociational systems. Towards this, the article illuminates four interweaving citizenship frames developed in protests: Citizens (Demos) versus Elites (Ethnos); Trans-sectarian; Inclusionary; and Inclusionary. The article draws on interviews, media and policy data to explore the voice of protestors.

Are consociations bad for women? Assessing the effectiveness of gender quotas in Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia

ABSTRACT To overcome ethno-national segregation, conflict resolution practitioners have promoted consociational power-sharing. After power-sharing arrangements were instituted, to address women’s under-representation in parliaments legislated gender quotas were also introduced. Gender quotas have been adopted in many post-conflict settings, but their effects remain understudied. In this article, by combining consociationalism and gender quotas theory, and applying a feminist institutionalist analytical approach, we examine the disparate effectiveness of gender quotas in two consociations: Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia. We pair the two countries to evaluate why gender quotas have produced different outcomes and demonstrate that formal and informal institutions matter for quota effectiveness.

Are Segmental Parties Bad for Women? Rethinking the Challenges of Representation in Consociational Power-Sharing

ABSTRACT Consociational power-sharing mandates representation of politically salient groups in government and encourages their participation in decision making. This leaves identities and issues not centrally related to the primary political division technically negligible for political stability. That cross-segmental policy issues in general and those specifically of concerns to women in divided societies enjoy low priority in dominant political parties is well documented. There is no agreement on why it is so. This paper analyses the system-level incentives that segmental parties in Northern Ireland follow when crowding out concerns and interests that might be relevant for individual voters identifying primarily outside the established politically salient cleavages. We conclude that in Northern Ireland, the systematic marginalisation of ‘women-specific issues’ is not systemic but rather highlights system-given opportunities for major political parties to avoid engagement with socially salient issues at no electoral cost.

Examining the Prospects of Consociational Power Sharing as a Conflict Resolution Strategy in South Sudan

Abstract South Sudan has not escaped the world’s attention even after the signing of the infamous Revitalized Peace Agreement in September 2018 that for the 12th time brought the two antagonists – Kiir and Dr. Machar – to the negotiation table since the conflict began in 2013. Even with the aura of a shaky peace, the main question is whether the new agreement will stand the test of time going by the history of the failed implementation of peace agreements. This paper recognizes the vital nature of the prevailing peace and questions about whether consociational democracy can be propped up during this period of relative peace. Discussions are hinged on the consociationalism theory that contains a broad array of principles, including power sharing, requisite for consociational democracy. It argues that although South Sudan’s context could favor consociational democracy, there are several barriers characterizing Sudan’s social and political spheres that should be alleviated. We elucidate on the barriers and suggest in broad strokes the need for strong independent institutions and vibrant civil society amongst others. We also recognize that overreliance on individuals in resolving the conflict is detrimental to the young nation, and there is a need for a citizen-centered approach that entrenches consociational principles in South Sudan’s political sphere.

Examining the Prospects of Consociational Power-Sharing as a Conflict Resolution Strategy in South Sudan

South Sudan has not escaped the world’s attention even after the signing of the infamous Revitalized Peace Agreement in September 2018 that for the 12th time brought the two antagonists –Kiir and Dr. Machar to the negotiation table since the conflict began in 2013. Even with the aura of a shaky peace, the main question is whether the new agreement will stand the test of time going by the history of the failed implementation of peace agreements. This paper recognizes the vital nature of the prevailing peace and questions about whether consociational democracy can be propped up during this period of relative peace. Discussions are hinged on the consociationalism theory that contains a broad array of principles, including power sharing, requisite for consociational democracy. It argues that although South Sudan’s context could favor consociational democracy, there are several barriers characterizing Sudan’s social and political spheres that should be alleviated. We elucidate on the barriers and suggest in broad strokes the need for strong independent institutions and vibrant civil society amongst others. We also recognize that overreliance on individuals in resolving the conflict is detrimental to the young nation, and there is a need for a citizen-centered approach that entrenches consociational principles in South Sudan’s political sphere.

Examining the Prospects of Consociational Power Sharing as a Conflict Resolution Strategy in South Sudan

South Sudan has not escaped the world’s attention even after the signing of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS) in September 2018. This agreement brought the main antagonists— President Salva Kiir and Vice-President Dr Riek Machar—to the negotiation table for the twelfth time since the conflict began in 2013. Even with the aura of a shaky peace, the main question is whether the new agreement will stand the test of time in light of the history of the failed implementation of peace agreements. This paper recognises the vital nature of the prevailing peace and examines whether consociational democracy can be propped up during this period of relative peace. The discussion hinges on consociationalism theory that contains a broad array of principles, including power sharing, requisite for consociational democracy. We argue that although South Sudan’s context could favour consociational democracy, there are several barriers characterising Sudan’s social and political spheres that should be alleviated. We elucidate on the barriers and suggest in broad strokes the need for strong independent institutions and vibrant civil society amongst others. We also recognise that overreliance on individuals in resolving the conflict is detrimental to the young nation, and there is a need for a citizen-centred approach that entrenches consociational principles in South Sudan’s political sphere.

NIGERIA: POWER-SHARING AND THE RESURGENCE OF SEPARATIST AGITATION. THE PROSPECT OF A CONSOCIATIONAL MODEL

The theory of consociationalism has been extensively discussed in literature; however, its feasibility in managing conflicts in deeply divided societies is heavily contested. The few studies that have examined how the theory applies in real-world situations remain inconclusive. The present work, therefore, explored the prospect of consociational power-sharing model in addressing the problem of under-representation, political exclusion, and marginalization in Nigeria. This is against the backdrop of the incessant separatist agitations in Nigeria, which has undermined the peace, stability, and unity of the country. Using qualitatively analyzed data from secondary sources, this study argues that even though Nigeria does not meet any of the favorable conditions of consociationalism set out by Lijphart (1985), it would still benefit from consociational power-sharing. The study proposes the adoption of semi-presidentialism based on the principle of grand coalition and proportionality and gives an assessment of how it could work for Nigeria. It contends that the rotation of power among the six geo-political zones in the country and the adoption of proportional sequential mechanism would facilitate elite cooperation and inclusion of all segments of the society in the political process, thereby easing the fear of sectional domination in Nigeria. Keywords: power-sharing, consociationalism, separatist agitation, under-representation, political exclusion, Nigeria.

Veto power and power-sharing: insights from Burundi (2000–2018)

ABSTRACTVeto power is a key institutional pillar of consociational power-sharing. However, the literature is divided on its impact for institutional functionality. While the founding father of consociational theory, Arend Lijphart, expects veto rights to be exercised sparingly by segmental elites, more recent scholarship emphasizes the need for restrictions (in terms of veto players, veto issues, veto points and procedure) in order to avoid abusive and disruptive veto practice. Burundi’s transition from ethnic conflict to ethnic pacification was strongly based on the use of military and political power-sharing, including consociationalism. This article examines the design of veto rights and their practice in Burundi over the past two decades. The analysis confirms that the institutional design of veto power matters, but it counters the hypothesis that a too enabling veto design induces the abuse of veto rights and disrupts consociational functionality. The Burundi case-study shows that the impact and “shelf-life” of veto rights are best understood by taking into consideration the intersection of veto power with other power-sharing institutions and practices, both formal and informal.

Non-Nationalist Politics in a Bi-National Consociation: The Case of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland

Through a case study of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland, this article examines the contention that consociational power-sharing, in its determination to include dominant and conflicting identity groups, exalts these identities and excludes others including gender, class and other ethnicities and nationalities. The article describes and assesses the Alliance Party’s arguments that the power-sharing arrangements in Northern Ireland are philosophically objectionable, practically ineffective, and politically detrimental to parties which, like Alliance, are designated as “others.” The article finds that the party’s critique of consociationalism as implemented in Northern Ireland is overstated and that the party has been able to play a number of pivotal roles in the new politics.

Others in Deeply Divided Societies: A Research Agenda

This article identifies a central problem in the theory and practice of democracy in divided societies: the systematic exclusion of Others. Defining the exclusion-amid-inclusion (EAI) dilemma of consociational power-sharing, whereby in including the main groups to the conflict it works to exclude those beyond these groups, the article offers the first systematic conceptualization of this issue. The article outlines the type of individuals and groups affected by the EAI dilemma, the varying strategies they adopt to navigate power-sharing frameworks and the potential routes out of this normative and empirical puzzle. Finally, it lays out a challenge for scholars to build on this conceptualization and address the EAI dilemma in future research.

Challenging identity hierarchies: Gender and consociational power-sharing

Consociational democracy has become the most influential paradigm in the field of power-sharing institutional design and post-conflict peacebuilding. Consociation institutes representation for certain formerly excluded groups. However, it simultaneously inhibits effective political representation for groups that do not align with the societal divisions that consociation seeks to accommodate, specifically the ‘additional’ cleavage of gender. Given the extensive use of the consociational model as a peacebuilding tool in divided states and the growing awareness of the disproportionate negative effect of conflict on women, there is a surprising lack of consideration of the effect that consociational power-sharing has on women’s representation. This article considers the specific impact that the consociational model has on women’s representation. We argue that because gender is an integral factor in conflict, it should therefore be integral to post-conflict governance. With empirical reference to contemporary Northern Ireland, it is illustrated that consociationalism is a ‘gender-blind’ theory.

Religious education after conflicts: promoting social cohesion or entrenching existing cleavages?

This article considers initiatives to reform religious education after violent identity-based conflicts in Lebanon, Northern Ireland and Macedonia. The Taif Agreement, the Belfast Agreement and the Ohrid Agreement mapped extensive education reforms and established consociational power-sharing in the three jurisdictions, altering state identity and inter-communal hierarchies. The existing literature generates two hypotheses on the political function of religious education after violent conflicts: (1) religious education tends to entrench existing ethnic, national and political cleavages or (2) religious education helps further mutual knowledge, integration and social cohesion after violent conflicts. This comparative research employs original interviews and documents to evaluate initiatives to reform religious education (as a curricular subject) in post-conflict Lebanon, Northern Ireland and Macedonia. It suggests that the first hypothesis reflects more accurately the political function of education: religious education helps entrench existing cleavages in these deeply divided societies, but this does not necessarily hamper short-term peace and political stability.

Getting Our Piece of the National Cake: Consociational Power Sharing and Neopatrimonialism in Nigeria

Although consociational-style ethnic power-sharing arrangements are frequently adopted in postconflict African states, their track record is spotty at best. Using post-civil war Nigeria (one of Africa's most durable experiments with ethnic proportionality in government), I argue that the failure of formal ethnic power-sharing in Africa is due to its intersection with the largely informal power-sharing practices characteristic of neopatrimonial political systems. In Nigeria, well-intentioned policies meant to ensure ethnic proportionality reinforce the power of patronage networks that also rely on ethnic and kinship mobilization to capture state resources. As a result, entrenched ethnic power sharing in Nigeria's federal constitution since the late 1970s has played a key role in the country's descent into corruption and poor governance.

Citizenship, Federalism and Powersharing: Nigeria's Federal Character and the Challenges of Institutional Design

If, as a number of recent proponents have argued, ‘pluri-national’ federalism holds great promise as a means of democratization and conflict resolution in deeply divided societies, why has it so rarely been tried in sub-Saharan Africa, home to arguably the world's most ethnically diverse nations? Using Nigeria—Africa's largest and oldest federal system—as a case study, it is argued that the legacy of late colonial, indirect rule institutions on citizenship and the politics of belonging pose a serious challenge for designing successful consociational powersharing arrangements. In particular, Nigeria's dependence on a primordial notion of ethnic citizenship undermines the ability of its federal institutions to mediate and cross-cut ethnic conflicts, a problem most clearly reflected in the functioning of the nation's most important official powersharing institution, the Federal Character Commission (FCC). Although the quota systems for governmental employment operated by the FCC are officially tied to Nigeria's 36 states, in both administrative law and practice they enforce a highly discriminatory ‘indigeneity’ system that privileges ethnic origins over federal citizenship.

Political Representation of Minorities as Collateral Damage or Gain: The Batwa in Burundi and Rwanda

There is a remarkable discrepancy between the political representation of the Batwa ethnic minority group in Burundi compared to in Rwanda. Whereas Rwanda's focus on citizenship prevents the Batwa from claiming recognition as a politically salient societal segment, Burundi's governance model, characterized by ethnic, consociational power-sharing, guarantees the political representation of the Batwa in the legislative assemblies. The difference is mainly due to the various modalities of political transition that both countries have experienced. While in Rwanda, regime change came about through a military victory, Burundi's transition from conflict to peace involved a long and complex peace-negotiations process, with international mediators viewing the armed conflict and its resolution in explicitly ethnic terms. The Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement was a foundational moment for the recognition of the political participation rights of the Batwa in Burundi, despite the fact that they were not actively involved in Burundi's armed conflict, or in the peace negotiations. The comparative analysis in this paper offers insights into the potential of peace processes with respect to improved minority-rights protection following violent conflict.

Courts and Consociations, or How Human Rights Courts May De-stabilize Power-sharing Settlements

We consider the use of consociational arrangements to manage ethno-nationalist, ethno-linguistic, and ethno-religious conflicts, and their compatibility with non-discrimination and equality norms. Key questions include to what extent, if any, consociations conflict with the dictates of global justice and the liberal individualist preferences of international human rights institutions, and to what extent consociational power-sharing may be justified to preserve peace and the integrity of political settlements. In three critical cases, the European Court of Human Rights has considered equality challenges to important consociational practices, twice in Belgium and, most recently, in Sejdi cacute; and Finci, concerning the constitutional arrangements established for Bosnia Herzegovina under the Dayton Agreement. The Court's recent decision in Sejdicacute; and Finci has significantly altered the approach it previously took to judicial review of consociational arrangements in the Belgian cases. We seek to account for this change and assess its implications. We identify problematic aspects of the judgment and conclude that, although the Court's decision indicates one possible trajectory of human rights courts' reactions to consociations, this would be an unfortunate development because it leaves future negotiators in places riven by potential or manifest bloody ethnic conflicts with considerably less flexibility in reaching a settlement. That in turn may unintentionally contribute to sustaining such conflicts and make it more likely that advisors to negotiators will advise them to exclude regional and international courts from having standing in the management of political settlements.

Belfast Revisited: Everyday Policymaking in a Contested Environment

A year before the much celebrated 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the Belfast electorate returned a hung Council to govern their city. The following years facilitated a transition from hegemonic or domination mechanisms of conflict management towards the traditionally more acceptable approach of power-sharing. Such a change provides an opportunity to understand the nature of public policy within an emerging power-sharing environment. Drawing on evidence from interviews with Belfast's bureaucratic elite, this article investigates how power-sharing changes the nature of elite-level bureaucrat responsibilities within a contested society. If consociational power-sharing is to be the conflict management model of choice, it is necessary that the role of the supporting institutions in driving its success is understood. Existing public administration research would lead to the expectation of greater bureaucrat involvement in the traditionally more mundane aspects of policy formulation, while in areas of greater public and political interest greater political involvement in the decision-making process would be expected. Converse to these expectations, however, evidence from Belfast suggests that the bureaucratic elite are found to play a pivotal role in the day-to-day management of power-sharing. For this reason, developing administrative capacity is a necessary condition not only for good governance but also for conflict management. Conflict management research must therefore pay closer attention to the role of the bureaucrat in the conflict management process.

Gender and consociational power-sharing in Northern Ireland

Designing political arrangements is the most viable approach to resolving inter-communal divisions in post-conflict societies. Yet women are frequently ill-served by such peace settlements, since gender equality is often sacrificed in an effort to resolve conflicts over national identity. Northern Ireland is no exception to this trend. Although the 1998 Northern Ireland Agreement made specific provision for gender equality, it was primarily framed in terms of national identity. This article examines to what extent this focus on inter-communal ethnic division undermined support for the Agreement among women. Using data from the 2010 Northern Ireland Election Survey, we examine gender differences in attitudes towards the consociational institutions of government. The results show a significant gender gap in support for the institutional arrangements that were established by the Agreement. We propose and test three explanations to account for this gender gap.

Ending Consociational Power-Sharing. The Sejdić and Finci Case and the Prospects for Constitutional Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract Consociationalism is frequently adopted as a tool to resolve conflicts in deeply divided societies. It is increasingly considered only a transitional arrangement, because it is an impediment to democracy and social peace in the long-term. It is therefore relevant to explore the possibilities to end consociational arrangements. Bosnia and Herzegovina has by all accounts a dysfunctional and discriminatory political system based on ethnic representation. Corporate consociational provisions of the constitution were found to be in violation of the European Convention of Human Rights in the Sejdić and Finci case. This thesis seeks to understand the legal and political effects of that judgment and the prospects of ending the corporate consociational arrangements in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in order to allow for politics that are not solely based on ethnicity. The prospect for constitutional reform are discussed based on previous attempts at constitutional reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina; the Dutch, Austrian and South African experiences; and insights from theory of democratic transitions.

Multicultural citizenship within multination states

In many western democracies today, there are calls to strengthen a sense of common citizenship as a way of building ‘social cohesion’ in increasingly diverse societies. Citizenship is to be promoted by, amongst other things, adding or strengthening citizenship education in schools, providing citizenship classes to immigrants, imposing new citizenship tests for naturalization, and holding citizenship ceremonies. In this article, I will examine this new citizenship agenda in the specific case of ‘multination’ states — that is, in states that have restructured themselves to accommodate significant sub-state nationalist movements, usually through some form of territorial devolution, consociational power-sharing, and/or official language status. What does it mean to promote a sense of common citizenship in multination states, and how does the new immigration-focused citizenship agenda relate to older debates on multinationalism? I will argue that in the particular context of multination states, these new citizenship agendas must promote a distinctly multinational conception of citizenship if they are to be fair and effective. But equally, we need to adapt familiar models of multinational citizenship to be more inclusive of immigrants. In short, if the citizenship agenda is to be effective, and to be fairly inclusive of both sub-state national groups and of immigrants, we need a more multinational conception of citizenship, and a more multicultural conception of multinationalism.