Democracy, Consociational
Democracy, Consociational
The etymology of consociation derives from the Latin for “with” and “society”: Consociatio translates as “union” or “connection.” Today, consociation describes a “society of societies.” The concept has some similarities with federation, but is not a synonym; consociations can exist in non-federal states.
Consociation was first developed in political theory by the Protestant jurist and philosopher Johannes Althusius (1557-1638). In the twentieth century the Dutch political scientist Arend Lijphart revived the term to describe political systems in which parallel communities, differentiated by ethnicity, language, religion, or culture, share political power while retaining autonomy (Lijphart 1968, 1977). He recognized his ideas had antecedents in the writings of the Austro-Marxists, Karl Renner, and Otto Bauer, and the Nobel laureate Sir Arthur Lewis. Lijphart argued that consociation is frequently invented by politicians negotiating political settlements. Contemporary examples of functioning or attempted consociations exist in Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Northern Ireland, Lebanon, and Macedonia.
Consociations have three necessary features: executive power sharing among representatives of specific communities; proportional representation and allocation in governmental posts and resources; and community self-government, especially in cultural domains, for example in schools with different languages of instruction (O’Leary 2005). Fully fledged consociations empower representatives with veto rights over constitutional or legal changes.
Consociations are promoted to prevent, manage, or resolve conflicts, especially between communities divided by nationality, ethnicity, race, religion, or language. Consociationalists and their critics differ radically over their merits, and also over how consociations are established, maintained, or break down (McGarry and O’Leary 2004).
CRITICISMS OF CONSOCIATIONS
Some critics condemn consociational ideas as futile, and claim that consociational institutions have no (or no long-run) impact on deeply rooted, identity-based conflicts. Others attack consociations as perverse, claiming that they achieve the opposite of their ostensible purposes by institutionalizing the sources of conflict: By allegedly freezing the relevant collective identities, they encourage a politics of gridlock. Critics suggest that consociationalists are primordial pessimists who take people as they are, and not as they might be. These opponents prefer integration, the creation of a common citizenship and public sphere, and the non-recognition of cultural differences in the public domain. They also claim that consociation jeopardizes important liberal values, and that it leads to the irreversible formation of ethnic, communal, or sectarian parties. The use of quotas, affirmative action programs, and preferential policies weaken the merit principle, creating new injustices and inefficiencies. Others claim that consociation is undemocratic because it allegedly excludes opposition and inhibits alternations in power. Some claim it is elitist (Brass 1991, p. 339; Jung and Shapiro 1995, p. 273). Another argument denies the existence of consociations, claiming that there is no place that fits the criteria.
DEFENSES OF CONSOCIATIONS
Proponents argue that consociations cannot simultaneously be perverse—that is, reinforce and re-entrench ethnic antagonisms—and jeopardize all key liberal, democratic, and international values, and, all the while, be futile. The futility thesis is evidently the weakest criticism. It scarcely explains the passionate (and logical) criticisms of consociational theory and practice in the last three decades.
Consociationalists understand themselves as realists and counselors of necessary political triage. They believe that certain collective identities, especially those based on nationality, ethnicity, language, and religion, are generally fairly durable once formed. That does not mean that they are primordial or immutable, or that they are intrinsically desirable. But such durable identities are often mobilized in a politics of antagonism, especially during the democratization of political systems, and cannot be easily transcended. Politicians, parties, and communities certainly interpret their histories and futures through narratives, myths, and symbols, but they may have realistic rather than merely prejudiced appraisals of past group antagonisms. Consociationalists maintain that it is their critics—“social constructionists” and certain liberals and socialists—who are too optimistic about the capacities of political regimes to dissolve, transform, or transcend inherited collective identities. Consociationalists question the cosmopolitan protestations of many anticonsociationalists, who may cloak a partisan endorsement of one community’s identity and interests (into which others are to be encouraged to integrate or assimilate, in their own best interests).
The case for power sharing is advanced on grounds of necessity. Consociation provides good incentives for coop-eration—a share in power. Consociationalists do not embrace cultural pluralism for its own sake. Sometimes the effective choice is between consociation and much worse alternatives: armed conflict, genocide and ethnic expulsion, imposed partition, or control by one group or coalition. The real choice in many deeply divided regions is therefore between consociational democracy and no (worthwhile) democracy—or breakup. The target of consociational criticism is integrationism and majoritarian democracy, which only work well, consociationalists argue, as political recipes in societies that are already homogeneous, or in immigrant states where immigrants are expected to integrate.
Consociationalists are skeptical about the current celebration of civil society as the (or even a) vehicle of transformation, peace making, and peace building. In divided places there is often more than one society, and their relations may be far from civil. Those who embrace a politics of deliberative democracy are reminded that deliberation takes place in languages, dialects, accents, and ethnically toned voices. Consociationalists respond to left-wing critics by observing that consociational ideas are present in the more thoughtful socialist traditions (Bauer 2000; Nimni 2004), and by observing how working-class and popular unity have been rendered hopeless by national, ethnic, religious, and communal divisions. Within consociational arrangements, trust may develop that may enable wider working-class or popular unity behind the welfare state or other forms of distributive politics.
Consociationalists therefore are friends of democracy, but critics of its palpably inappropriate versions in deeply divided places. They want majorities rather than the majority, or the plurality, to control government. Elite bargaining and adjustment should be designed to achieve widespread consensus—to prevent the possibility that democracy will degenerate into a war of communities. They endorse a politics of accommodation, of leaving each group to its own affairs where that is possible and widely sought—“good fences make good neighbors” (Esman 2000; Noel 1993, pp. 55-56). Consociations protect the basic natural rights of individuals and communities—especially the right to exist.
Consociationalists argue positively for consociation, not just by pointing to the horrors of the alternatives. Consociation provides autonomy for communities, and enables sensible shared intercommunity cooperation. It offers a more inclusive model of democracy—more than a plurality or a majority influence or control of the executive. More than a majority get effective “voice.” Consociation does not eliminate democratic opposition, but enables such divisions and oppositions as exist to flourish in conditions of generalized security. Nothing need preclude democratic competition within communities, and turnover of political elites, and shifts of support between parties. In a liberal consociation nothing blocks the voluntary dissolution of historic identities if that is what voters want.
TYPES OF CONSOCIATIONS
It is a fallacy to suppose that consociation mandates that governments be wholly encompassing, grand coalitions of all communities (O’Leary 2005). One should distinguish among complete, concurrent, and “pluralitarian” consociational executives. In a complete consociation, all parties and all groups are included in the executive and enjoy popular support within their blocs. This is the rare case of the grand coalition, which may indeed preclude effective opposition, and may be made necessary by wartime conditions or postconflict state-building. In concurrent executives, by contrast, the major parties, which enjoy majority support within their blocs, are included within the executive, but opposition groups exist in parliament and elsewhere. In “pluralitarian” executives, the major communities may be represented by their strongest parties in the executive, but one or more of these parties may enjoy just plurality support within its respective bloc. What matters, therefore, is not the wholesale inclusion of all, but meaningful, cross-community or joint decision making within the executive. This clarification resolves a recurrent misunderstanding that all consociational practices preclude opposition.
Consociational arrangements may facilitate greater justice. Groups govern themselves in agreed domains of autonomy. Distributions that follow proportional allocations may be very fair: to each according to their numbers. There is a correlation between numbers and potential power that makes such distributive justice likely to be stable and legitimate. Consociationalists need not endorse the view that justice is “each according to their threat-advantage,” but in some cases proportional allocations of public posts and resources are regarded as fair distributions, and will be robust as a result.
Consociationalists observe that consociations occur without their urgings. They are reinvented by politicians as “natural” creative political responses to a politics of antagonism. Politicians, Lijphart observes, invented consociational institutions in the Netherlands in 1917, in Lebanon in 1943, in Malaysia in 1958, and in Northern Ireland in 1972 (Lijphart 1990, p. viii) and again in 1998 (McGarry and O’Leary 2004, 2007). They were reinvented by American diplomats to end the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina at Dayton in 1995; by Lebanese politicians with external promptings in 1989; and by European Union diplomats in promoting the Ohrid agreement between Macedonian Slavs and Macedonian Albanians. The United Nations and the European Union have been trying to mediate a consociational and federal settlement in Cyprus. Within academic political theory, many contemporary multiculturalists advance consociational agendas, including inclusivity (cross-community power sharing), quotas (proportionality), and group rights (autonomy and veto) (Kymlicka and Norman 2000).
The rival evaluations of consociation are unlikely to be resolved. They probably are not amenable to decisive falsification or verification. Anticonsociationalists fear consociation will bring back racism, fundamentalism, and patriarchy. Consociationalists fear integrationists will provoke avoidable wars and are biased toward dominant communities (McGarry and O’Leary 2004). The intensity with which this debate rages attests to the influence of consociational thought.
Exponents of consociation, when their case is put carefully, successfully rebut the wilder charges made against their positions. Consociations are difficult to love and celebrate—even if their makers often merit intellectual, moral, and political admiration. They are usually the product of cold bargains, even if they may be tempered by political imagination. As for the explanation of consociations, although significant preliminary work has been done, a comprehensive comparative historical analysis of consociational settlements and their outcomes remains to be completed.
SEE ALSO Affirmative Action; Ethnic Conflict; Ethnic Fractionalization; Ethnicity; Majoritarianism; Majority Rule; Political Instability, Indices of; Politics, Identity; Quotas; Tyranny of the Majority; Vote, Alternative; Voting Schemes
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Brendan O’Leary