Consociationalism

Consociation was first discussed in the 17th century New England Confederation. It described the interassociation and cooperation of the participant self-governing Congregational churches of the various colonial townships of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. These were empowered in the civil legislature and magistracy.[5] It was debated at length in the Boston Synod of 1662.[6] This was when the Episcopalian Act of Uniformity 1662 was being introduced in England.

Consociationalism was discussed in academic terms by the political scientist Arend Lijphart. However, Lijphart has stated that he had "merely discovered what political practitioners had repeatedly – and independently of both academic experts and one another – invented years earlier".[7] John McGarry and Brendan O'Leary trace consociationalism back to 1917, when it was first employed in the Netherlands.[8]

Indeed, Lijphart draws heavily on the experience of the Netherlands in developing his argument in favour of the consociational approach to ethnic conflict regulation. The Netherlands, as a consociational state, was between 1857 and 1967 divided into four non-territorial pillars: Calvinist, Catholic, socialist, and general, although until 1917 there was a plurality ("first past the post") electoral system rather than a consociational one. In their heyday, each comprised tightly-organised groups, schools, universities, hospitals and newspapers, all divided along a pillarised social structure. The theory, according to Lijphart, focuses on the role of social elites, their agreement and co-operation, as the key to a stable democracy.

Lijphart identifies four key characteristics of consociational democracies:[9]

Consociational policies often have these characteristics:[10]

• Coalition cabinets, where executive power is shared between parties, not concentrated in one. Many of these cabinets are oversized, meaning they include parties not necessary for a parliamentary majority;
• Balance of power between executive and legislative;
• Decentralized and federal government, where (regional) minorities have considerable independence;
• Incongruent bicameralism, where it is very difficult for one party to gain a majority in both houses. Normally one chamber represents regional interests and the other national interests;
• Proportional representation, to allow (small) minorities to gain representation too;
• Organized and corporatist interest groups, which represent minorities;
• A rigid constitution, which prevents government from changing the constitution without consent of minorities;
• Judicial review, which allows minorities to go to the courts to seek redress against laws that they see as unjust;
• Elements of direct democracy, which allow minorities to enact or prevent legislation;
• Proportional employment in the public sector;
• A neutral head of state, either a monarch with only ceremonial duties, or an indirectly elected president, who gives up his or her party affiliation after being elected;
• Referendums are only used to allow minorities to block legislation: this means that they must be a citizen's initiative and that there is no compulsory voting.
• Equality between ministers in cabinet, the prime minister is only primus inter pares;
• An independent central bank, where experts and not politicians set out monetary policies.

Lijphart also identifies a number of "favourable conditions" under which consociationalism is likely to be successful. He has changed the specification of these conditions somewhat over time.[11] Michael Kerr summarises Lijphart's most prominent favourable factors as:[12]

• Segmental isolation of ethnic communities
• A multiple balance of power
• The presence of external threats common to all communities
• Overarching loyalties to the state
• A tradition of elite accommodation
• Socioeconomic equality
• A small population size, reducing the policy load
• A moderate multi-party system with segmental parties

Lijphart stresses that these conditions are neither indispensable nor sufficient to account for the success of consociationalism.[9] This has led Rinus van Schendelen to conclude that "the conditions may be present and absent, necessary and unnecessary, in short conditions or no conditions at all".[13]

John McGarry and Brendan O'Leary argue that three conditions are key to the establishment of democratic consociational power-sharing: elites have to be motivated to engage in conflict regulation; elites must lead deferential segments; and there must be a multiple balance of power, but more importantly the subcultures must be stable.[14] Michael Kerr, in his study of the role of external actors in power-sharing arrangements in Northern Ireland and Lebanon, adds to McGarry and O'Leary's list the condition that "the existence of positive external regulating pressures, from state to non-state actors, which provide the internal elites with sufficient incentives and motives for their acceptance of, and support for, consociation".[12]

In a consociational state, all groups, including minorities, are represented on the political and economic stage. Supporters of the consociationalism argue that it is a more realistic option in deeply divided societies than integrationist approaches to conflict management.[15] It has been credited with supporting successful and non-violent transitions to democracy in countries such as South Africa.

While Lijphart's initial theory drew primarily from Western European democracies in its formulation of consociationalism, it has gained immense traction in post-conflict state-building contexts in the past decades.[16][17] This development has been reflected in the expansion of the favourable conditions to external factors in the literature as well.[18][19][20] Rather than internally constructed by state elites, these recent examples have been characterised by external facilitation, and at times imposition, through international actors.[21][22][23] In the process, consociational arrangements have frequently been used to transform immediate violent conflict and solidify peace settlements in extremely fragile contexts of deeply divided societies.[24] The volatile environments in which these recent examples have been implemented have exhibited the need for external interference not only for their initial implementation but also for their continued existence.[25][26] As such, a range of international actors have assumed mediating and supporting roles to preserve power-sharing agreements in targeted states. Most prominently in Bosnia-Herzegovina, this has involved an "international regulating body" in the form of a High Representative who in one period frequently intervened in the domestic political affairs of the state to implement legislation on which domestic elites were reluctant to come to an agreement on.[27]

While the current results of consociational arrangements implemented in post-conflict state-building endeavours have been mixed, scholars such as O'Leary and McGarry maintain that they have often proven to be the most practical approach to ending immediate conflict and creating the necessary stability for peace-building to take place.[28] Its utility has been seen in its transformative aspect, flexibility, and "realist" approach to existing identity formations that are difficult to incorporate in a majoritarian system.[29]

The political systems of a number of countries operate or used to operate on a consociational basis, including Belgium, Cyprus (effective 1960–1963),[49][50][51] interwar Czechoslovakia,[52] Israel, Lebanon, the Netherlands (1917–1967), Northern Ireland, Switzerland, Ethiopia, and South Africa. Some academics have also argued that the European Union resembles a consociational democracy.[53][54]

Additionally, a number of peace agreements are consociational, including:

• The Dayton Agreement that ended the 1992–1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is described as a "classic example of consociational settlement" by Sumantra Bose[55] and "an ideal-typical consociational democracy" by Roberto Belloni.[56]
• The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 in Northern Ireland[57] (and its subsequent reinforcement with 2006's St Andrews Agreement), which Brendan O'Leary describes as "power-sharing plus".[58]
• The Ohrid Agreement of 2001 setting the constitutional framework for power-sharing in Macedonia.[59]

Post-Taliban Afghanistan's political system has also been described as consociational,[60] although it lacks ethnic quotas.[61]

In addition to the two-state solution to solve the Arab–Israeli conflict, some have argued for a one-state solution under a consociational democracy in the state of Israel, but this solution is not very popular, nor has it been discussed seriously at peace negotiations.[62]

During the 1980s the South African government attempted to reform apartheid into a consociational democracy. The South African Constitution of 1983 applied Lijphart's powersharing ideas by establishing a Tricameral Parliament. During the 1990s negotiations to end apartheid the National Party (NP) and Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) proposed a settlement based upon consociationalism. The African National Congress (ANC) opposed consociationalism and proposed instead a settlement based upon majoritarian democracy. The NP abandoned consociationalism when the U.S. Department of State came out in favor of the majoritarian democracy model in 1992.[63] In Iran, the present government is based on consociationalism.

• Conflict management
• Consensus democracy
• Corporative federalism
• Horizontalidad
• Polycentric law
• Minority groups
• Minority rights
• Negarchy
• Pillarisation
• Sui iuris

• O'Leary, Brendan. 2020. "Consociation in the Present." Swiss Political Science Review.
• Bogaards, Matthijs; Helms, Ludger; Lijphart, Arend. 2020. "The Importance of Consociationalism for Twenty‐First Century Politics and Political Science." Swiss Political Science Review.
• Issacharoff, S. "Constitutionalizing Democracy in Fractured Societies". Texas Law Review. 82: 2004.
• Selway, Joel and K. Templeman. 2012. ”The Myth of Consociationalism.” Comparative Political Studies 45: 1542-1571.