2211+Power+sharing

=Power sharing (see Crepaz & Steiner Ch 13)=
 * Consociationalism: a theory of power sharing in deeply divided societies; it differs significantly from the ‘majoritarian’ view of democratic organization
 * Theoretical background: political culture key to democratic stability—with homogeneity being particularly important aspect of culture
 * This theory essentially based on comparisons but strongly biased in conclusions to Anglo-American countries
 * But Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland were anomalies
 * Arend Lijphart and Gerhard Lehmbruch suggested that consociational power sharing was an alternative path to stability (thereby giving divided societies an institutional path forward)
 * Divisions based on ascriptive attributes with strong sense of identity centered on ascriptive differences and hostility among sub-groups; usually cleavages are reinforcing rather than cross-cutting
 * Consociational political institutions include:
 * Power sharing executive
 * Proportional representation elections
 * Strong constitutional guarantees for group rights
 * Federalism
 * Proportional allocation of public jobs, goods
 * Favorable conditions for consociationalism:
 * Relatively equally distributed sub-groups (ie: none with overwhelming majority)
 * Strongly and easily differentiated subgroups—clear boundaries
 * Relative economic equality
 * Strong, respected leadership that can speak on behalf of each subgroup
 * Relatively small population
 * Common international pressures or support
 * Tradition of compromise and accommodation?
 * Overall load of unresolved problems not too great
 * Note the methodological difficulties of testing this theory (any theory?)
 * And note as well the point that social scientists are ‘actors’ in the world they describe or characterize (see point made on Steiner/Crepaz p258)
 * Contrast various methods of decision-making in divided societies
 * Consensus
 * Majority
 * Interpretation
 * Deliberation versus consensus—in the tradition of Habermas
 * Applying the theory: power-sharing in divided societies
 * Northern Ireland
 * Former Czechoslovakia
 * Former Yugoslavia
 * Critiques: normative
 * Elitism: role of ordinary citizens played down; elites can serve own interests
 * Cover for bourgeois domination
 * Thin conception of democracy and democratic stability
 * Consociational scholars are arguably too close to their theory: they advocate for implementation