Negotiating Ethnic Conflict in Deeply Divided Societies: Political Bargaining and Power Sharing as Institutional Strategies

2019 ◽  
pp. 1515-1536
Author(s):  
Madhushree Sekher ◽  
Mansi Awasthi ◽  
Allen Thomas ◽  
Rajesh Kumar ◽  
Subhankar Nayak
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Conflict ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Divided Societies ◽  
Political Bargaining ◽  
Institutional Strategies

Consociationalism, Power Sharing, and Politics at the Center

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Wolff
Keyword(s):  
Conflict Resolution ◽  
Ethnic Conflict ◽  
Current Practice ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Divided Societies ◽  
Sustainable Peace ◽  
Complex Power

For more than four decades, advocates of consociationalism and their opponents have been engaged in a debate over about how to design institutions to achieve sustainable peace in divided societies. In general, existing theories acknowledge the importance and usefulness of institutional design in conflict resolution, but offer rather different prescriptions as to the most appropriate models to achieve stable conflict settlements. Three such theories are of particular significance: power sharing in the form of its liberal consociational variant, centripetalism, and power dividing. Consociationalism, centripetalism, and power dividing offer a range of distinct prescriptions on how to ensure that differences of identity do not translate into violence. They often go beyond “politics at the center” and also provide arguments on territorial dimensions of ethnic conflict settlement. Practitioners of conflict resolution recognize the need to combine a range of different mechanisms, giving rise to an emerging practice of conflict settlement known as “complex power sharing.” None of the three theories of conflict resolution fully captures this current practice of complex power sharing, even as liberal consociationalism appears to be the most open to incorporation of elements of centripetalism and power dividing. A theory of complex power sharing would need to explain why there is empirical support for a greater mix of institutions than existing theories recommend.

scholarly journals Building Bridges in Divided Societies: Sustaining Democratic Transition Through Complex Power-Sharing in Lebanon and Iraq

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 18-32
Author(s):  
Petros Petrikkos
Keyword(s):  
Hybrid Model ◽  
Democratic Transition ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Divided Societies ◽  
Complex Power ◽  
Fragile Environment

This paper looks at how divided societies like Lebanon and Iraq currently incorporate very fragile models of governance. The recommendations in this study attempt to introduce a hybrid model that considers integration and consociationalism as effective tools to electoral management in both countries, in light of the recent elections taking place in May 2018, and the continuities presented to this day. In assessing the effectiveness of consociationalism as a power-sharing framework, this paper does not attempt to depart from the already-established model of governance. Rather, the analysis presents elements that would hopefully improve power-sharing and governance in the two divided societies of Lebanon and Iraq. Elements as such may bring forth a steadier process that aids democratic transition in divided societies. Sectarianism is heavily embedded in both the Lebanese and Iraqi communities. Ignoring the conflicting issues that rise with each successive election only promotes a fragile environment that deeply divides, instead of uniting societies.

scholarly journals The plight of civic parties in divided societies

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cera Murtagh
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Institutional Design ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Empirical Reality ◽  
Divided Societies ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
Ethnic Parties ◽  
Marginalised Groups ◽  
Governance Models ◽  
The Relationship

Civic political parties in divided societies occupy an ambiguous place in the power-sharing literature. Scholarship tends to focus on ethnic parties and assumes civic actors to be marginal. The empirical reality tells a different story: civic parties have contributed to peace, stability and democracy in some of the world’s most deeply divided places by playing a mediating role, acting as a moderating force and representing otherwise marginalised groups. Drawing from interviews with representatives from civic parties, ethnic parties and civil society in Northern Ireland and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and broader institutional analysis, I argue that civic parties’ survival can be explained by the fact that they meet therein not only with barriers but also critical openings. They adapt to this opportunity structure, with different party types developing under different forms of power-sharing. In illustrating the relationship between governance models and civic parties, this article underlines the importance of post-settlement institutional design.

“Does Džeko Live in Bosnia and Herzegovina?”: Demographics as a Hostage of Ethno-politics in the 2013 Census

2020 ◽  
pp. 088832542094111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ondřej Žíla ◽  
Petr Čermák
Keyword(s):  
Bosnia And Herzegovina ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Divided Societies ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
Ethnic Quotas ◽  
Post War ◽  
Republika Srpska

In ethnically divided societies and political systems organized according to the principles of consociationalism, demography plays a crucial role as a powerful tool for promoting ethno-political interests. The aim of this article is to evaluate to what extent the first post-war 2013 census in Bosnia and Herzegovina became a hostage to the principle of ethno-politics. This study is grounded in Horowitz’s analysis of censuses in deeply divided societies, which assumes that ethnic identity in fragmented societies provides an explanation of who people vote for, and the reverse. We use the data on ethnic voting in 2014 as an indirect estimate of the ethnic structure of the population to verify the 2013 census findings. To do so, we determine the extent to which people enumerated as residents in the 2013 census actually live at the places they were counted, as required by the census law. Although we found that the indirect estimate of ethnic demography based on ethnic voting is largely in line with the census results, we also identified specific structural discrepancies between census results and voting patterns that indicate possible flaws in the census data in general. The method we used revealed significant territorial discrepancies, bringing into question the validity of the census data about the presence of Bosniak and Croat returnees in the Republika Srpska, and especially for Croats across Bosnia and Herzegovina. We argue that these discrepancies may have significant political consequences for the fragile Bosnian power-sharing system based on ethnic quotas and proportionality.

‘Autonomy Convention’ and ‘Consulta’: Deliberative Democracy in Subnational Minority Contexts

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (01) ◽  
pp. 194-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Alber ◽  
Marc Röggla ◽  
Vera Ohnewein
Keyword(s):  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Divided Societies ◽  
Third Language ◽  
South Tyrol ◽  
The Third ◽  
Language Groups ◽  
Basic Law ◽  
Special Rules ◽  
Autonomous Province

The article compares deliberative practices within the two constituent units of the Italian Autonomous Region of Trentino-South Tyrol: the Autonomous Province of Bolzano/Bozen (South Tyrol) and the Autonomous Province of Trento (Trentino). South Tyrol’s ‘Autonomy Convention’ and Trentino’s ‘Consulta’ are consultative processes that are differently structured but have the same aim: the elaboration of proposals as to the revision of the region’s basic law, the Autonomy Statute of 1972. The article highlights differences in structures and procedures of both deliberative practices and it gives evidence on the implications such differences have in the respective sociopolitical contexts. Unlike Trentino, South Tyrol is characterized by a power-sharing system between its major language groups, German- and Italian speakers; some special rules also apply to the third language group, the Ladins. The argument developed is that, in South Tyrol, the successful settlement of conflict by means of consociational arrangements favoured the institutionalization of deliberative practices. However, the same arrangements pose challenges to deliberative practices. The article contributes to the emerging literature on pitfalls and potential of deliberative practices implemented in multilingual and divided societies.

Conflict Management in Divided Societies: The Many Uses of Territorial Self-Governance

2013 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Wolff
Keyword(s):  
Conflict Management ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Divided Societies ◽  
Track Record ◽  
State Construction ◽  
Territorial Control ◽  
The Many

Conflict over territorial control in divided societies is widespread, frequently violent and difficult to resolve, and thus merits systematic analytical and empirical engagement. Extending the discussion of territorial approaches to conflict management in divided societies beyond the usually narrower focus on federation and autonomy, this article develops the concept of territorial self-governance as a form of state construction and conflict management, arguing that it encompasses five distinct arrangements from confederation and federation to federacy, devolution and decentralisation and illustrates their manifestations with examples from 12 countries across three continents. The article establishes and tests a framework to explain their emergence, examines the conditions under which they are combined with other conflict management strategies, such as power sharing, and reflects on their track record of providing stability in divided societies, finding it more promising than its critics allow.

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