Consociationalism
The
(Consociational
Democracy)
RUDY B. ANDEWEG
Leiden University, Netherlands
Consociationalism refers to power sharing by
political elites in deeply divided societies as a
means to achieve or maintain a stable democ-
racy. The theory is employed both to explain
the existence of a stable democracy in soci-
eties with deep social cleavages of a religious,
linguistic, ethnic, or ideological nature and to
prescribe elite cooperation as a solution for
societies where peace and democracy are at
risk because of subcultural conflict.
Although the Latin term consociatio was
already used in 1603 by the German scholar
and statesman Johannes Althusius to denote
a polity comprising several distinct societies,
Dutch-born political scientist Arend Lijphart
is generally recognized as the leading theorist
of contemporary consociationalism (Lijphart
1977). He used the term to generalize from
the simultaneous but independent discov-
eries in the late 1960s and early 1970s that
democratic stability in Austria, Belgium, the
Netherlands, and Switzerland was not safe-
guarded at the mass level by social cleavages
cross-cutting each other—in fact the social
cleavages in these countries to a considerable
extent coincided and reinforced each other.
Instead democratic stability was achieved at
the level of the political elites, who shared
rather than competed for power. The number
of countries that are claimed to be or to have
been consociational democracies gradually
expanded beyond the four classic Euro-
pean cases to include, for example, Canada,
The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism, First Edition.
Edited by John Stone, Rutledge M. Dennis, Polly S. Rizova, Anthony D. Smith, and Xiaoshuo Hou.
© 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781118663202.wberen517
Colombia, the Lebanon, and Malaysia.
concept has also been applied to the political
system of the European Union.
A consociational democracy is character-
ized by government by grand coalition, a high
degree of autonomy for the subcultural seg-
ments, proportionality in the electoral system
and in the distribution of state resources, and
minority veto. A more recent and broader
version, called “consensus democracy,” lists
ten institutional features (also including
federalism and corporatism) to distinguish
power sharing from concentrating power in
the hands of the winning party in a “majori-
tarian democracy” (Lijphart 2012). Although
consociational democracy is also defined
by the existence of deep social cleavages,
whereas consensus democracy is not, the two
concepts clearly overlap and most consocia-
tional democracies also classify as consensus
democracies.
Reforming the political system to con-
form to such consociational characteristics
is recommended by consociationalists and
embraced by international organizations
such as the United Nations and the European
Union as the only viable option for deeply
divided societies to avoid or resolve sub-
cultural conflict and to rule the country
democratically. There have been several
attempts at consociational engineering, for
instance the 1995 Dayton Accords in Bosnia
and Herzegovina, the 1998 Good Friday
Agreement in Northern Ireland, and the 2003
Pretoria Protocol in Burundi. Such attempts
have reinforced the debate on the favorable
and unfavorable conditions for consocia-
tional success (Bogaards 1998; Pappalardo
1981). In general, it is more likely that elites
will refrain from subcultural competition if
they perceive the costs of such competition
2 C ON S O CIAT IONA L I SM (C ON S O CIAT IONA L DEMO C R ACY )
as outweighing the benefits. This is the case
when no social segment has a majority or
when a minority can credibly threaten to
harm the majority militarily or economi-
cally. A consociational solution is also more
likely to succeed when the leaders are rel-
atively immune from competition within
their own subculture through control of the
mass media and subcultural organizations
and patronage networks. The role of third
parties (other states or international orga-
nizations) is of crucial importance either in
exacerbating subcultural conflict or in facili-
tating, or even imposing, power sharing—in
which case the result is called “coercive
consociationalism.”
One of the most fiercely debated ques-
tions is the extent to which the nature of
divisions in society affects the viability of a
consociational solution. In particular, it has
been argued that power sharing may not be
able to resolve ethnic conflict (Barry 1975;
Horowitz 1985). Critics argue that ethnic
conflicts tend to be more intense and violent
than religious or class conflicts: they are
often less about policy than about national
unity, especially where ethnic groups are
geographically concentrated. In addition,
moderate leaders of ethnic groups are more
easily outflanked by radical rivals: other
than in the case of religious or ideological
dogma, ethnic interests are easily recognized
by ordinary group members, and no orga-
nization is needed to mobilize the rank and
file. It is perhaps no accident that the African
continent, where social divisions are often
of an ethnic nature, has been likened to “a
graveyard of consociational experiments”
(Lemarchand 2007: 2). On the other hand,
the ascriptive nature of ethnicity renders
attempts to “convert” members of opposing
social groups pointless, and thus removes a
cause of intergroup conflict that may exac-
erbate religious or ideological conflicts. This
does not negate the conclusion that ethnic
conflicts may be more difficult to resolve
through power sharing, but cases such as
South Africa and Burundi show that it is not
impossible.
Consociationalism has also been criticized
for insufficient conceptual clarity (Halpern
1986; Lustick 1997). Recently, attention has
been drawn to the fact that the four main
characteristics of consociationalism refer
to two very different conceptualizations of
power sharing. Sharing power by joining in a
grand coalition involves actual cooperation,
whereas sharing power by granting autonomy
to the various subcultural segments involves
separation rather than cooperation. Lijphart
also found that the ten institutional features
of consensus democracy fall across two dif-
ferent and unrelated dimensions: joint power
and divided power. This raises the question
which of these two forms of power sharing
has better prospects to produce a stable
democracy. Critics have warned that giving
segmental autonomy to geographically con-
centrated subcultures may merely aggravate
the conflict and act as a first step to secession
(Nordlinger 1972). Others have pointed out
that even this recognition of two types of
power sharing is restricted to political institu-
tions and that power sharing arrangements in
the media and in the military may be crucial
to the success or failure of consociationalism
in bringing peace or democracy (or both) to
conflict-ridden countries (Binningsbø 2013).
SEE ALSO: Accommodation; Ethnic Politics;
Lebanon; Netherlands; Pillarization;
Switzerland
REFERENCES
Barry, Brian. 1975. “Review Article: Political
Accommodation and Consociational Democ-
racy.” British Journal of Political Science 5:
477–505.
Binningsbø, Helga M. 2013. “Power Sharing, Peace
and Democracy: Any Obvious Relationships?”
International Area Studies Review 16: 89–112.
 C ON S O CIAT IONA L I SM (C ON S O CIAT IONA L DEMO C R ACY )
Bogaards, Matthijs. 1998. “The Favourable Factors
for Consociational Democracy: A Review.”
European Journal of Political Research 33:
475–96.
Halpern, Sue M. 1986. “The Disorderly Universe
of Consociational Democracy.” West European
Politics 9: 181–97.
Horowitz, Donald L. 1985. Ethnic Groups in Con-
flict. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Lemarchand, René. 2007. “Consociationalism and
Power Sharing in Africa: Rwanda, Burundi and
the Democratic Republic of the Congo.” African
Affairs 106: 1–20.
Lijphart, Arend. 1977. Democracy in Plural Soci-
eties: A Comparative Explanation. New Haven:
Yale University Press.
Lijphart, Arend. 2012. Patterns of Democracy: Gov-
ernment Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six
Countries, 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale University
Press.
3
Lustick, Ian S. 1997. “Lijphart, Lakatos, and Conso-
ciationalism.” World Politics 50: 88–117.
Nordlinger, Eric A. 1972. Conflict Regulation in
Divided Societies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
Center for International Affairs.
Pappalardo, Adriano. 1981. “The Conditions
for Consociational Democracy: A Logical
and Empirical Critique.” European Journal of
Political Research 9: 365–90.
FURTHER READING
Andeweg, Rudy B. 2000. “Consociational Democ-
racy.” Annual Review of Political Science 3:
509–36.
O’Leary, Brendan. 2005. “Debating Consociational
Politics: Normative and Explanatory Argu-
ments.” In From Power Sharing to Democracy,
edited by Sidney J. R. Noel, 3–43. Montreal:
McGill University Press.