Ethnic Power Sharing: Three Big Problems

Abstract

In societies severely divided by ethnicity, race, religion, language, or any other form of ascriptive affiliation, ethnic divisions make democracy difficult, because they tend to produce ethnic parties and ethnic voting. An ethnic party with a majority of votes and seats can dominate minority groups, seemingly in perpetuity. Some version of this problem informs the politics of a great many severely divided societies. 1 In severely divided societies with ethnically based parties, ordinary majority rule usually results in ethnic domination. Two commonly proposed methods of amelioration are called consociational and centripetal. Consociationalists generally try to solve the problem by establishing a regime of agreed guarantees, including proportional group participation in government and minority vetoes of ethnically sensitive policies. Their solution is to replace the adversary democracy of government and opposition with a grand coalition of majorities and minorities. By contrast, centripetalists do not propose to substitute a consensual regime for majority rule, but attempt instead to create incentives, principally electoral incentives, for moderates to compromise on conflicting group claims, to form interethnic coalitions, and to establish a regime of interethnic majority rule. Both consociationalists and centripetalists presuppose that ethnic groups in severely divided societies will be represented by ethnically based parties. The goal of both is interethnic power sharing. Their differences lie in contrasting conceptions of the best governing arrangements for such societies. Consociationalists aim at mandatory postelec

Consociationalism under examination: Is consociationalism the optimal multiculturalist approach for Turkey?

“…They might not oppose multicultural reforms with the employment of some electoral strategies rooted in centripetalism. This multiculturalist approach is undergirded by a power‐sharing theory that encourages interethnic moderation through electoral incentives (Horowitz, 2014; Reilly, 2011). Centripetalist scholars maintain that electoral rules urging politicians to make cross‐ethnic appeals in order to get elected would foster interethnic moderation (Norris, 2004).…”

The international mediation of power-sharing settlements

“…The input of external actors in post-conflict institutional design sheds light on what Horowitz (2014) terms the 'adoption problem' whereby little is known about the conditions under which power sharing can be adopted. Horowitz argues that the adoption problem is 'surpassingly important' constituting 'a congeries of bargaining problems', including the presence of asymmetric preferences between majorities and minorities; a reluctance to adopt novel institutions; negotiators' bias which restricts the range of options under consideration; and perceptions on the part of the parties as to which institutions meet their preferences as a 'perceived visibility of interests' (Horowitz, 2014: 8-9).…”

“…Defection meanwhile can lead to the resumption of violence. Horowitz (2014) labels this the 'immobilism problem.' Power sharing often entails prolonged periods of coalition-building as well as protracted legislative decision-making.…”

Guaranteed Rotation in Office: A ‘New’ Model Of Democracy

“…The principal problem we see with dividing up the offices of state is the risk of deadlock, preventing any of the groups from getting anything done. 4 The risk with proportional representation is that, even though each group has its fair share of legislators, coalition dynamics might be such that some of them are nonetheless persistently locked out of government.…”