Nonelectoral Participation in Deeply Divided Societies: Transforming Consociations from the Ground Up?

Abstract

Premised on elite accommodation, consociations provide little consideration for citizens’ input on institutional change. Likewise, valuable analyses of cross-community political participation in divided societies have emerged in recent years, yet whether the relationship between the grassroot and formal political process has broader consequences remains to be fully explored. The article examines the conditions in which nonelectoral participation takes place and the ways in which actors involved therein negotiate constraints for continuous cross-community mobilization. The structure of political systems and the nature of deep divisions in Northern Ireland and Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina invite a comparison of the consequences of nonelectoral political participation in these two illustrative case studies. The article concludes that while the formal political context shapes the likelihood of engagement on a cross-community basis, whether nonelectoral participation changes the structure of political decision-making depends on the willingness and ability of those involved to cooperate with formal institutional politics.

Beyond Linguistic Peripheral Elites: The Provincial Imbalance of Cabinet Ministers in Belgium

“…The consequences of the analysis of the territoriality of the political elites in the federal institutions and more precisely in the federal cabinet seem to indicate an ongoing relevance of the concept of consociationalism in the Belgian context. Consociationalism is based on a complex combination of grand coalition, proportionality, segmental autonomy, and mutual veto as the four characteristics of consociationalism (Lijphart 1977; Agarin 2020). While there is no segmental autonomy in the case of the federal cabinet, the grand coalition is expressed by the linguistic parity rule, and the mutual vote emerges from the consensual mode of decision-making in the federal cabinet and the key role of senior ministers (Frognier 1988).…”

What Do We Know about Power Sharing after 50 Years?

“…Generally, crossing the ethnic divide is a significant move. The future will only tell if power sharing will be a ‘victim of its own success’ by diffusing the cleavages it was initially designed to manage (Andeweg 2000: 515) or if citizens who feel marginalized under power-sharing systems will use contentious action to challenge the system from below (Agarin 2021).…”