1. PO377 Ethnic Conflict and Political Violence
Week 14: Internal Frameworks for Managing Conflict

2. Lecture Outline Methods of Ethnic Conflict Regulation
Political Institutions and Ethnic Conflict
Why should we be interested in the relationship between political institutions and ethnic conflict?
Defining political institutions
Institutionalism: institutional incentives approach to ethnic violence
Problems with majoritarian democracy
Power-sharing and consociational democracy
Consociational Democracy
Lijphart’s four characteristics of consociational democracy
Favourable conditions for consociational democracy
Problems with consociationalism
Alternatives to Consociationalism
Evidence?
Summary

3. Methods of Ethnic Conflict Regulation
I. Methods of eliminating differences:
genocide;
forced mass-population transfers;
partition and/or secession;
integration and/or assimilation.
II. Methods of managing differences:
hegemonic control;
arbitration (third-party intervention);
cantonisation and/or federalisation;
consociationalism or power-sharing [focus of today].
(McGarry and O’Leary, 1997)

4. Political Institutions and Ethnic Conflict
Why should we be interested in the relationship between political institutions and ethnic violence?
Political institutions are comparatively easy to manipulate;
political institutions shape political behaviour and are “political actors in their own right” (March and Olsen 1984: 738).

5. Political Institutions and Ethnic Conflict (2)
Defining political institutions
formal institutions – such as electoral systems or federal arrangements – are openly codified (laid down in writing and guaranteed through sanctioning mechanisms of state agencies);
informal institutions, such as corruption, clientelism or structures of civic life, are known publicly and safeguarded through entrenched social mechanisms, but not formally codified by the state (Lauth 2000).

6. Political Institutions and Ethnic Conflict (3)
Institutionalism: institutional incentives approach to ethnic violence
There is a clearly identifiable relationship between institutional design and ethnopolitical (in)stability;
ethnically diverse societies require different political institutions than comparatively homogeneous ones (Varshney 2002).
According to this approach, ethnic violence is an outcome of the establishment of institutions which are not suitable for the degree of ethnic diversity in a society.

7. Political Institutions and Ethnic Conflict (4)
Institutionalism: institutional incentives approach to ethnic violence
… goes as far back as to J S Mill. In “Considerations on Representative Government”, Mill argues that democratic institutions are not suitable for societies in which several ethnic or national groups co-exist, as they would deepen tensions between different parts of the population.
The (inconclusive) debate about the utility of consociationalism (or power-sharing more generally) as a strategy for managing ethnic conflict is one of the most prominent debates within the institutional incentives approach to ethnic violence.

8. Political Institutions and Ethnic Conflict (5)
Institutionalism: institutional incentives approach to ethnic violence
Can democracy work in multiethnic societies?
“Is the resolution of intense but conflicting preferences in the [deeply divided] society manageable in a democratic framework? We think not” (Rabushka and Shepsle 1972: 217, quoted in Sisk 1996: 29).
Lijphart’s reply: “it may be difficult, but it is not at all impossible to achieve and maintain stable democratic government in a plural society” (Lijphart 1977: 1) .

9. Pop Quiz
What do you see as being a problem/problems with majoritarian democracy in the kinds of societies we have been discussing?

10. Political Institutions and Ethnic Conflict (6)
Problems with majoritarian democracy
Majoritarian democracies are based on “winner-takes-all” principles. Typified by the Westminster style of democracy, they are governed by and responsive to the majority of people (Lijphart 1999).
The core problem of majoritarianism is its potential for “majority dictatorship” (Lijphart 1985: 102) and the permanent exclusion of minorities: “simple majority rule results in minimum winning coalitions that tend to exclude a significant minority; when minority preferences are intense and there is little chance of the minority becoming a majority, a recipe for conflict exists” (Sisk 1996: 32).

11. Political Institutions and Ethnic Conflict (7)
Problems with majoritarian democracy
Examples:
Under the plurality system for parliamentary elections, Unionists representing the Protestant majority (approx. two-thirds of the population at the time of partition) in Northern Ireland were able to form a one-party government from 1921 to 1972.
According to Sisk (1996: 31), the “primary trigger in the onset of the war in Bosnia” was the decision by the predominantly Muslim and Croat government in early 1992 to hold a referendum on independence from Yugoslavia, to be conducted under simple majority rule. Bosnian Serbs boycotted the referendum.

12. Political Institutions and Ethnic Conflict (8)
Power-sharing and consociational democracy
Definitions of power-sharing are contested. “Narrowly” defined, power-sharing strategies aim to ensure the representatives of all major ethnic groups are included in the political decision-making process (Rothchild and Roeder 2005). More broadly, power-sharing includes all practices “that promote meaningful inclusivity and balanced influence for all major groups in a multiethnic society” (Sisk 1996: 9).
Lijphart’s (1977) model of consociational democracy offers one particular strategy of power-sharing.

13. Consociational Democracy
Arend Lijphart: Democracy in Plural Societies (1977). Plural society is one divided by ‘segmental cleavages’; political divisions follow social divisions of religious, ideological, linguistic, regional, cultural, racial, or ethnic nature.
Consociational democracy is both an empirical and a normative model.
Consociational democracy relies on political cooperation of the elites of each segment.
Assumption: ethnopolitical instability can be prevented through the institutionalised guarantee of political representation for all major ethnic groups in a society.

14. Consociational Democracy (2)
‘It is in the nature of consociational democracy, at least initially, to make plural societies more thoroughly plural. Its approach is not to abolish or weaken segmental cleavages but to recognize them explicitly and to turn the segments into constructive elements of stable democracy.’
(Lijphart 1977)

15. Consociational Democracy (3)
Lijphart’s four characteristics of consociational democracy:
Grand coalition [sharing of executive power]
Mutual veto
Proportionality
Segmental [group] autonomy

16. Consociational Democracy (4)
Favourable conditions for consociational democracy:
Multiple balance of power among segments of society;
small size of country;
overarching loyalties;
segmental isolation;
prior traditions of elite accommodation;
cross-cutting cleavages (weaker importance).
Ultimately, however, the success of consociationalism depends on statesmanship and the political leaders’ “desire to avert the danger of mutual destruction” (Horowitz 2002: 20).

17. Consociational Democracy (5)
Problems with consociationalism:
Problem of generalizing from European models to severely divided societies affected by ethnic conflict (Barry 1975; Horowitz 2000: chpt. 14);
lack of overarching loyalties in ethnically divided societies and often conflict over whether a country should exist at all, rather than how it should be run (Barry and Horowitz vs. Lijphart);
leaders in severely divided societies are often very constrained in terms of their freedom to act, and also may lack genuine goodwill (Horowitz);

18. Consociational Democracy (6)
Problems with consociationalism:
problem of assuming unitary leadership of ethnic groups; intra-group competition constrains moves to accommodation. ‘Only rarely does any single set of leaders speak for an entire ethnic group, if those leaders speak in conciliatory terms’ (Horowitz 2000: 574);
question of cause and effect: consociational theory as circular (Horowitz);
consociationalism contributes to entrenchment of ethnic divisions. Freezes group boundaries in the political system and cements ethnic cleavages (Horowitz 2000; Reilly 2002; Sisk 1996);

19. Consociational Democracy (7)
Problems with consociationalism:
too elite-centred (Daalder 1974, Horowitz 2002 etc.);
lacks incentives for inter-ethnic compromise (Horowitz 2000; Reilly 2002; Sisk 1996 etc.);
doubtful whether case studies chosen by proponents of consociationalism really fit the consociational model (Barry 1975);
neglects relevant factors such as interaction of internal and external conflicts (Daalder 1974);

20. Consociational Democracy (8)
Problems with consociationalism:
not a strongly democratic system (no strong opposition; homogenous and conformist segments with lack of individual liberty and equality; elitist, top-down model);
potentially incapable of achieving stable and efficient government (indecisive and inefficient; expensive).
(Lijphart acknowledges these two weaknesses himself)

21. Alternatives to Consociationalism
For instance: Integrative power-sharing according to
Horowitz (2000). This model consists of five elements
aimed at reducing ethnic conflict (Sisk 1996):
The dispersion of power “to take the heat off a single focal point” (Sisk 1996: 598), e.g. by dividing power among institutions at the centre or (through territorial dispersion) by creating lower-level units with important policy functions;
territorial devolution or reserved offices to emphasise intra- ethnic conflict/competition;

22. Alternatives to Consociationalism (2)
institutions that create incentives for inter-ethnic cooperation such as electoral laws that create incentives for pre-electoral inter-ethnic coalition by means of vote pooling (see also Reilly 2002);
policies that encourage alignments based on alternative social configurations;
redistribution of resources to reduce disparities between groups.
Assumption: vote-pooling electoral systems offer more effective incentives for inter-ethnic coalitions and the reduction of ethnopolitical tensions than the political security offered to ethnic minorities in consociational power-sharing arrangements because of the self-interest of political elites to win elections.

23. Evidence?
The debate about the virtues and perils of consociationalism has remained inconclusive. There is no clear evidence whether consociational or integrative power- sharing provide better means of ethnic conflict management and we suffer from insufficient empirical examples to examine and compare.
[I consider Northern Ireland here but you might want to consider the “complex consociation” of Bosnia-Herzegovina as well.]

24. Evidence? (2) Northern Ireland
1998 Agreement establishes a “complex consociation” (O’Leary 2001; 2005): there is cross-community executive power-sharing; proportionality rules throughout the governmental and public sectors; autonomy/community self- government; veto rights for minorities.
But: early crisis over executive formation; Assembly’s electoral system is not list-PR (as recommended by Lijphart) but Single Transferable Vote; “Others” less well protected in Assembly than nationalists or unionists; several suspensions of the Assembly; frequent deadlock... Has the “complex consociation” worked?

25. Summary
Institutional design may be a means to manage ethnic conflict; political institutions are comparatively easy to manipulate, shape political behaviour and are political actors in their own right.
According to the institutional incentives approach, ethnic violence is an outcome of institutions which are not suitable for the degree of ethnic diversity in a society, e.g. if they exclude minorities from the political decision- making process, as this creates incentives for often violent extra-institutional action strategies.

26. Summary (2)
In contrast to majoritarianism, power-sharing arrangements aim to increase the inclusivity of the political system. Consociationalism is a specific type that relies on executive power-sharing and group autonomy as primary characteristics, and proportionality and mutual veto as secondary characteristics.
Consociationalism as a means to manage ethnic conflict remains highly contested. However, it remains equally contested whether other arrangements like integrative power-sharing represent viable alternatives.

27. Summary (3)
Consociational democracy explicitly recognises segmental cleavages in deeply divided societies and tries to manage them into a stable political system.
Some form of political power-sharing, usually involving consociational elements, is today the standard approach to most peace settlements.
However, there are problems with as well as positive elements to consociationalism – e.g. does it merely entrench ethnic division?

28. Summary (4)
Focusing less on political elites, considering the relevance of interaction effects between political institutions and between internal and external dimensions to conflicts, and taking greater account of informal political institutions might help overcome the apparent deadlock between those in favour and those sceptical of consociationalism.