ABSTRACT
In this paper, I want to make three main points. The first of these is that the
basic principles of consociational democracy – or power sharing democracy – are so obviously the appropriate answer to the problems of
deeply divided (plural) societies that both politicians and social scientists
have repeatedly and independently re-invented and rediscovered them.
Second, these principles must be thought of as broad guidelines that can be
implemented in a variety of ways – not all of the which, however, are of
equal merit and can be equally recommended to divided societies. My third
and most important point will be that an especially important set of alter-
natives in applying the consociational principles is the choice between selfdetermination and pre-determination of the constituent groups in the power
sharing system, that is, the groups that will be the collective actors among
whom power will be shared.
