ABSTRACT
Centripetal approaches to conflict management seek to foster peaceful politics by encouraging cooperation, accommodation and integration in divided societies. These goals are broadly shared with other approaches to conflict management, such as the scholarly orthodoxy of consociationalism, discussed elsewhere in this volume. However, the specific institutional recommendations to achieve these goals differ significantly from orthodox prescriptions. Centripetalists believe that the best way to manage democracy in divided societies is not to replicate existing ethnic divisions in the legislature and other representative organs, but rather to put in place institutional incentives for cross-ethnic behaviour so as to encourage accommodation between rival groups. As such, they typically reject elite-driven approaches such as consociationalism, and instead seek to dilute the ethnic character of competitive politics and instead promote outcomes which favour the political centre. To do this, centripetalists place a premium on promoting cross-ethnic electoral behaviour to make politicians reliant on the votes of different ethnic communities to gain election. In so doing, they advocate political institutions which can help to break down the salience of ethnicity rather than fostering its representation.
