ABSTRACT
The dramatic pictures of the firebrand Protestant preacher, Rev. Ian Paisley, sitting down at the same table with the President of Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams in March 2007 and then of the same Ian Paisley enjoying a joke with Martin McGuinness, a former Chief of Staff of the Provisional Irish Republican Army on 8 May 2007 when the two took up office as First Minister and Deputy First Minister, have been hailed as a triumph for consociationalism. The term was coined, or perhaps, to be strictly accurate, appropriated by the Dutch political scientist, Arend Lijphart, in the 1960s to describe a form of government among some of the smaller European democracies that, Lijphart argued, underpinned their political stability despite their deep social divisions (Lijphart 1969). Lijphart focused in particular on the cases of Holland, Belgium, Switzerland and Austria. Central to consociationalism is power-sharing in government, with its other elements of mutual vetoes, proportionality and segmental autonomy arguably of lesser importance. Indeed, the absence of one or more of the lesser elements has provided the basis for lively argument over whether this or that political settlement or political system should be considered truly consociational. For the most part Lijphart himself has tended to take a very broad view of what consociationalism entails. In particular, he has been quick to claim success for the concept in circumstances in which the consociational elements have been decidedly thin. The most obvious example is South Africa’s transitional constitution. It provided for a place in government of any political party that secured over 5 per cent of the vote in the country’s first democratic elections in April 1994. However, this entitlement was limited to five years and did not involve any element of veto. Thus, the majority party within this Government of National Unity, the African National Congress, made the policies. Indeed, so unattractive was the holding of office in these circumstances that the National Party after only two years of its operation voluntarily resigned from the government. Be that as it may, the South African government itself has not been slow to promote the notion of power-sharing as a valuable item in the conflict-resolution toolbox in its own endeavours as a mediator in various African conflicts. This includes the controversial case of Zimbabwe in which power-sharing has been seen by many Western critics as offering the means for Robert Mugabe to
legitimise his rule after flawed elections. At the time of writing it remains unclear whether the power-sharing agreement arrived at by the parties under South African mediation will hold up and prove durable. Much less controversial, at least in the Western media, was the case of Kenya, notwithstanding the evident similarities in the flaws in the electoral processes in the two countries. Rather like Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, the incumbent President of Kenya, Mwai Kibaki, ‘won’ re-election in highly disputed circumstances. An outbreak of violence followed Kibaki’s prompt installation as President after the publication of the transparently doctored election returns. The emphasis on the ethnic dimension of some of the violence provided the excuse that was needed for Western intervention to shore up Kibaki’s position. This took the form of mediation, conducted by the ever-obliging Kofi Annan, designed to persuade the Kenyan opposition, which like the Movement for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe had won the parliamentary elections that took place alongside the presidential elections, to accept the consolation prize of a place in a power-sharing government and to swallow Kibaki’s re-election in a presidential system of government. Whereas the major Western powers wanted Mugabe’s rule ended and were willing to use all means short of military intervention to achieve this objective, the same powers favoured Kibaki’s continuance in office since they viewed him as a strategic ally. In much the same way Western governments demonstrated a willingness to turn a blind eye to President Musharraf’s violation of basic democratic norms in Pakistan because of the importance they attached to his stance on the global war on terror, though they were unable to prevent his being forced from office. Similar strategic considerations have played their part in the handling of African conflicts, even when less might seem to be at stake strategically in their outcome. Of course, the fact that external powers with a mediating role have a strategic stake in the promotion of this or that power-sharing arrangement is not a reason for rejecting such settlements. They may indeed provide the best prospect for the achievement of some measure of order and stability in the society in question. The point simply is that the wider context of such settlements deserves very careful examination. The focus of the literature on consociationalism tends to be on its use as a mechanism for promoting political accommodation in divided societies. Admittedly, its applicability to cases of ethnonational conflict has been a matter of considerable debate. Among favourable conditions for the operation of consociationalism, Lijphart includes the presence across society’s divisions of overarching loyalty to the country against a common enemy. By definition, such a condition is going to be absent in the context of conflicts between sub-state nationalisms. But it should be said that Lijphart does not treat any of the favourable conditions he lists as necessary conditions for consociationalism to be successful. Indeed, the more difficult the circumstances, the more certain Lijphart tends to be that consociationalism is the only form of democracy that is likely to be durable. He also tends to see consociationalism as preferable to alternatives such as partition or secession.
