ABSTRACT
The concept of harmony, ironically, strikes a discordant note to many political scientists, especially among those who study and write about Western polities. Disharmony seems a much more natural state of affairs. Those who study politics, after all, emphasize its origins in conflicts of interest and clashes of ideas. Interests are constantly conflicting and colliding. To students of politics therefore harmony is hardly a phenomenon inhering in nature or in human nature. Harmony – really a pseudo-harmony – can be imposed from above or by coercion through authoritarian means masking turbulence lying underneath the surface. A more optimistic scenario however is that governing processes under liberal constitutionalism can forge agreement through bargaining and negotiation by being able to do two things: first, to satisfy critical constituencies that an outcome is the best deal they are likely to get, and that the costs of alternative action would be dysfunctional to their interests; and second, to set in motion a repeated play game so that all actors will have a continuing stake in remaining at the table.
