Introduction

This chapter provides an overview of the book and foregrounds its main arguments and contribution to the literature on power-sharing in deeply divided societies. Its aim is to draw together the key debates between scholars who focus on the benefits of political accommodation inherent in consociationalism and those who place greater emphasis on the integrative potential of a centripetal approach. The chapter sets out the case for a new framework for consociational power-sharing, establishing a bridge between the accommodationist and integrationist models of institutional design. It also introduces the three main cases analysed in the book, and outlines the overlaps as well as the differences between the power-sharing models practiced in Northern Ireland and the Brussels Capital Region, and how these inform the debates surrounding the development of power-sharing in Cyprus. The chapter demonstrates the ways in which the interplay of formal and informal institutional reforms have produced an iterative system of power-sharing in Northern Ireland, defined as a ‘living consociationalism in the case of the Brussels Capital Region’. It also demonstrates the importance of changes in the external political landscape and how these can affect the internal workings of power-sharing institutions.