Democracy and Social Peace in Divided Societies

Exploring Consociational Parties

M. Bogaards

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781349546824, 9781403998231
• eBook ISBN: 9781137433176
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Comparative Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This unique comparative study examines minority representation and powersharing in Canada, Kenya, South Africa, Fiji, India, Malaysia, and Yugoslavia. Presenting a new concept of the 'consociational party', Bogaards explores how diversity differs within parties and why it matters for social peace and democracy.

1

The Consociational Party

Introduction

The literature on political power sharing of socio-cultural groups is dominated by the well-known model of consociational democracy, characterized by cooperation between the leaders of segmental parties representing specific constituencies, usually minorities (Lijphart, 1977). However, in many countries the political representation and accommodation of diversity take place within rather than among parties. This important distinction has not been duly recognized in accounts of consociationalism in Canada (Liberal Party), Fiji (Alliance Party), India (Congress Party), Kenya (KANU), Malaysia (Alliance/National Front), South Africa (African National Congress), and the former Yugoslavia (League of Communists). So far, no framework exists that allows for the identification and analysis of such cases of intra-party representation and accommodation. The concept of the “consociational party” (Bogaards, 2005) intends to fill this gap and to open up a new line of research.

This book examines the experience of consociational parties in four historical (Fiji, India, Kenya, and Yugoslavia) and three contemporary (Canada, Malaysia, and South Africa) cases, focusing on the process and structure of representation and accommodation inside these parties and on their role in the political system at large. The well-documented experience of “classic” consociational democracies provides a benchmark (for helpful overviews, see Andeweg, 2000; Steiner and Ertman, 2002; O’Leary, 2005). The analysis of party organizations draws on the highly developed literature on this topic (Katz and Mair, 1992; Mair, 1997). In the comparison of intra- and inter-party representation and accommodation, three issues will be singled out that are of particular interest, both to academic observers and political practitioners: (1) the conditions under which consociational parties emerge, succeed, and fail; (2) the place of consociational parties in the broader political system; and (3) the record of consociational parties in securing social peace and democracy.

After a brief summary of Lijphart’s work on consociational democracy, consensus democracy, and power sharing, this chapter introduces the concept of consociational party; distinguishes between five types (Alliance, Congress, single party, league model and rainbow party); elaborates a framework of analysis; and justifies case selection. The model of the consociational party is explicitly constructed as an ideal type: a party that within itself combines all five features of consociationalism (the party-political organization of socio-cultural differences, a grand coalition of group leaders, proportionality, group autonomy, and a mutual veto). From the outset, it is expected that actual consociational parties will vary in the extent to which they correspond to this ideal type (cf. Sartori, 1976: 145). The specification of five types of consociational party, three democratic and two non-democratic, will help to identify patterns and to link the features of particular parties to systemic outcomes. For each type of consociational party, the empirical cases that come closest to it, based on the consociational literature, are selected for in-depth analysis.

Consociational democracy

Choudhry (2008: 19) is undoubtedly correct in noting that “the consociational model has generated an enormous literature.”¹ In the late 1960s, at a time of great pessimism about the prospects for democracy in societies with deep cleavages, Lijphart (1968, 1969, 1975a) introduced the model of consociational democracy to explain political stability in plural societies.² Lijphart presented elite behaviour as the missing link between a plural society and democracy and social peace. Through “overarching cooperation at the elite level with the deliberate aim of counteracting disintegrative tendencies in the system,” as an early definition (Lijphart, 1968: 21) of consociational democracy puts it, segmental leaders in the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, and Switzerland succeeded in accomplishing what Lijphart terms “a self-negating prediction or prophecy.”

Consociational democracy is a twofold concept with a social-political side and a political side. In Lijphart’s (1977: 5) own words, consociational democracy “is defined in terms of both the segmental cleavages typical of a plural society and the political cooperation of the segmental elites.” Over the years both sides of the consociational medal have undergone revisions. The socio-political side has been variously described as plural society, divided society, deeply divided society, segmented society, segmented pluralism, and pillarized society. At heart, all these terms refer to societies in which socio-cultural differences -race, ethnicity, language, religion, and region – are politically salient and organized, though in different ways and to different degrees. Pluralism found its definitive formulation in 1981, when Lijphart (1981: 356) specified four dimensions: (1) it should be possible to identify the segments composing a society; (2) it should be possible to determine the size of each segment; (3) the cleavages between the segments should coincide with the cleavages between political, social, and economic organizations; and (4) since the cleavages between political parties and segmental loyalty coincide, election results should reflect the segments and changes should be few.

The political side of consociationalism is formed by what Lijphart (1968, 1975a) initially termed “the politics of accommodation” in his case study of the Netherlands. Accommodation is practiced through seven “rules of the game”: a pragmatic approach to politics, the agreement to disagree, summit diplomacy between the segments, proportionality, depoliticization, secrecy, and the adage that the governments governs. Lijphart never used the seven political rules of the game in comparative research, perhaps because these rules are part of political culture and as such are “unwritten, informal, and implicit” (Lijphart 1975a: 123). In later work, Lijphart (1977) distinguishes four institutional and behavioural forms of collaboration between political leaders: a grand coalition, proportionality, mutual veto, and segmental autonomy. These have become the defining features of consociational democracy.

As Taylor (2009: 2) aptly observes, “consociational theory has evolved in a two-stage process: first as description, then as prescription.” In his early work, Lijphart’s tone is still cautious and he is critical of consociationalism’s inefficiency, immobilism, strengthening of cleavages, democratic imperfections, culture of secrecy, lack of political alternatives, and passive citizenry. In 1975, Lijphart (1975b) rejected consociational democracy as a viable option for Northern Ireland. The definitive breakthrough for consociationalism as a normative type only comes in 1977, with the publication of Democracy in Plural Societies. “This book’s message to the political leaders of plural societies is to encourage them to engage in a form of political engineering: if they wish to establish or strengthen democratic institutions in their countries, they must become consociational engineers,” Lijphart (1977: 223) asserts. However, he is still of the opinion that consociational democracy is only second best. The culmination of consociationalism as a normative approach is Power-Sharing in South Africa (1985), a forceful plea for the adoption of consociational democracy in a democratic South Africa. By now, Lijphart (2008b: 277) has no more doubts: “Is the evidence supporting consociational power sharing strong enough that we can confidently recommend it to divided societies?,” he asks, and immediately provides the answer, “I strongly believe it is.”

Majoritarian and consensus democracy

After the invention of consociationalism, the elaboration of a new typology of democratic political systems, distinguishing between majoritarian and consensus democracy, is seen as Lijphart’s second critical contribution to democratic theory (Wilsford, 2000). Consensus and majoritarian democracy are polar types (Kaiser, 1997: 436). Polar types always come in pairs, as they mark the extremes of a continuum. Real-world cases will fall somewhere in between, in greater or lesser proximity to one of the two poles (Sartori, 1993).

The prototypical consensus democracies are Switzerland and Belgium (Lijphart, 1984, 1999, 2012).³ The classic majoritarian democracies are Great Britain, especially before the New Labour government (Flinders, 2005), New Zealand, before electoral reform in the mid-1990s, and Barbados. Majoritarian democracies are characterized by one-party, minimal winning governments that dominate their parliament, a majoritarian electoral system, two-party system, interest group pluralism, a unitary, centralized, state, a unicameral parliament or a bicameral parliament in which one chamber dominates, a flexible constitution, no judicial review and a central bank under government control. Consensus democracies, in contrast, have oversized cabinets, an executive-legislative balance, multi-party system, corporatism, federalism or a decentralized state, two chambers of parliament that are equally powerful and differently composed, a rigid constitution, judicial review, and an independent central bank. The basic difference between the two types of democracy is that “the majoritarian model concentrates political power in the hands of a bare majority – and often even merely a plurality ( ... .) whereas the consensus model tries to share, disperse, and limit power in a variety of ways” (Lijphart, 2012: 2).

Whereas Democracies (1984) was primarily an attempt to classify democracies around the world, distinguishing between consensus and majoritarian democracy on two dimensions, the executives-parties and the federal-unitary dimension, Patterns of Democracy (1999, 2012) went further and evaluated democratic performance on a broad range of indicators. Lijphart found that, contrary to what is often believed, majoritarian democracies are not better in managing the economy, while “consensus democracies do clearly outperform the majoritarian democracies with regard to the quality of democracy and democratic representation as well as with regard to what I have called the kindness and gentleness of their public policy orientations” (Lijphart, 2012: 295). Hence, consensus democracy is recommended because of its superior performance, not because it is suitable for divided societies.

For Lijphart (1977: 8), democracy in plural societies has to be consociational democracy. Majoritarian democracy, in contrast, because of the winner-takes-all principle will lead to the permanent exclusion of minorities from power, political instability, and quite likely the breakdown of democracy. This dire prediction makes it all the more interesting to examine those cases that institutionally resemble more closely the majoritarian model, but that are said to exhibit consociational features within the ruling party. As we will see, most consociational parties operate in and indeed even benefit from majoritarian institutions. What is their record in securing democracy and social peace?

Power sharing

Starting with Power-Sharing in South Africa, Lijphart (1985) has used power sharing as a synonym for consociational democracy. Lijphart (2008: 6) discovered that policy-makers find power sharing easier to pronounce and understand than consociationalism. In the process, power-sharing democracy is defined in terms of the four political characteristics of consociational democracy only, dropping pluralism (Lijphart, 1994: 856).

The equation of consociational democracy with power sharing is problematic for at least three reasons (Bogaards, 2000). First, to the extent that the concepts overlap it entails a waste of terms (Sartori, 1984). Second, to the extent that power sharing and consociationalism do not overlap the interchangeable use of these terms is confusing and possibly misleading. Because the political features of consociationalism have been severed from their social origins in the process of relabelling consociationalism as power sharing, the domain of application is drastically enlarged, allowing one to detect power-sharing elements even in non-plural or semi-plural societies. This is conceptual stretching in the sense of Sartori (1970). The third problem is that power sharing is usually understood in a much broader sense, referring to any type of consensual or non-majoritarian practice. For example, Esman (2004) uses power sharing as an overarching concept, distinguishing between federalism and consociationalism as two patterns of power sharing.

In his response, Lijphart (2000b: 426, emphasis in original) defends the equation of power-sharing democracy and consociational democracy and while admitting that the redefinition of consociational democracy in terms of four instead of five criteria involves conceptual stretching, argues that “not all conceptual stretching needs to be condemned; on the contrary, when the original concept is unnecessarily and undesirable narrow, it must be stretched.” However, O’Leary (2005: 37) sides with Bogaards, writing that “‘power sharing’ is not a synonym for consociation because there are other than consociational ways to share power.”

Unfortunately, confusion has only increased (See Lijphart, 2002, 2008a/b). For example, for Schneckener (2002: 204–205) power sharing is synonymous with consociational democracy, which in turn is presented as the particular form that consensus democracy assumes in multi-national polities.⁴ Narrowing the idea of power sharing to consociational democracy is one conceptual trap. Another pitfall is to loosen power sharing so much that it includes not only consociational democracy but also its opposite. This is what happens to Sisk (2003) when he treats integrative majoritarianism as a form of power-sharing democracy, an example followed by O’Flynn and Russell (2005).

Consociational democracy is best viewed as part of a broader range of so-called non-majoritarian democracies, which practice power sharing or what Roeder and Rothchild (2005) label “power-dispersion.” Or, alternatively, as one particular method of achieving accommodation, following McGarry et al. (2008). Wolff’s (2011: 1791) phrase “consociational power sharing” adequately conveys that consociationalism is a particular form of power sharing, but is too cumbersome. The analysis in this book will use the more narrow concept of consociationalism, rather than the broader concept of power sharing.

The consociational party

Luther (1999: 6) has noted how “consociational theory and party theory have not yet been brought together in a truly comparative perspective.” Luther has sought to bridge this gap by offering a framework for analysis that distinguishes between the role of parties within and among the segments. In other words, segmental parties have two dimensions: an internal dimension, pertaining to the relationship between party and segment; and an external dimension, pointing at the relationship among the (segmental) parties in the party system. Building on Luther, one can distinguish three internal functions of segmental parties: formulation and articulation of segmental interests and identity; mobilization of the segment and its voters; and political organization of the segment. These functions of articulation, mobilization, and organization can be summarized under the heading of representation. The external dimension consists of the four features that in a consociational democracy characterize the interaction among segmental parties: a grand coalition, proportionality, mutual veto, and segmental autonomy. These four features are captured by the label of accommodation. The distinction between an internal versus external dimension, between representation and accommodation, provides a useful framework for mapping the functions of parties in a plural society and helps to highlight the differences between segmental parties in a classic consociational democracy and consociational parties.

For empirical application, the seven features of consociational parties need to be defined and operationalized. As the critique of Lijphart’s conceptualization (see, among others, Bogaards, 2000) and the often heated debate about the classification of particular countries (for example, Barry, 1975a/b; Halpern, 1986) show, the conceptualization and empirical identification of the four consociational principles are contested. Lijphart (2002: 46) admits: “The basic characteristics of consociational democracy are inherently stretchable: they can assume a large number of different institutional forms.”

Lijphart’s (1981) definition of pluralism mentioned above is tailored to segmental parties in classic consociational democracies that each represent a well-defined segment, but does not help in determining the extent and manner in which socio-cultural differences are represented inside consociational parties. One may well conclude that India immediately after independence, for instance, was not segmented under this definition, but that does little to detract from the country’s plural character and gives no information about other ways socio-cultural differences may be politicized, for example within the ruling party.

That is why the concepts of articulation, mobilization, and organization show more promise. Briefly, and in the context of consociational parties, articulation refers to the expression of socio-cultural interests and identities w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1 The Consociational Party
• 2 The Alliance Model
• 3 The Congress Model
• 4 Non-democratic Consociational Parties
• 5 From Inter- to Intraparty Consociationalism in South Africa?
• 6 The Origins and Institutional Environment of Consociational Parties
• 7 Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index