Ethnic power sharing: Three big problems

Journal of Democracy

Volumn 25, Issue 2, 2014, Pages 5-20

  Horowitz, Donald L ^a  

^a DUKE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84931074128     PISSN: 10455736     EISSN: 10863214     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/jod.2014.0020     Document Type: Article

References (40)

1. Under other circumstances, ethnic minorities can dominate majorities, with quite explosive consequences, as in Syria.
2. For a good summary, see Andrew Reynolds, ed., The Architecture of Democracy: Constitutional Design, Conflict Management, and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 15-54.
3. For sources used to compute these figures, see the Appendix on the Journal of Democracy website at www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/supplemental-material. The data were gathered with the very diligent research assistance of Asfia Tareen. The nine power-sharing arrangements that have endured for more than five years in the regions specified are located in Bosnia, Bulgaria, Burundi, Djibouti, Indonesia, Macedonia, Nepal, Nigeria, and Suriname. These enumerations are approximations, and some of these cases might be contestable. The point is not to create a definitive list but to gain a general sense of the incidence and durability of power-sharing arrangements. Needless to say, inclusion on this list does not imply that a country necessarily enjoys either a high level of democracy or a high level of interethnic accommodation.
4. I have written about the first problem in a preliminary way elsewhere. See Donald L. Horowitz, "Constitutional Design: Proposals versus Processes, " in Reynolds, The Architecture of Democracy, 15-36.
5. "Constitutional Design: An Oxymoron?" NOMOS 42 (2000): 252-84
6. "Conciliatory Institutions and Constitutional Processes in Post-Conflict States, " William and Mary Law Review 49 (March 2008): 1213-48.
7. Alexander B. Downes, "The Problem with Negotiated Settlements to Ethnic Civil Wars, " Security Studies 13 (Summer 2004): 230-79
8. Ian S. Spears, "Understanding Inclusive Peace Agreements in Africa: The Problems of Sharing Power, " Third World Quarterly 21 (February 2000): 105-18
9. Spears, "Africa: The Limits of Power-Sharing, " Journal of Democracy 13 (July 2002): 123-36.
10. See, for example, Jon Elster, Claus Offe, and Ulrich K. Preuss, Institutional Design in Post-Communist Societies: Rebuilding the Ship at Sea (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 79, 114-16.
11. See Benjamin Reilly, "Political Engineering and Party Politics in Conflict-Prone Societies, " Democratization 13 (December 2006): 811-27.
12. Steven I. Wilkinson, "Conditionality, Consociationalism, and the European Union, " in Sid Noel, ed., From Power Sharing to Democracy: Post-Conflict Institutions in Ethnically Divided Societies (Montreal: Mc-Gill-Queens University Press, 2005), 239-62
13. A. Carl LeVan, "Power Sharing and Inclusive Politics in Africa's Uncertain Democracies, " Governance 24 (January 2011): 31-53.
14. For the initial claim, see Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), 5.
15. The formation of the Malaysian coalition is explicated in Donald L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 397-404.
16. See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971). Such occasions may coincide with what Bruce Ackerman calls "constitutional moments. "
17. Ackerman, We the People: Foundations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991).
18. Constitution of Nigeria, 1999, art. 134(2).
19. See Lim Hong Hai, "The Malayan Electoral System: Its Formulation and Change" (PhD diss., University of Malaya, 1997).
20. In 2004, the ruling coalition's Chinese and Indian components won 40 seats. By 2008, this number was reduced to 18; by 2013, to only 11 seats. One result of disaffection was the growth of a strong Chinese opposition party that eventually was able to coalesce with a Malay opposition party and a smaller multiethnic party led by former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim. This new interethnic coalition was able to benefit from vote pooling that led in 2008 to opposition victories in several states in which Chinese votes were crucial. In 2013, the opposition coalition lost the national election but won more votes than the ruling coalition. Gerrymandering of seats made the difference in the outcome. For details of the 2013 election, see Bridget Welsh, "Malaysia's Elections: A Step Backward, " Journal of Democracy 24 (October 2013): 136-50.
21. Kai Ostwald, "How to Win a Lost Election: Malapportionment and Malaysia's 2013 General Election, " Round Table 102 (December 2013): 521-32.
22. The ability of the ruling coalition to delimit constituency boundaries sometimes led (after elections in which Malay support declined) to a proliferation of ethnically mixed constituencies apportioned to favor the coalition. See Lee Hock Guan, "Steadily Amplified Rural Votes Decide Malaysian Elections, " ISEAS Perspective, no. 34, Singapore, 6 June 2013. It should be noted that electoral incentives for intergroup accommodation cannot be diminished by constituency malapportionment if the incentives are lodged in an electoral system for a president who is elected in one nationwide constituency; but, of course, presidential electoral systems can be altered.
23. See, for example, Tom Ginsburg, Judicial Review in New Democracies: Constitutional Courts in Asian Cases (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
24. J. Mark Ramseyer, "The Puzzling (In)dependence of Courts: A Comparative Approach, " Journal of Legal Studies 23 (June 1994): 721-48.
25. I have dealt with rule-of-law issues in Constitutional Change and Democracy in Indonesia, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 233-46.
26. Or members of a minority group can emigrate, as many Malaysian Chinese have and as many Fijian Indians did after a putsch unseated a multiethnic government that had come to power under a centripetal electoral system in 1999.
27. Timothy Sisk, "The Obsolescing Pact: The Limits of Powersharing in Sustaining Post-War Peace, " paper presented at the International Studies Association Annual Convention, Montreal, 2010.
28. Sisk, "The Obsolescing Pact, " 10.
29. Pierre du Toit, "Why Post-Settlement Settlements?" Journal of Democracy 14 (July 2003): 104-18.
30. Under quite idiosyncratic conditions, South Africa's interim constitution of 1994 accorded minorities a few consociational guarantees, subject to what was effectively a sunset clause. Under ordinary circumstances, when minorities are strong enough to demand such guarantees, they will not agree to sunset clauses.
31. Philip G. Roeder, "Dilemmas of State-Building in Divided Societies, " in Philip G. Roeder and Donald Rothchild, eds., Sustainable Peace: Power and Democracy After Civil Wars (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005), 38-39.
32. Eric Nordlinger, Conflict Regulation in Divided Societies (Cambridge: Harvard University Center for International Affairs, 1972).
33. See Wilkinson, "Conditionality, Consociationalism, and the European Union. "
34. For updates on Burundi, I am indebted to some email exchanges with Dr. Stef Vandeginste of the University of Antwerp. The interpretation, however, is mine alone.
35. Convenient basic sources for the paragraph that follows are Rudy Andeweg and Galen A. Irwin, Governance and Politics of the Netherlands, 2nd ed. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 19-44.
36. Kurt Richard Luther and Wolfgang C. Muller, eds., Politics in Austria: Still a Case of Consociationalism? (London: Frank Cass, 1992), 1-44, 201-06.
37. Ruud Koole and Hans Daalder, "The Consociational Democracy Model and the Netherlands: Ambivalent Allies?" Acta Politica 37 (Spring-Summer 2002): 23-43. The same might be said of Austria.
38. Laurent de Briey, "Centripetalism in Consociational Democracy: The Multiple Proportional Vote" (unpubl. ms., 2005), 19 n. 20, www.paviagroup.be/documents/de-Briey.06.Centripetalism.pdf.
39. In Bosnia, however, courts have made some incremental changes in the constitution. For an informed discussion, see Christopher McCrudden and Brendan O'Leary, Courts and Consociations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 42-45.
40. See generally John W. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper Collins, 1995).