Majority rule versus democracy in deeply divided societies

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Majority rule versus democracy in deeply divided societies Arend Lijphart

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Department of Political Science , University of Leiden , Published online: 24 Feb 2007.

To cite this article: Arend Lijphart (1977) Majority rule versus democracy in deeply divided societies, Politikon: South African Journal of Political Studies, 4:2, 113-126, DOI: 10.1080/02589347708704717 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02589347708704717

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Majority rule versus democracy in deeply divided societies* AREND LIJPHART Department of Political Science, University of Leiden

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ABSTRACT: Consociational theory challenges the two paradigmatic notions that democracy should be equated with majority rule and that democracy is not a viable form of government in deeply divided societies. The alternative to majoritarian democracy is consociational democracy. Its four principal characteristics stand in sharp contrast with majoritarian principles: (1) the grand coalition principle means joint consensual rule; (2) the mutual veto may also be termed negative minority rule; (3) proportionality entails fair and equal treatment instead of the disproportionality in favor of majorities that majority rule usually entails; and (4) segmental autonomy may be characterized as minority rule over the minority itself in the area of the minority's exclusive concern. Consociationalism is both more democratic and more practical than majority rule in culturally and ethnically divided societies. Moreover, in plural societies with extremely deep cleavages, majority rule and democracy are incompatible, and consociationalism offers the only realistic possibility to attain a viable democratic system.

INTRODUCTION Two widely accepted — but nevertheless quite erroneous — theoretical notions appear to dominate contemporary scholarly thinking and writing about the politics, especially the possibility of democratic politics, in culturally, ethnically, and racially divided societies: the equation of democracy with majority rule and the proposition that democracy is not a viable form of government for such deeply divided societies. These ideas are both so basic and so prevalent in political science that they may be compared to "paradigms" in Thomas S. Kuhn's sense of the term.1} In this paper, I shall try to disprove these paradigmatic notions. My argument will be, in the first place, that there are two principal types of democracy: in addition to majoritarian democracy there is a distinctly different alternative type that I have labeled "consociational" democracy, following the examples of the Dutch Calvinist political theorist Johannes Althusius (1563 — 1638) and, more recently, of David E. Apter.2) Instead of majority rule, consociationalism stresses consensual decision-making, proportionality, and Politikon Vol. 4 No. 2 Dec. 1977 Des.

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minority rights. Secondly, I shall argue that democracy is not inevitably destined to fail in deeply divided societies; if a democratic government belongs to the consociational type or if it incorporates consociational elements to a significant degree, it should have a good chance to be viable and effective. Thirdly, I shall try to show that in societies with extremely deep cultural, ethnic, and racial cleavages, consociational democracy is not just a preferable alternative to majoritarian democracy but that it is the only realistic possibility. In other words, democracy and majority rule are incompatible in deeply divided societies: hence it is, as the title of this paper emphasizes, a question of majority rule versus democracy. I should like to make two additional introductory remarks. The first is that, although theory and practice are often only tenuously connected with each other, this is not the case here. The confusion of majority rule with democracy and the pessimism about democracy in divided societies are widespread among both theorists and practitioners. These errors are therefore not merely of academic interest but may have serious practical consequences. Secondly, the pessimistic view of the chances of democracy entails the special danger that it may become a self-fulfilling prediction: if politicians and their political advisers accept the proposition that democracy cannot succeed in deeply divided societies, they will not even try to introduce it or to make it succeed. Like all self-fulfilling predictions, this proposition is not intrinsically valid but it may turn out to be true because political actors believe it to be true and, acting on this assumption, make it true. MAJORITARIAN DEMOCRACY AND THE BRITISH PARADIGM What are the reasons for the prevalent identification of democracy with majority rule? One reason appears to be the recognition that the only logical alternative to majority rule is minority rule (or at least a minority veto). Unanimity or broad agreement among all citizens is more democratic than simple majority rule, but in the absence of a strong consensus, it seems more democratic that decisions are made by majorities instead of by minorities. As Willmoore Kendall has shown, even John Locke with his passionate concern for minority rights was forced to admit that majority decision-making was the logical rule of last resort.5' In practice, however, most democratic systems have tried to avoid pushing this principle too far. Especially with regard 10 the most fundamental and sensitive questions, such as constitutional amendments, extraordinary majorities are often required. Accordingly, Jean Jacques Rousseau, in spite of being much more majoritarian-mmded than Locke, advised that "the more grave and important the questions discussed, the nearer should the opinion that is to prevail approach unanimity. "4) The major democratically governed country in which majority rule is applied even to constitutional questions is, significantly, the United Kingdom.5' It is my contention that the most important reason for the equation of democracy with majority rule is that the British model of democracy — or what 114

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is often referred to as the "Westminster model" — has long been accepted as the normative democratic paradigm for the rest of the world. This British model is thoroughly majoritarian in five main respects: (1) The cabinet is composed of members of the majority party, and the minority is completely excluded; in parliament, there is a confrontation between government and opposition, but the government has majority support and can get its proposals enacted even against strenuous objections by the minority. (2) The electoral system is the single-member district plurality method in which the candidate with the majority vote (or, if there is no majority, with the largest minority vote) wins, and the other candidates are excluded. (3) This electoral method encourages and tends to maintain a two-party system in which the two parties are of approximately equal size; the winning party therefore represents no more than a narrow majority, and the minority opposition is relatively large. (4) The majority is not only able to form a one-party cabinet but also captures the other "spoils" of office according to the winner-take-all principle. (5) The system of government is unitary and centralized, and there are no restricted geographical or functional areas from which the parliamentary majority is barred. It is surprising that the British paradigm has had such influence as a normative ideal type, because the govemment-versus-opposition pattern of democracy, the first characteristic of the Westminster model mentioned above, may be interpreted as an undemocratic principle: it is a principle of exclusion. As Sir Arthur Lewis has forcefully pointed out, the primary rule of democracy should be that citizens have the opportunity to participate, either directly or indirectly, in making decisions. The second meaning of democracy, that the will of the majority must prevail, violates the primary rule if the representatives are divided into a government and an opposition: it excludes the minority from the decision-making process for an extended period. However, the exclusion of the minority is mitigated if majorities and minorities alternate in government — in other words, if today's minority can become the majority in the next election instead of being condemned to being in the opposition permanently. Hence the government-versus-opposition pattern can be regarded as democratic only if the vital condition of alternation in government is fulfilled. In deeply divided societies, where the lines of cleavage are sharply drawn and correspond closely to political preferences, the necessary flexibility to achieve such alteration is absent. Lewis argues therefore that the majority rule in deeply divided societies is "totally immoral, inconsistent with the primary meaning of democracy, and destructive of any prospect of building a nation in which different peoples might live together in harmony. "6> A second reason why the strength of the Westminster model is remarkable is that in practice many deviations from it can be observed but that these deviations have not affected the faith in its value as a normative paradigm. Even the United Kingdom itself is not run according to the Westminster model! It is customary, for instance, that the leader of the opposition in the House of Commons is consulted by the government on questions that are especially 115

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important or sensitive. This is very different from the imposition of the majority will on a reluctant minority. Moreover, there have been frequent deviations from a pure two-party system and one-party cabinets. In other countries, too, the principles of the British paradigm may be accepted in theory while they are being violated in practice. Writing in 1974, before the end of the Labor Party's domination of Israeli politics, Emanuel Gutmann notes that "it is quite surprising to what extent adherence to the classical parliamentary pattern of government-opposition confrontation is taken as the norm in a country in which no change of government has yet occurred."7' But we should not be surprised about such discrepancies between theory and practice. As Kuhn points out, it is in the nature of a paradigm that it is not easily shaken by counterinstances: even "persistent and recognized anomaly does not always induce crisis" and will not necessarily lead to the rejection of a paradigm.8' The normative influence of the British majoritarian paradigm has been felt both in the Western world and, often with disastrous consequences, in the divided societies of the non-Western world. It is interesting to notice that, when Woodrow Wilson proposed the introduction in the United States of a strong cabinet based on majority support in Congress, he did so in the following words: "Congress must be organized in conformity with what is now the prevailing legislative practice of the world. English precedent and the world's fashion must be followed."9' With regard to the Third World, Edward Shils comments: "There are no new states in Asia or Africa ... in which the elites who demanded independence did not, at the moment just prior to their success, believe that self-government and democratic government were identical." And they often also believed that democratic government meant British-style democracy including, among other things, "a legislative body under the dominance of the majority party. "10) Lewis even compares the bias imposed by the Westminster model to brainwashing, and he suggests that Third World leaders "will need much unbrainwashing before they grasp their problems in true perspective."11'

THE PLURAL-SOCIETIES PARADIGM The second paradigm differs from the first, or British, paradigm in that it is a statement of an empirical relationship, whereas the first paradigm is a definitional statement. On the other hand, the two paradigms are closely related since in the second paradigm's proposition that democracy cannot work in deeply divided societies, the definition of democracy is supplied by the first paradigm. The idea that deep social cleavages and democracy are incompatible has dominated political theorizing for a long time. An early example is John Stuart Mill's gloomy view of the chances of representative democracy in deeply divided societies: "Free institutions are next to impossible in a country made up of different nationalities. Among a people without fellow-feeling, especially if they read and speak different languages, the united public opinion, necessary 116

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to the working of representative government, cannot exist."1*) It is also implicit in the work of J.S. Furnivall who coined the term "plural society" for a society deeply divided by religious, cultural, linguistic, ethnic, and racial cleavages — a term that I shall also use from here on. In a plural society, Fumivall states, "each group holds by its own religion, its own culture and language, its own ideas and ways," and the different groups live "side by side, but separately, within the same political unit."15) Furnivall used the concept of plural society in his analysis of colonial dependencies and he argued that their political cohesion could only be maintained by the non-democratic method of colonial control. This plural-societies paradigm can also be discerned in more recent writings on the politics of both the Western and the non-Western world. It underlies Gabriel A. Almond's distinction between the homogeneous political cultures of the "Anglo-American political systems" and the fragmented political cultures of the "Continental European systems." The Continental European countries — primarily France, Italy, and Weimar Germany — are culturally and ideologically plural societies that may be governed democratically, but their democracy can only be weak and unstable.14' Plural societies are characterized by mutually reinforcing cleavages- whereas more homogeneous societies have multiple cross-cutting affiliations. Seymour M. Lipset links this factor to the possibility of democracy in the following words: "the chances for stable democracy are enhanced to the extent that groups and individuals have a number of crosscutting, politically relevant affiliations."15' Especially with regard to the Third World, the plural-societies paradigm is stated in its starkest form by M.G. Smith. Domination by one segment is part of his definition of plural society, because he believes that there is no other way to maintain political order in such societies: "Cultural diversity or pluralism automatically imposes the structural necessity for domination by one of the cultural sections. It ... necessitates nondemocratic regulation of group relationships." In accordance with this theory, he predicts that "many of the newly independent states may either dissolve into separate cultural sections, or maintain their identity, but only under conditions of domination and subordination in the relationships between groups. "1S) Political practitioners who base their decisions on the plural-societies paradigm are likely to commit two kinds of errors: in their quest for democracy they may attempt to make the plural society less plural and more homogeneous, or, accepting the plural nature of a society as an unalterable fact, they may turn to non-democratic forms of government. The plural character of a society may be reduced by assimilation or partition. Assimilation is the remedy prescribed by Furnivall: "The functions of the Government are to create a common social will as the basis for a Government that shall represent the people as a whole. ...The transformation of society is a prerequisite of changes in the form of Government."17' Although the replacement of separate segmental loyalties by a common national feeling seems to be a logical solution to the problems of a plural society, it is not a practical solution. Especially in the short run, it is 117

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unlikely to be effective, and it may even stimulate a defensive reaction on the part of the separate segments and encourage inter-segmental hostility and violence.18' An alternative solution is to divide a plural society into two or more homogeneous societies by partition or secession. Contemporary statesmen and political scientists tend to treat this possibility with less favor than it deserves. Samuel P. Huntingdon states: "The twentieth century bias against political divorce, that is, secession, is just about as strong as the nineteenth century bias against marital divorce. Where seccession is possible, contemporary statesmen might do well to view it with greater tolerance."19' Huntington's condition that partition should be feasible is, of course, a crucial one; the difficulties in the case of a plural society with geographically interspersed segments may be insuperable.20' What seems to me to be even more important is that partition may not be necessary as a method of creating the preconditions for democracy. The possibilities of consociational democracy should be seriously considered before the drastic solution of partition is attempted. Politicans who accept the deep divisions of a plural society as an unalterable given, are also likely to make grave and unnecessary mistakes as a result of the plural-societies paradigm. Even basically pro-democratic political leaders in plural societies who, erroneously, regard democracy as a total impossibility in their countries, are logically tempted to insist on the continuation of oligarchical or minority rule or to opt for a non-democratic form of "majority rule."21'

CONSOCIATIONAL VERSUS MAJORITARIAN DEMOCRACY The concept of consociational democracy challenges the two paradigms discussed above.22' My contention is that the British majoritarian paradigm of democracy is too restrictive, that the concept of democracy should be broadened to include the consociational model as well, and that this broader democratic concept invalidates the plural-societies paradigm. Consociational democracy is characterized by four principles: grand coalition government, mutual veto, proportionality, and segmental autonomy. All four principles deviate from majority rule. First, government by grand coalition means that the political leaders of all significant segments of the plural society co-operate in governing the country. It may be contrasted with the government versus-opposition pattern of the Westminster model. Majority rule is replaced by joint consensual rule. Grand coalitions can take the form of a grand coalition cabinet in parliamentary systems, of "grand" councils with important coordinating or advisory functions, or of a grand coalition of a president and other top office-holders in presidential systems. Secondly, the mutual or minority veto gives each segment the guarantee that it will not be outvoted by the majority when its vital interests are at stake. Majority rule is here replaced by negative minority rule. The mutual 118

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veto is synonymous with John C. Calhoun's "concurrent majority" principle. In Calhoun's words, this minority veto gives each segment "the power of protecting itself, and places the rights and safety of each where only they can be securely placed, under its own guardianship. Without this there can be no systematic, peaceful, or effective resistance to the natural tendency of each to come into conflict with the others. "I5) Thirdly, proportionality is the basic standard of political representation, civil service appointments, and allocation of public funds. It contrasts sharply with the winner .-take-all character of majority rule. With regard to political representation, there are two further extensions of the proportionality principle which entail even greater deviations from majority rule: the overrepresentation of small segments and parity of representation. These are both principles of disproportionality in favor of minorities. Parity is attained when the minority or minorities are overrepresented to such an extent that they reach a level of euqality with the majority or the largest group. In practice, the effect of the majority rule in the Westminster model is to exaggerate the representation and power of the majority. Minority overrepresentation and parity have the opposite effect of giving disproportional influence and security to small segments. They are especially useful alternatives to proportionality when a plural society is divided into segments of highly unequal size. In federal theory and practice, these two principles are often applied to the composition of the upper house. Fourthly, consociational democracy delegates as much decision-making authority as possible to the separate segments. This segmental autonomy is the final deviation from majority rule. It may be characterized as minority rule over the minority itself in a specified area of the minority's exclusive concern. It complements the grand coalition principle: on all issues of common interest, the decisions should be made jointly by the segments with approximately proportional degrees of influence; on all other issues, decision-making should be left to each segment. A special form of segmental autonomy that is especially suitable for plural societies, is federalism. The consociational model described in terms of these four characteristics is not just a theoretical construct. There are several empirical examples of consociational democracy in various parts of the world. In Europe, where the phenomenon of consociationalism first attracted scholarly attention, the examples are Austria during the period of Catholic-Socialist grand coalitions from 1945 to 1966, Belgium since the First World War and, as far as the linguistic problem is concerned, especially since 1970, the Netherlands in the 1917—67 period, and Switzerland from 1943 on. Empirical cases of consociational democracy in the Third World are Lebanon from 1943 to 1975, Malaysia in the 1955 — 69 period, Cyprus during the few years from its independence in 1960 until 1963, Surinam from 1958 to 1973, and the Netherlands Antilles since 1950. In addition, there are two cases of what I have labeled "semi-consociational" democracy: Israel since its independence in 1948 and Canada — both the contemporary Canadian system and, even more clearly, the pre-democratic 119

United Province of Canada from 1840 to 1867. These two countries have had a number of consociational elements, but they cannot be regarded as fully consociational.

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A COMPARISON OF THE VIABILITY OF THE TWO MODELS What are the lessons that can be drawn from these empirical examples of consociational democracy? In particular, do they offer sufficient evidence of the success of consociationalism to justify the prescription of consociational democracy as a normative model for policy-makers? It is my conviction that consociational engineering can indeed be recommended with reasonable confidence, but there are two reasons why it is wise to exercise caution in this respect. In the first place, not all of the empirical cases listed above are clearly successful cases. For instance, Cyprus probably has to be counted as a clear failure of an attempt at consociational engineering. On the other hand, the termination of consociationalism must not be equated with its failure. Austria, for example, shifted from grand coalition governments to oneparty majority cabinets in 1966, but this was not because consociational co-operation had failed but because it had been so successful in alleviating the tensions between the religious-ideological groups that further consociational measures had become superfluous. Moreover, not all of the cases that appear to be "failures" represent failures of consociational democracy. For instance, the outbreak of civil war in Lebanon in 1975 can be attributed largely to the intrusion of external forces — although the inflexible institutionalization of some of Lebanon's consociational devices must also share part of the blame. All of the evidence cannot be reviewed in the limited space of this paper, but we can conclude that the application of the consociational model is not a sufficient condition for the success of democracy in plural societies. A second reservation that I should state is that the empirical cases represent a wide spectrum of degrees of pluralism, and that the success of consociational democracy in only religiously and ideologically plural societies like Austria and the Netherlands is not directly relevant, to plural societies with much deeper cleavages. On the other hand, the intensity of the cleavages in only mildly plural Austria should not be underestimated; they were sufficiently strong to cause a civil war in the Austrian First Republic during the interwar years. Moreover, the empirical cases of consociational democracy do include instances of extremely deep ethnic and racial cleavages like Malaysia and Surinam. It is nevertheless necessary to conclude that the chances for consociational democracy decrease as the degree of pluralism of plural societies increases. There is also a positive conclusion that can be drawn from an examination of the set of consociational cases; the consociational model offers better chances for stable democracy than the majoritarian model. It is important to note that there are no unambiguous cases of successful majoritarian democracy in deeply plural societies. The main counterexample appears to be India, but it is 120

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doubtful that Indian democracy can be regarded as fully majoritarian: the Congress party that dominated Indian politics until recently has been a broadly aggregative party led by an intra-party grand coalition of politicians of diverse ethnic origin, and the federal system has provided a high degree of autonomy for the linguistic segments. These conclusions are graphically portrayed in Figure 1. The horizontal axis represents the degree to which a society is plural, from complete homogeneity (0 percent pluralism) to the most extreme plural society (100 percent pluralism). Needless to say, the measurement along this dimension reflects impressionistic judgments and is not based on a rigorously operationalized index. The vertical axis, representing the probabilities of success of democracy, uses an equally rough and non-operationalized index. The curves PSC and QSTD represent the chances of success of the majoritarian and consociational models respectively. Whether or not democracy succeeds obviously depends not only on the democratic model that is chosen and on the degree of pluralism, but also on a number of other factors — which I shalLbriefly discuss later in this paper. Figure 1 is therefore based on a ceteris paribus assumption. One further assumption is made in the figure: I conservatively assumed that in the most extreme cases of pluralism (the area between D and E on the horizontal axis) democracy, even consociational democracy, may be completely impossible. At the other end of the continuum, the chances of both types of democracy are good, but, of course, they do not reach 100 percent: even in the most homogeneous societies, there is no guarantee that democracy will work. In homogeneous societies (A-B on the horizontal axis), I estimate the possibilities of success of consociational democracy to be slightly less good than those of the majoritarian type. The reason is that such societies may become oppressively homogeneous and conformist unless there is a vigorously adversarial opposition challenging a majority-based government. I shall not elaborate on this question because it falls outside the scope of this paper. The area on the horizontal axis that is of special interest for our purposes lies between points B and D. As the degree of pluralism increases from B on, the probability of success of both types of democracy decreases, but much more rapidly for the majoritarian than for the consociational model. Between B and C, the two models do not offer a sufficient condition for viable democracy, nor are they necessary methods: the choice of either model may result in successful democracy. It should be noted, however, that the relative prospects of the consociational model improve compared with those of the majoritarian model. The curve RBT represents the difference between the probabilities of the two models. From R to B the consociational model is inferior to the majoritarian model, but from B to T it is increasingly superior. In the area from C to D, the chances of the consociational model continue to decline but those of the majoritarian model have been reduced to nil. This means that here the consociational model does become a necessary method for the achievement of viable democracy. As I stated at the beginning of this paper, in plural societies with very deep cleavages, democracy and 121

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FIGURE 1: PROBABILITIES OF SUCCESS OF THE CONSOCIATIONAL AND MAJORITARIAN MODELS OF DEMOCRACY

Source:

Adapted from Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), p.237

majority rule are incompatible: the realistic choice is not between the majoritarian and consociational democratic models, but between consociational democracy and no democracy at all. DRAWBACKS OF THE CONSOCIATIONAL MODEL If consociational engineering is seriously contemplated, it is important to examine not only the strength but also the potential weaknesses of consociational democracy. Its critics have stressed two problems: the question of democratic quality and the question of political effectiveness. The first criticism is that a strong opposition is a necessary ingredient of democracy and that the consociational model is qualitatively deficient in this respect. This objection is based on a majoritarian bias; consociational democracy is faulted because it differs on this vital point from the majority rule principle. Moreover, the objection fails to take into account that a government -versus-opposition pattern of politics in plural societies is likely to lead to the minority's permanent exclusion from power. 122

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Democracy without adequate opportunities for participation in decision-making can hardly be considered superior to democracy without strong political opposition. Another criticism of the quality of consociational democracy is that it can only achieve peaceful coexistence among the segments of a plural society instead of the classical democratic ideal of "fraternity" among all citizens. In the terminology of peace research, consociational democracy's primary aim is "negative" rather than "positive" peace.!4) On the other hand, peaceful coexistence is a precondition for and may be a first step toward the development of fraternal feelings. And since in a plural society true brotherhood is not a realistic short-term objective, democratic peaceful coexistence is a perfectly honorable goal in itself: it is vastly preferable both to non-democratic peace and to strife-torn democracy. The second set of criticisms, which focus on the problems of effectiveness, must be considered to be the more serious ones. Several of the characteristics of consociational democracy may entail indecisiveness and inefficiency. Decisionmaking will inevitably be slower in a grand coalition than in a small coalition or a one-party government, and the veto power raises the further danger that decision-making will become immobilized completely. There are some countervailing advantages, however. The principle of proportionality is a convenient and time-saving method for allocating appointments and public resources, and it removes a host of divisive issues from the decision-making process. Segmental autonomy offers similar advantages: in Jurg Steiner's words, it allows political demands to be "split up among different political levels," which contributes to a "relatively small input of demands" at the highest level of decision-making where grand coalitions and vetoes operate, and thus reduces the danger of immobilism.25' Also, the greater speed and decisiveness of majoritarian government are more apparent than real in a plural society. They may give better results in the short run but at the expense of increasing frustration and hostility on the part of the excluded minority. Short-term effectiveness is therefore likely to lead to grave crises in the long run. Conversely, consociationalism may appear slow and ponderous in the short run but can be much more effective over long periods of time. The conclusion must be that consociational democracy does have drawbacks but that these should not be exaggerated. Moreover, especially when there is no realistic alternative, it would be very unwise to reject consociationalism on the grounds of these drawbacks. A more prudent and constructive policy would be to accept consociational democracy but in its implementation to try to minimize its potential weaknesses as much as possible. CONCLUSION: DETERMINISM VERSUS FREE CHOICE As indicated earlier, Figure 1 is based on a ceteris paribus assumption. Of course, all other factors are' never equal in real life. In my research on plural societies, I have therefore tried to determine the conditions that are 123

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conducive to the establishment and maintenance of consociational democracy. Several favorable conditions can in fact be identified: a multiple balance of power among the segments of a plural society in which no segment has a majority and the segments are of approximately equal size, a relatively small total population, external, threats that are perceived as a common danger by the different segments, the presence of some society-wide loyalties, the absence of extreme socio-economic inequalities among the segments, the relative isolation of the segments from each other, and prior traditions of political accommodation that predispose to decision-making by the grand coalition method. *6> These factors cannot be discussed in detail here, but what I want to emphasize is that they are neither necessary nor sufficient conditions. Most of the consociational cases that I have examined show a mixture of favorable and unfavorable background conditions, but the two cases of semi-consociational democracy are unusually valuable in demonstrating that these factors should not ">e credited with decisive influence. In spite of consistently optimal background factors. Israel has not developed a fully consociational democracy*. Conversely, in spite of overwhelmingly unfavorable conditions in Canada, strongly consociational practices have developed in that country, especially during the period of the United Province. This means that consociational engineering may be attempted even when the conditions for it do not appear promising at all. It may be particularly important to stress that historical traditions should not.be regarded as ineluctable constraints on the freedom of political decisionmakers. Hans Daalder has forcefully called attention to the fact that predemocratic historical tendencies toward moderation and compromise in the Netherlands and Switzerland have made a great positive contribution to the development of consociational democracy in these countries.27' On the other hand, there are several significant examples of the establishment of consociational institutions and practices in spite of strong majoritarian traditions. For some of its colonial dependencies, the British government encouraged and endorsed consociational arrangements that clearly violated its own traditions of majority rule: the thoroughly consociational constitution for independent Cyprus and the formation of the Alliance of ethnic parties as a means of consociational co-operation in Malaysia. Perhaps an even better example is the British resort to such decidedly un.-British political devices as "power sharing" — another term for grand coalition — and proportional representation in order to try to solve the problems of the plural society in Northern Ireland. As Gabriel Almond and Robert Mundt write, "choices in politics are constrained but indeterminate." This conclusion may be disappointing for "political science, but for political problem solving there may be cause for satisfaction." Consociational theory belongs to what Almond and Mundt call the "political science literature that stresses room for maneuver, ranges of freedom, the place for risk-taking. "*8> Faith in democracy combined with a realistic assessment of the needs of a plural society may well enable political leaders to overcome adverse political traditions and other unfavorable background conditions and to fashion creative solutions along consociational lines. 124

NOTES •Many of the ideas contained in this article were drawn from, and are elaborated in greater detail in, my book Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1977). 1)

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2)

S) 4) 5)

6) 7)

8) 9)

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THOMAS S. KUHN. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962). JOHANNES ALTHUSIUSSPoliticoMethodiceDigesta was first published in 1603. DAVID E. AFTER was the first modem author to use the term "consociational," and his main example of this type of regime was newly independent Nigeria; see his The Political Kingdom in Uganda: A Study in Bureaucratic Nationalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), esp. pp.24—25. In my own writings on democracy in divided societies, I originally used the term "politics of accommodation"; see my The Politics of Accommodation: Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968; 2nd ed., 1975). I adopted the term "consociational" in my articles "Typologies of Democratic Systems," Comparative Political Studies, Vol: 1, No. 1 (April 1968), pp.5—44, and "Consociational Democracy," World Politics. Vol. 21. No. 2 (January 1969). pp.207-25. WILLMOORE KENDALL, John Locke and the Doctrine of Majority Rule (l'i .ana: University of Illinois Press, 1965). JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU. The Social Contract, trans, by G.D.H. Cole (New York: Dutton. 1950). p.107. Another example is Israel, which is still without a full-fledged written constitution and where the Knesset possesses legislative sovereignty. It may also be argued that the French Fifth Republic belongs to the same category, because the 1962 referendum on the direct election of the president established the principle that the constitution can be changed by a simple — popular rather than parliamentary — majority vote. W. ARTHUR LEWIS, Politics in West Africa (London: Allen and Unwin, 1965). pp.64 —66. EMANUEL GUTMANN, "Religion and National Integration in Israel," paper presented at the Round Table on Political Integration of the International Political Science Association, Jerusalem, 1974, p.25. KUHN, p.81. WOODROW WILSON, "Committee or Cabinet Government," Overland Monthly (January 1884), quoted by Walter Lippmann in his "Introduction" to Woodrow Wilson. Congressional Government: A Study in American Politics (New York: Meridian Books, 1956), p.IS (emphasis added). EDWARD SHILS, "The Fortunes of Constitutional Government in the Political Development of the New States," in John H. Hallowell, ed., Development: For What? (Durham: Duke University Press, 1964), p.103 (emphasis added). LEWIS, p.55. JOHN STUART MILL, Considerations on Representative Government (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1958), p.2S0. J.S. FURNIVALL, Colonial Policy and Practice: A Comparative Study of Burma and Netherlands India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948), p.304. GABRIEL A. ALMOND, "Comparative Political Systems, "Journal of Politics, Vol. 18, No. 3 (August 1956), pp.391—409, reprinted in Almond, Political Development: Essays in Heuristic Theory (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), chapter 1. SEYMOUR MARTIN LIPSET. Political Man: The Social Bases of Politics (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1960), pp.88-89. The quotations are from Leo Kuper's summary of Smith's theory in "Plural Societies: Perspectives and Problems," in LEO KUPER and M.G. SMITH, eds., Pluralism m Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), p. 14. FURNIVALL, pp.489-90. See ERIC A. NORDLINGER, Conflict Regulation in Divided Societies, Occasional Papers in International Affairs, No. 29 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, Center for International Affairs, 1972), pp.36—39. SAMUEL P. HUNTINGTON, "Foreword" to Nordlinger, Conflict Regulation in Divided Societies, p.vii. DJ. KRIEK discusses these practical problems posed by the South African policy of separate

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development, which he, significantly, calls a "paradigm" in the Kuhnian sense (and which may be regarded as a derivative of the plural-societies paradigm) in "Politieke alternatiewe vir Suid-Afrika: op soek na n nuwe paradigma," Politikon, Vol.- 3, No. 1 (June 1976), pp.57 89. CONWAY W. HENDERSON calls this the "apologist" position which should be replaced by a more democratically optimistic "revisionist" outlook. See his "Underdevelopment and Political Rights: A revisionist Challenge," Government and Opposition, Vol. 12, No. 5 (Summer 1977), esp. pp.278 —83. There is an extensive literature on consociational democracy, although different authors often use different terms to describe the concept. See VAL R. LORWIN, "Segmented Pluralism: Ideological Cleavages and Political Cohesion in the Smaller European Democracies," Comparative Politics, Vol. 3, No. 2 Qanuary 1971), pp.141-75; GERHARD LEHMBRUCH, PropOTzdemokratie: Politisches System und politische Kultur in der Schweiz und in Osteneich (Tubingen: Mohr, 1967); KENNETH McRAE. ed., Consociational Democracy: Political Accommodation in Segmented Societies (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1974); and NORDLINGER, Conflict Regulation in Divided Societies. For reviews of this literature, see HANS DAALDER, The Consociational Democracy Theme," World Politics, Vol. 26. No. 4 (July 1974), pp.604—21; BRIAN BARRY, "Political Accommodation and Consociational Democracy," British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 5, No. 4 (October 1975), pp.477—505; and JEBBREY OBLER, JtJRG STEINER, and GUIDO DIERICKX, Decision-Making in Smaller Democracies: The Consociational "Burden", Sage Professional Papers in Comparative Politics, Vol. 6, No. 01-064 (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1977). For a discussion of consociationalism in the context of the South African political situation, see W.B. VOSLOO, "Pluralisme as teoretiese perspektief vir veelvolkige naasbestaan in Suid-Afrika," Politikon, Vol. 1, No. 1 (June 1974). p p . 4 - 1 4 . JOHN C. CALHOUN, A Disquisition on Government (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1953), p.28. See JOHAN GALTUNG, "Violence, Peace, and Peace Research, "Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 6, No. 3(1969), pp.183-86. JORG STEINER, 'The Principles of Majority and Proportionality," British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 1. No. 1 (January 1971), p.69. See LIJPHART, Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), chapter 3. John Seiler analyzes these conditions in South Africa and Namibia in "Consociational Authoritarianism: Incentives and Hindrances toward Power Sharing and Devolution in South Africa and Namibia," paper delivered at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, September 1977. HANS DAALDER, "On Building Consociational Nations: The Cases of the Netherlands and Switzerland, International Social Science Journal, Vol. 23, No. S (1971), pp.367—68. GABRIEL A. ALMOND and ROBERT J. MUNDT. "Crisis. Choice and Change: Some Tentative Conclusions," in Gabriel A. Almond, Scott C. Flanagan, and Robert J. Mundt. eds.. Crisis, Choice and Change: Historical Studies of Political Development (Boston: Little, Brown, 1973), p.649.