Consociationalism to Promote Institutional Democratization in the Middle East and North Africa – Get Paper Help

Consociationalism to Promote Institutional Democratization in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)

Senior Thesis Research, Political Science Program

Abstract: From the historical perspective and the recent wave of majoritarian democracy declination in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) drastically has formed another wave of consensus democracy to overcome the dynamic reluctancy of political identity conflict within the MENA. Furthermore, realizing the roadblock of majoritarian democracy within the electoral systems could explicitly define a set of norms to measure majoritarian vs consensus democracy in the MENA. In the era of conflict, identity is arising to its highest peaks in the twenty-first century around the world and especially in the MENA, due to the fact that majoritarian democracy application did not provide a stable inclusive formation of governance to meet the inhabitants’ identity challenges. The institutional power continues to remain within the political elite, which neither represents majoritarian nor consensus democracy in the MENA. Therefore, this introduction considering the dynamic conflict identity of various ethnic and religious groups to suggest an alternative wave of democracy to balance the political power from the centric government to an inclusive form. Indeed, also it echoes some skepticism about the alternative premise of the solution, due to the exhausting timely approach to overcome the challenges in the MENA region. Overall, the research’s importance would focus on political identity conflict due to the implementation of majoritarian democracy in the MENA.

Keywords: Majoritarian, Consensus Democracy, Consociationalism, Centric, Electoral System

The Research Outline

• Pluralism is an institutional feature of consensus vs majoritarian democracy

§  Electoral systems are one of the measures of consensus vs. majoritarian

• democracy: majoritarian and disproportional electoral systems versus proportional

• Majoritarian democracy, state society relations
• Electoral systems are defined by seven basic aspects:
• Electoral formula
• District magnitude
• Electoral threshold
• Number of elected seats
• Presidential elections

• Together, these aspects determine:

• The degree of (dis)proportionality in the translation of votes into seats.
• As such, (dis)proportionality can (and does) serve as a measure of consensus vs. Majoritarian democracy.

• Political party systems: the effective number of political

Information source

Consociationalism democracy can be found in countries that are deeply divided into distinct religious, ethnic, racial, or regional segment conditions usually considered unfavorable for stable democracy.

The two central characteristics of consociationalism are government by grand coalition and segmental autonomy. Government by grand coalition is the institutional setting in which representatives of all significant segments participate in common decision making with regard to common concerns, whereas decision making remains autonomous for all other issues.

• In all respects, consociationalism contrasts profoundly with majority-rule democracy (majoritarianism). While the notion of consociationalism has been known since the 17th century, it was conceptualized in the 1960s, in particular by Arend Lijphart, and is used today as both an analyticaland a normative category. Based on a number of factors, it takes different forms in different countries, and it has been widely criticized.
• Profound social cleavages, such as by ideology, religion, ethnicity, class, or language, are generally thought of as obstacles to the establishment of stable democratic systems. When cleavages are cross-cutting in the sense that an individual is a member of different social segments, the risk is considered to be limited, as this situation creates pressures that have a moderating effect on social conflicts. If the social cleavages and pressures coincide, however, the chances of creating stable democratic political systems are rather poor. But it seems that such systems did exist and have become stable.
• The explanation is that elitegroups could coordinate in order to avoid conflict if social cleavages were not to be cross-cutting. Generalizing from a number of case studies and elaborating on the term used by a number of studies on African political regimes, Lijphart distinguished in the 1960s four characteristics that should be present in order to qualify for the label of consociationalism. First there must be a government by coalition, as well as a second element of segmental autonomy, such as federal arrangements that allow for autonomy in policy fields (i.e., education policy for which responsibility lays with the German Länder, or states). Third, proportionality must prevail in the electoral system but also with regard to civil service appointments and the allocation of public funds. Finally, consociationalism also foresees a minority veto for the protection of vital minority interests.

The formation of Consociational Government can be found in European countries like Belgium, Austria from 19445 to 1966.

• South Africa, whereas India since 1947, Colombia from 1958 to 1974, Malaysia from 1955, and South Africasince 1994 can be considered successes from a normative view, Cyprus and Lebanon’s experiments ended in civil war. Some scholars actually consider the European Union as a consociational democracy.

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