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Territorial and Institutional Settlements in the Global South and Beyond

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Abstract

Territorial and institutional settlements—from federalism and regional autonomy to consociationalism, centripetalism, and other forms of power-sharing—represent leading strategies by which to end protracted ethnicized conflicts. Yet there remains considerable debate as to the long-term merits of such approaches. Does consociationalism entrench divisions and immobilize government decision-making? Is federalism merely a precursor to secession? Or are territorial and institutional settlements the best prospect by which to deliver peace, democracy, and stability to deeply divided societies? The debate remains unsettled. Two main iterations of the debate regarding institutional design choices in divided societies in the Global South can be identified: one—accommodation versus integration—tends to present the options in zero-sum terms. In these earlier stages of the debate, consociationalism and centripetalism are frequently cast as opposing and irreconcilable forms of government in deeply divided societies (e.g., consociationalism versus centripetalism). Later scholarship tracks a different approach. In the second iteration—what can be labeled the turn to hybridity—scholars have shifted toward emphasizing their compatibility (e.g., consociationalism and centripetalism) or charting a path between them (consociationalism, then centripetalism). Beyond scholarly debates, institutional and territorial settlements in the Global South, including from across Latin and South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, exhibit a wide variety of forms and manifestations, some of which support accommodation while others tend toward integration.
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Territorial and Institutional Settlements in the Global South and
Beyond
Allison McCulloch, Brandon UniversityandEduardo Wassim Aboultaif, Holy Spirit University of
Kaslik
https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.745
Published online: 19 July 2023
Summary
Territorial and institutional settlements—from federalism and regional autonomy to consociationalism,
centripetalism, and other forms of power-sharing—represent leading strategies by which to end protracted
ethnicized conflicts. Yet there remains considerable debate as to the long-term merits of such approaches. Does
consociationalism entrench divisions and immobilize government decision-making? Is federalism merely a
precursor to secession? Or are territorial and institutional settlements the best prospect by which to deliver peace,
democracy, and stability to deeply divided societies? The debate remains unsettled.
Two main iterations of the debate regarding institutional design choices in divided societies in the Global South can
be identified: one—accommodation versus integration—tends to present the options in zero-sum terms. In these
earlier stages of the debate, consociationalism and centripetalism are frequently cast as opposing and
irreconcilable forms of government in deeply divided societies (e.g., consociationalism versus centripetalism). Later
scholarship tracks a different approach. In the second iteration—what can be labeled the turn to hybridity—
scholars have shifted toward emphasizing their compatibility (e.g., consociationalism and centripetalism) or
charting a path between them (consociationalism, then centripetalism).
Beyond scholarly debates, institutional and territorial settlements in the Global South, including from across Latin
and South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, exhibit a wide variety of forms and manifestations, some of
which support accommodation while others tend toward integration.
Keywords: accommodation, integration, power-sharing, consociationalism, centripetalism, federalism, autonomy,
institutional design
Subjects: Conflict Studies
Introduction
Territorial and institutional settlements—from federalism and regional autonomy to
consociationalism and centripetalism—represent leading strategies by which to end protracted
ethnicized conflicts. Yet there remains considerable debate as to the long-term merits of such
approaches. Some scholars contend that consociationalism entrenches divisions and immobilizes
government decision-making, whereas some worry that federalism serves as a precursor to
secession (Erk & Anderson, 2009; Ghai, 2000; Horowitz, 2014; Salloukh, 2020). Other scholars
depict territorial and institutional settlements as the best prospects by which to deliver peace,
Allison McCulloch, Brandon UniversityandEduardo Wassim Aboultaif, Holy Spirit University of
Kaslik
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democracy, and stability to deeply divided societies (Bermeo, 2002; Hartzell & Hoddie, 2020; Keil
& Alber, 2020; King & Samii, 2020; Lijphart, 1977, 2008; Loizides, 2016; McEvoy, 2015; McGarry &
O’Leary, 2007).
Often overlooked in these debates, however, is the extent to which such settlements exhibit a
wide variety of forms and manifestations. Federations, for example, differ in terms of the size and
number of subunits, the degree of centralization or decentralization in the distribution of policy
competences, the degree of symmetry or asymmetry between units, and whether federation has a
uni-national or pluri-national orientation (Requejo, 2017). Consociations can take liberal or
corporate form, depending on the extent to which they predetermine which groups are to
cogovern and whether constitutional documents enshrine the share of power allocated to each
community (McCulloch, 2014; McGarry & O’Leary, 2007). Centripetalists, meanwhile, have long
claimed that their approach is defined less by any precise institutional arrangement and more by
the general ability to “make moderation pay” (Horowitz, 1990; Reilly, 2001).1 The emphasis here
is to minimize the political impact of subidentities at the expense of the national one. While there
remains general agreement on the use of institutional design for mediating and resolving ethnic
conflicts, no consensus on the form that such settlements should take exists.
This article serves as a review of contemporary debates on territorial and institutional
settlements of ethnicized conflict. Institutional and territorial settlements are those that are
“focused on the institutions of state” (Wolff, 2011, p. 1778), including executive–legislative
relations and the division of powers to support peace and democracy in divided settings. While
territorial settlements are also institutional settlements, not all institutional settlements contain
territorial provisions. The two approaches share a belief in “constitutional engineering,” or the
belief that democracy can be designed (Bastian & Luckham, 2003a; Wolff, 2011). Two main
iterations of this debate can be identified. In a first iteration, accommodation and integration are
generally seen as two opposing poles along the settlement spectrum. On this reading,
accommodation recognizes that society may consist of “dual or multiple public identities” and,
as such, accommodationists pursue a conception of “equality with institutional respect for
differences” (McGarry et al., 2008, p. 41). Integration, on the other hand, seeks “a single public
identity coterminous with the state’s territory” (McGarry et al., 2008). In this first iteration of the
debate, consociationalism and centripetalism are frequently identified as ideal-typical
manifestations of accommodation and integration, respectively. This earlier iteration is marked
by a decidedly zero-sum approach in which accommodation and integration are depicted as
irreconcilable. Indeed, the debate has often been fraught: the institutional proposals of the “other
side” have been disparaged as having not “sparked a great deal of assent or emulation” (Lijphart,
2004, pp. 98–99) or have been criticized as being “inapt to mitigate conflict” or virtually
impossible to adopt (“as common as the arctic rose”; Horowitz, 2002a, p. 19; 2002b, p. 197).
Ultimately, the two poles of the settlement spectrum are characterized, in this first iteration, as
experiencing “a fundamental incompatibility that cannot be elided” (Horowitz, 2000b, p. 326).
A second iteration of this debate is represented by what can be labeled a “turn to hybridity.” In
this second iteration, scholarly assessments focus on how hybrid configurations, whereby a
settlement combines aspects from different settlement configurations, fare in terms of their
ability to deliver peace, democracy, and stability. Whereas the first iteration is more binary in its
1
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presentation (e.g., accommodation versus integration; consociationalism versus centripetalism),
scholarship in this second iteration adopts a more “mix and match” strategy (e.g.,
consociationalism and centripetalism) or a more staggered approach (e.g., consociationalism,
then centripetalism). This second iteration is more willing to explore constructive relations
between accommodation and integration.
Solving Political Problems by Designing Political Institutions
The scholarship covered here is often contentious and contested, marked by the absence of
conventional wisdom as to which settlement configuration best delivers peace and stability in
divided settings, particularly in the Global South. The two iterations of the scholarship on
institutional and territorial settlements vary in terms of the perceived reconcilability of the two
ends of the accommodation–integration settlement spectrum. With this in mind, it is useful to
begin with a point that binds the two iterations together: an underlying commitment to the belief
that political institutions can offer creative solutions to political and social problems, including
ethnicized conflict (Grofman, 2000; Wolff, 2011). Accommodation and integration, that is, both
derive their foundational assumptions from institutional theory.
A central tenet of institutional theory is that political institutions have a documented causal
impact on political behavior and outcomes. Formal rules—such as those contained within an
institutional settlement—tell us about dominant norms and beliefs, informing the logic of
appropriateness attached to different institutional milieus. “The formal institutional architecture
of the state sets parameters as to what is possible and impossible (and desirable/undesirable) for
politicians and the civil servants who work for them” (Lowndes & Roberts, 2013, p. 5). In so
doing, formal institutions can create a permissive environment in which certain behaviors are
rewarded, they can also offer constraints on such actions, and they set the path of political
interactions and contestations for the future (Jung & Deering, 2015, p. 61). Moreover, as Bernie
Grofman argues, “institutions are not just constraints on the feasible choice set or reifications of
existing power relationships; they are also often solutions to important societal
problems” (Grofman, 2000, p. 46). This point is also made by Charles Jones, who suggests that
the success of a given political system should be measured by how well it is able to “treat political
problems” (Jones in Binder, 2003, p. 35).
Yet much continues to work against this view of institutions in divided settings. According to
Donald Horowitz, “most divided societies have crafted no institutions at all to attend to their
ethnic problems” (Horowitz, 2004, p. 252). Even for those that do, challenges remain. First,
institutions are “never introduced in a political, economic, and social vacuum. They come into
being within specific historical contexts, national societies and cultures” (Bastian & Luckham,
2003a, p. 2). The legacies of intergroup conflict, colonialism, and exploitation endure. Often, the
past can continue to intrude on the present. Second, institutions “seldom function quite in the
way intended” (Bastian & Luckham, 2003a, p. 3), instead taking on new forms or producing
political consequences not anticipated at the time of adoption. Institutions, for example, can
“drift” whereby changes in the larger political environment modify the impact of existing rules;
institutions can also undergo a kind of “conversion” whereby the rules may stay relatively the
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same but are enacted in new ways that exploit the “inherent ambiguities” of institutions
(Mahoney & Thelen, 2005, pp. 15–16). Formal institutions also compete with the informal rules of
the game, including those left over from earlier constitutional iterations as well as newer patterns
of behavior that emerge in response to new institutional settlements (McCulloch & Zdeb, 2022;
Zdeb, 2021).
Although it is true that institutions alone may not definitively resolve conflicts and deliver peace
and stability, there is also reason to believe that any conflict-reducing strategy that neglects
institutional arrangements is unlikely to succeed (Bastian & Luckham, 2003b, p. 321). As
Strashiem and Fjelde contend:
In the aftermath of armed conflict, it is of paramount importance to introduce political
institutions that reduce the risks of renewed violence and lay the foundation for
democratic governance . . . The institutional choices in a transition shape the incentives of
political actors, structure their mode of interaction, and are likely to set the course for
democratization for years to come.
(Strashiem & Fjelde, 2014, p. 335)
The Accommodation Versus Integration Debate
Institutional and territorial settlements have historically been divided into two types:
accommodation and integration.2 Despite a range of institutional forms that fall under the
macropolitical headings of accommodation and integration, much debate has focused on
federalism, consociationalism, and centripetalism as ideal-type manifestations of the different
approaches. Consociational democracies are accommodationist, centripetal arrangements are
integrationists, and federations can take either form. Consociationalism was introduced by the
German scholar Johannes Althusius in the 17th century (Andeweg, 2019, p. 411), but the modern
academic doyen of the consociational approach is Arend Lijphart, a Dutch-American scholar who
initially studied politics in The Netherlands but moved on to work, with a more global focus, on
democratic stability in deeply divided societies. Lijphart starts his premise by contextualizing a
deeply divided society as one with deep cleavages on linguistic, religious, cultural, or ideological
bases (Lijphart, 1968, 1977).
Consociationalism employs four institutions, two which are considered primary characteristics—
the grand coalition and autonomy—and two secondary characteristics—proportionality and
mutual vetoes (Lijphart, 2004, p. 97).3 The consociational model is aimed at sharing, diffusing,
separating, decentralizing, and limiting power (Lijphart, 1982). In such systems, the leaders of
ethnic minorities can leverage their legislative power to achieve executive power-sharing in a
grand coalition, in contrast to a scenario where, on the basis on ethnic voting, they are left
perpetually outside the system (Choudhry, 2008, p. 10). Vetoes in parliament and the executive
are then used to ward off any existential threat and to prevent the tyranny of the ethnic majority.
At the same time, proportionality secures ethnic representation of groups in the system as a
whole, while segmental autonomy secures a community’s right to preserve its culture or
2
3
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territorial self-rule. Therefore, it is safe to claim that consociational power-sharing favors
political parties that represent social cleavages, as well as parties that use “bonding” rather than
“bridging” strategies; that is, parties which focus on a narrow base of its electorate which has a
similar identity (Chandra, 2011; Norris, 2004). To achieve that, a proportional representation
electoral system is adopted to produce a multiparty system that would allow for a postelectoral
alliance among different parties (Reilly, 2011, p. 262).
A consociation can take different forms, and the way in which the system recognizes ethnic
identities is a major line of difference. A corporate consociation sees identities as being relatively
fixed and thus employs ascriptive criteria to design institutional rules. The system allocates
power to a specified number of identity groups, and anyone not belonging to these groups is left
out. In such systems, posts are reserved for specific identities. In Lebanon, the presidency is
reserved for Maronite Christians, the premiership for the Sunni Muslim community, and the
house speakership for the Shiite Muslims, and there is parity representation between Muslims
and Christians in parliament. A liberal consociation, however, does not specify which community
takes which posts and instead leaves it to voter support in democratic elections (McGarry &
O’Leary, 2007, p. 675). States with a corporate consociational system include Burundi with a 6-
to-4 representation of Hutu to Tutsi in parliament and parity in the executive, Cyprus with a 7-
to-3 ratio of Greek Cypriots to Turkish Cypriots for the legislature and public service between
1960 and 1963, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, which has a presidency of three members representing
each of the constituent peoples (Bosniak, Bosnian-Croat, and Bosnian-Serb) and an upper house
with parity representation of each group (Aboultaif, 2019; McCulloch, 2014, p. 503). Examples of
liberal consociationalism include Northern Ireland’s sequential portfolio allocation model,
whereby executive posts are distributed on the basis of a party’s legislative seat share, and Iraq’s
constitutional provisions on asymmetrical devolution whereby governorates can opt to
amalgamate into federal regions, to transfer power to the center, or to modify how federal
legislation is implemented in their region (McCulloch, 2021; McGarry & O’Leary, 2007, p. 687).
North Macedonia provides an additional example. As per Article 5 of the 2001 Ohrid Framework
Agreement, it allocates veto rights for “communities not in the majority in the population”
without specifically naming these communities. There are also provisions on forming institutions
of local self-government, where numbers warrant.
The distinction between liberal and corporate consociationalism matters for the pursuit of peace
and stability. Corporate rules, because they predetermine which groups are to share power, are
thought to entrench ethnic divisions. They may offer political stability and group reassurance in
the short term, but they do little to alleviate the divide between communities in the long term.
Instead, they serve to ethnicize all political interactions, making it more difficult to reform the
system altogether. Once groups have been granted institutional guarantees, they are unlikely to
forsake them (McCulloch, 2014). Liberal consociations, on the other hand, have a more fluid
relationship with ethnicity (Lijphart, 2008).4 While the expectation may be that ethnic parties
will continue to win election in liberal consociations, the rules themselves do not predetermine
this: a liberal consociation “rewards whatever salient political identities emerge in democratic
elections, whether these are based on ethnic or religious groups, or on subgroup or transgroup
4
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identities” (McGarry & O’Leary, 2007, p. 675). Nor do they de jure exclude nonethnic identities, as
may be the case in corporate consociations, where the space for nonethnic mobilization is
squeezed (Salloukh, 2020).
The consociational model has never enjoyed universal appeal. Critics, led by Horowitz, have
established their own version of power-sharing which is referred to as centripetalism. This
integrationist approach intends to mitigate the sense of exclusion of any ethnic community and
to empower moderate leaders who are more likely to compromise on ethnic issues (Horowitz,
2008, p. 1218; Reilly, 2001). This alternative view of power-sharing engineers a “centripetal spin”
to the political establishment in order to pull parties toward moderation and reinforce the center
of a deeply divided spectrum (Sisk, 1996). Proponents of centripetalism believe that
consociationalism reinforces ethnic identities by creating a landscape of political mobilization
that occurs on the basis of segmental identities, allowing parties to organize themselves strictly
on an identity basis (Choudhry, 2008, p. 17). Hence, electoral engineering is vital to prevent
divisive ethnic mobilization by providing electoral incentives that compel elites to apply “vote
pooling” measures or to appeal to constituents from outside their ethnic community for lower-
order preferences on ranked-choice ballots, such as the alternative vote (AV; Horowitz, 2008, p.
1218). In this way, Horowitz turns Lijphart’s postelectoral alliances for governmental formation
upside down and emphasizes pre-electoral cross-ethnic alliances (Choudhry, 2008, pp. 18–22).
Centripetalists are skeptical of accommodative practices in the executive, so they advocate the
use of the presidential office as the heart of executive power instead of a grand coalition. In the
view of centripetalists, presidential elections, through the use of AV, force candidates to utilize
vote pooling to win elections; thus, the successful candidate will likely be a moderate, and the
electoral process would transcend ethnicity (Choudhry, 2008, p. 22). A strong president is
accompanied by a weak vice president and cabinet (McGarry, 2017, p. 514). In Horowitz’s view,
this process makes it impossible for one ethnic group to capture and consolidate the state by
simply winning the majority in parliament or presidential office (Horowitz, 2008). Centripetalists
support a single public identity coterminous with the state’s territory or at least believe in the
capability of the state to cultivate a new overarching identity through common citizenship over
time (Choudhry, 2008, pp. 41–42).
For many accommodationists, this is quite an audacious claim, considering the political salience
of identities in deeply divided societies. The essence of politics in such societies is often fear and
mistrust between communities alongside an absence of a single overarching national identity
that can bridge the gap between these segmental cleavages. Communities tend to view “the
other” with suspicion and, to some extent, as a threat to their own existence. This is why some
scholars argue that while ethnic or sectarian “identity is not static, singularly defining or
inherently bellicose” (Haddad et al., 2022, p. 183), asking voters to lend their support across
group lines in those places where such violence has occurred may simply be too much, at least
initially (McCulloch, 2013, 2021). Furthermore, centripetal institutions may not mitigate divisions
in the ways intended. There appears to be an intrinsic advantage for majority parties given that
they “have to pool fewer votes to win office than do politicians from smaller groups” (O’Leary,
2013, p. 36). Minorities, by contrast, may find it difficult to elect their own representatives and
must hope that their lower-order preference votes induce majority moderation. That the majority
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will do so after elections is far from guaranteed. Integrationists therefore seem to understand the
deep fears and mistrust experienced by community members, due to long histories of conflict and
trauma (as with, for example, Maronite and Druze in Lebanon; Nationalists and Unionists in
Northern Ireland; Tutsi and Hutu in Burundi; Sunni and Shiite in Iraq; and Serbs, Croats, and
Bosniaks in Bosnia-Herzegovina; see, for instance, Helou & Mollica, 2022).
The disagreement between the consociational-accommodative approach and the centripetalist-
integrative approach also includes the question of territorial autonomy and federalism.
Territorial power-sharing is understood as sharing and delegating the central government’s
powers and responsibilities to geographical units (Wise, 2018, p. 1). This can include delegating
some forms of political, fiscal, or administrative self-governance in a unitary or federal state
(Wise, 2018). Territorial autonomy, on the other hand, provides for some degree of self-
governance for specific communities within a unitary state, to deal with issues related to
administration, education, development, and (in some cases) fiscal management.
Consociationalists accept a federal solution where federal units are drawn according to ethnic
identity. Centripetalists, by contrast, prefer to create hybrid federal entities that do not give a
majoritarian advantage of one group over the other (Horowitz, 2001). Horowitz argues that this
approach allows conflict to be quarantined in regions rather than “infecting” the whole state,
because the identity of a political group will respond to its territorial context (Horowitz, 2001). In
order to avoid secession, centripetalists argue that a strong state should be created in the center
(Wolff, 2013, p. 28). Thus, both consociationalists and centripetalists see merit in territorial
settlements for the pursuit of peace and stability, but they envisage different forms and purposes
for them.
Accommodation and integration and their consociational and centripetal counterparts dominate
collective approaches to institutional settlements after ethnic conflict and have done so, as
Lijphart (2018) notes, for “half a century” now. The way in which the debate has developed and
persists, with scholars often lining up behind Lijphart or Horowitz to defend their respective
approach, contributes to a kind of protracted stalemate. Indeed, Horowitz claims that there is no
“definitive or universally acceptable answer” to the question of the best configuration of
institutions to mitigate or ameliorate group conflict (Horowitz, 2008, p. 1213) in part because
scholars continue to hold “two opposing views” on the question. Yet this zero-sum approach—
consociationalism versus centripetalism, accommodation versus integration—is beginning to
give way to a less rigid and intransigent framing with some scholars pursuing a more cooperative
approach marked by hybridity.
The Turn to Hybridity
Horowitz once referred to constitutional design as an “oxymoron,” suggesting that ideal-type
institutional settlements were few and far between. By his account, “more often than not . . . inapt
institutions or peculiar mixes of institutions are adopted, with little discernible effect on the
conflicts they are intended to ameliorate and sometimes with clearly dysfunctional effects on
those conflicts and on the future of democracy in the affected countries” (Horowitz, 2000a, p.
254). This has prompted some scholars to query whether “mix and match [is] okay” (Murray,
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2016). In her review of Alan Kuperman’s Constitutions and Conflict Management in Africa, Christina
Murray questions Kuperman’s (2015) conclusion that for those African countries with integrative
features, moving toward accommodative settlements is simply too risky. Murray’s point is not
that we should employ a “laissez-faire” approach to institutional designs—as she rightly notes,
“there is real danger in bits and pieces of various schemes being pasted together with inadequate
attention to the whole or to their practical implications”—but that given the very real difficulties
and constraints facing the pursuit of peace, stability, and democracy, policymakers should make
use of “all the tools in the constitutional toolbox.”
Murray’s “mix and match” question has been taken up by those interested in refining
conceptions of hybrid institution design, empirically investigating settlement adoption patterns,
and seeking out synergies between design choices that otherwise would seem to be at odds.
Indeed, whereas the earlier literature saw consociationalism and centripetalism as opposing,
even irreconcilable, forms of government (e.g., consociationalism versus centripetalism), a
noticeable trend is pursuing their compatibility (e.g., consociationalism and centripetalism) or
charting a path between them (consociationalism, then centripetalism). Calling the earlier debate
on accommodation versus integration (and its subvariant consociationalism versus
centripetalism) “old and by now stale” (Bieber, 2020), this second iteration breathed new life
into the exchange, marking a turning point in conceptualizing institutional and territorial
settlements.
Some authors start by measuring or assessing the degree of strength of the institutional approach
under consideration. Benjamin Reilly (2021), for example, has constructed an index of cross-
ethnic voting which identifies strong, moderate, and weak forms of centripetalism, determined
by the extent to which the electoral system requires, rather than merely encourages, cross-ethnic
voting. He identifies Indonesia as a case of strong centripetalism, Burundi as an example of
moderate centripetalism, and Lebanon, Singapore, and the Philippines as examples of weak
centripetalism. Making this distinction in the strength of centripetal incentives allows him to
confront the claim that few cases conform to the foundational logic he promotes, as this
necessarily widens the collection of cases that can count toward the centripetal total. Drew
Mikhael advocates for viewing consociationalism as a continuum. Rather than conceptualizingthe
difference between liberal and corporate as a “distinction” between two ideal types (McCulloch,
2014), one can place power-sharing arrangements on a continuum from “more corporate” at one
end to “more liberal” at the other, thereby transcending the binary conceptions that permeated
earlier debates. As with Reilly’s cross-ethnic voting index for centripetalism, “the utility of
creating a consociational continuum is that it would allow for finer grained analysis of the cases
and their impact on daily governing, helping to better understand the failures and successes of
ethnic conflict management” (Mikhael, 2021). In Mikhael’s case, he employs the continuum to
map the extent of exclusion faced by newcomers in consociations (e.g., how open or closed such
systems are to immigrants, refugees, and migrants).
Like Mikhael and Reilly, Eduardo Aboultaif (2020) emphasizes the extent to which a settlement
displays all four institutions of consociationalism. Building on earlier work by Lijphart (1977,
1985), Aboultaif classifies cases as either full or semi-consociational systems. Full consociations
are characterized by the adoption of both the primary (executive power-sharing; autonomy) and
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secondary (proportionality; vetoes) characteristics. Democratic failure in some cases—like
prewar Lebanon, postinvasion Iraq, and postwar Burundi—has led some scholars to argue that
consociationalism is necessarily doomed to fail. Aboultaif (2020) offers an alternative
explanation: democratic failure is often the product of incomplete consociationalism (i.e., the
presence of semi-consociationalism). This is a mode of power-sharing that concentrates
executive power in the president or prime minister rather than the grand coalition. Executive
powers are so severe that the president or prime minister may dismiss ministers, enjoy the
powers of commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and exploit executive decision-making of
the government because of the absence of a quorum to open a government session and the
absence of a clear voting mechanism, which means that decrees are signed and cosigned by the
president and minister concerned with the decree (Aboultaif, 2020). In these circumstances, the
grand coalition becomes merely ceremonial since executive power rests with the president or
prime minister, and veto power is absent in the executive. In addition, the office of the president
or prime minister is usually reserved for a specific ethnic community, even if informally (e.g.,
Maronites in Lebanon, Shiites in Iraq, and Hutu in Burundi), which allows these respective
communities to become the hegemon in domestic affairs, thus tilting the balance of power in
their favor.
At the forefront of the “consociationalism and centripetalism” perspective is work by Matthijs
Bogaards and Krzysztof Trzciński, respectively.5 In a 2019 article in the Swiss Political Science
Review, Bogaards posits that “it is wrong to conclude that they are incompatible,” suggesting
that consociationalism and centripetalism sometimes are indeed “foes” (when the institutions
“bite each other”) but sometimes can be “friends” (i.e., they can “bring out the best in one
another”). The two approaches, for example, functioned as “foes” in Fiji, where the centripetal
AV election system worked at cross-purposes from the consociational rule that parties returning
more than 10% of seats should be invited to the cabinet. Yet, in Malaysia, Bogaards maintains, the
two approaches were “friends” where voting-pooling and consociational parties worked toward
the same political goal of ethnic cooperation. Yet Bogaards’s (2019) proclamation of friendship in
Malaysia comes with a fairly major proviso: “the experience is difficult to replicate, and its
practice was compromised by ethnic dominance and authoritarian rule.” Bogaards also suggests
that Burundi might be another instance of friendship, although here too dynamics of ethnic
dominance and authoritarian rule muddies the waters on how friendly the system really is.
Nonetheless, the friend–foe dynamic offers a fresh analytical perspective on the shape of
institutional settlements.
For Trzciński (2018, 2022), the relationship between centripetalism and consociationalism is
more than a question of friendship and rivalry; his position is that their combination takes on a
life of its own. Identifying both “centripetal-consociational” and “consociational-centripetal”
cases, depending on the system’s overarching modus operandi, he takes the comparison one step
further and introduces the concepts of “hybrid power-sharing and its ‘own’ institutions.” By
this, he means the institutional space in which “consociationalism meets centripetalism.”
Examples include the procedural rules on the composition of the government on a multiethnic
basis in Nigeria and Kenya, the formation of supraregional religious parties in Indonesia, and the
5
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formation of multiethnic party lists in Burundi. Importantly, Trzciński theorizes the conditions
under which consociationalism and centripetalism can be successfully merged, serving the aim of
achieving peace and political stability.
Another set of authors take a staggered or transitional approach to institutional settlements,
advocating for “consociationalism, then centripetalism” or “accommodation, then integration.”
This perspective acknowledges that consociationalism may be appropriate as a transitional device
that may help to end war, but it remains equally skeptical of consociation’s ability to deliver
long-term goals of peacebuilding and democratization (Jung, 2012; Sisk, 2010; Sisk & Stefes,
2005). One response has been to try to plan for the resolution of this “power-sharing
dilemma”—as it is labeled by Alexander Raffoul (2019)—before any institutional settlement is
adopted. Several proposals for ending the Syrian war fit this approach. Amal Khoury and Faten
Ghosn (2018) propose a hybrid model that they label “integrative consociationalism,” which is
intended to support national integration and sectarian accommodation. Stephan Rosiny (2013),
meanwhile, outlines a three-step transitional model, inspired by Lebanon’s Taif Agreement,
which includes elements of consociationalism, centripetalism, and a “vision of a unitary nation-
state.” Similarly, Emer Groarke (2016) imagines a transitional framework, including a precise
sunset date to conclude a first consociational phase, followed by a move toward a more
integrative configuration.
At a more general level, Allison McCulloch and Joanne McEvoy (2020) have conceptualized a
“lifecycle approach” to power-sharing to explain the conditions under which power-sharing
agreements are adopted, implemented, and ended, showing both how institutional settlements
can degrade over time, leading to poor governance outcomes, but also how they may be adapted
and reformed for greater functionality, over the life of an agreement via the introduction of
“post-settlement settlements,” which may include more integrative features (see also Du Toit,
2003; Keil & McCulloch, 2021). Feargal Cochrane and colleagues (2018) discuss the concept of
“living consociationalism” in much the same way, emphasizing the dynamic and processual
nature of sharing power.
The turn to hybridity offers some distinct advantages over earlier debate manifestations. First, by
capturing case-based idiosyncrasies and institutional complexities in greater detail, it offers a
more accurate reading of the empirical record, especially for cases from across the Global South.
Second, it marks a break with the zero-sum mentality that characterized earlier exchanges; in
this sense, it provides a more constructive and more inclusive approach to solving urgent real-
world problems. Yet the turn to hybridity also opens up a set of challenges related to case
classifications. A case in point is how a country like Burundi is classified. It has been identified as
a corporate consociation, a corporate consociation with liberal features, a semi-consociation, a
form of moderate centripetalism, and even an example of “associational power-sharing,” an
approach articulated by Raffoul to capture instances of “alliance-shifting mechanisms” helping
to depoliticize ethnicity (Aboultaif & Hachem, n.d.; McCulloch, 2014; McCulloch & Vandeginste,
2019; Ndayiragje & Raffoul, forthcoming; Raffoul 2020; Reilly, 2021; Vandeginste, 2017).
Similarly, Nigeria has been variously classified as federal, consociational, centripetal, and hybrid
power-sharing (Babalola, 2018; Horowitz, 2001; Jinadu, 1985; Kendhammer, 2015; Trzciński,
2022). How cases are classified is important, as this has a significant effect on how to measure the
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performance of different models or how much causal weight can be attached to different
institutions. Given the prescriptive nature of these debates—indeed, ultimately, the intention is
to trigger more effective political action (Schnabel, 2001, p. 199)—questions of classification are
not neutral. Thus, while marking a departure from the more zero-sum nature of the first
iteration, the second iteration of the accommodation-integration debate suffers from some of the
same measurement and methodological problems as the first, leading to a new kind of theoretical
impasse.
Regional Patterns: Many Tools in the “Constitutional Toolbox”
The scholarship on institutional and territorial settlements often paints with broad strokes as
though all divided places everywhere—in both the Global South and North—face the same menu
of institutional choices. Yet the contours of an institutional settlement are not either-or choices
(e.g., either accommodation or integration); it often comes down to where-and-when or mix-
and-match choices. While the consequences of ethnicized conflict are no less devastating
regardless of where in the world they occur, the reality is that different parts of the world face
different contextual factors, both constraining and enabling, when it comes to the functionality
of a settlement configuration, including histories of intervention—both colonial and neo-
colonial—as well as varying levels of economic development and state capacity and different
cultural practices and preferences. These differences are especially elided in the literature on
consociationalism, a theory of democratic stability originally developed from an examination of
Western European democracies, which evolved into a theory of conflict management for a much
wider range of cases across the globe without accounting for the vagaries of the postcolonial or
postconflict state. While the theory assumes a direct translation of the model from North to
South, contemporary power-sharing performance calls this into question (Salloukh, 2023).
This elision also misses trends in regional settlement adoption patterns, and different regions
have different prescriptive preferences and avail themselves, as Murray (2016) suggests, of
different tools in the “constitutional toolbox.” In Latin and South America, for example, there are
only four federations (Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina), which tend to skew toward an
integrationist design, and most other states have unitary systems (Bossuyt, 2013; Willis et al.,
1999). Yet, while federalism may be “a dirty word in large parts of Latin America” (Eaton, 2018),
decentralization and territorial autonomy, especially for Indigenous peoples, are under
consideration in places such as Colombia, Bolivia, Chile, Peru, and Ecuador. Reserved seats for
Indigenous peoples as well as policies of Indigenous mainstreaming are increasingly part of the
“constitutional toolbox” across the region (Becerra-Chávez & Morales-Quiroga, 2022; Rice,
2022).
Likewise, many across the Middle East and North Africa perceive federalism with suspicion, as
some sort of colonial holdover or threat against the unity of the state. Among the institutional
settlements adopted in these regions since the 1990s, only Iraq emerged as a federal power-
sharing experiment, at least on paper, with powers given to the Kurdistan Regional Government
(Brancati, 2004). Even as federalism remains part of the “constitutional toolbox” informing talks
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of power-sharing (especially in Syria, Tunisia, Yemen, and Libya), it remains unacceptable for
large sections of the population in each country, making it extremely difficult to adopt (Issaev &
Zakharov, 2021).
Much of Africa has an attitude to federalism and decentralization similar to that in Latin America.
Most of the continent is populated by unitary states with limited decentralization and a large
concentration of powers in the center, and there are only a handful of explicitly federal
arrangements—including Nigeria and Ethiopia—some of which lean more toward integrative
forms of federalism, and others toward more accommodative (Babalola, 2018; Fiseha, 2019;
Jinadu, 1985; Kefale, 2019). At the same time, there are some power-sharing settlements with
consociational features, as in Burundi, Sudan, Mauritius, South Africa, Kenya, and Zimbabwe, the
latter three adopting their settlements on an interim basis (Cheeseman & Tendi, 2010; Raffoul &
Ndayiragije, 2020; Sisk & Stefes, 2005; Couacaud et al., 2022). A reluctance to pursue federal
options may be discerned in Africa and Latin America, but there is more willingness to consider
decentralization and integration, perhaps heeding Kuperman’s (2015) claim that
“accommodation is risky . . . integration can work.” These two continents are probably in
between the antifederal tendencies of the Middle East and a new “Asian model” that seems to be
more receptive to power-sharing and accommodative forms of federalism (Dickovick, 2014;
Osaghae, 2004).
This fear of federalism is perhaps less pronounced in Asia, and processes of
“federalization” (Breen, 2022) have been seen in a number of contemporary institutional
settlements, including the Philippines, Nepal, and Myanmar (sidelined in the last of these, of
course, by the 2021 coup), and in more long-standing cases, such as India. Even Sri Lanka—
whose government has long repudiated federalism and power-sharing as conflict-regulating
devices—tasked a constitutional reform committee to consider territorial constitutional options.
This trend toward federalization has prompted Michael Breen (2022) to identify an emerging
“Asian model of federal democracy” that combines majoritarianism and ethnofederalism in
novel ways. Yuko Kasuya and Benjamin Reilly (2022) add to this “Asian model” by tracking a
pendulum shift from majoritarianism to more consensual systems; here, the tools in the
constitutional toolbox include the introduction of gender quotas and reserved seats for
Indigenous, ethnic, or other historically discriminated communities, alongside processes of
federalization (see also Preece & Tan, 2022). As with the turn to hybridity, this model, as Breen
describes it, is “neither consociational or centripetal—it is a hybrid that combines elements of
both, and the elements work together, rather than contradict or undermine one another” (Breen,
2022, p. 312).
Conclusion: Toward a Third Iteration of the Debate?
The perpetuation of ethnicized conflict and political instability in the world requires a continual
effort to understand and accumulate social scientific knowledge on territorial and institutional
settlements and the conditions under which they deliver peace and stability. This review of the
contemporary literature across two distinct phases of the debate on institutional and territorial
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settlements—including both accommodation versus integration and the turn to hybridity—
opens up a few lines for further inquiry and advances the possibility of a third iteration of the
debate.
First, while both iterations of the debate continue to be focused primarily on peace, stability, and
ethnic conflict management as markers of performance, these institutional choices also redound
to other aspects of how politics operates. That is, there are other “important societal
problems” (Grofman, 2000) in need of government action in divided settings, including issues of
transitional justice, gender and sexual equality, migrant and refugee rights, economic
development, and state capacity and service delivery. Although peace and stability are
undoubtedly important—and arguably are prerequisites for effective state action on these other
issues—how different settlements fare in terms of their governing capacity and ability to
confront and ameliorate societal problems needs to be a bigger part of assessing performance
records than is often the case. These conversations are beginning to occur. Here, we might
highlight the growing number of scholars who focus on how power-sharing settlements include
or exclude “Others”—those groups who do not meet the threshold for political relevance, either
because they are too small and too territorially dispersed or because they do not identify with the
dominant ethnic cleavage—or who investigate the repercussions of such settlements for gender
and LGBTQ+ rights (e.g., Agarin et al., 2018; Bell & McNicholl, 2019; Byrne, 2020; Kennedy et al.,
2016; Murtagh, 2020; Nagle & Fakhoury, 2021; Stojanović, 2018). Growing attention to the
corelationship between clientelism, corruption, government unresponsiveness to demands from
below, and power-sharing—motivated in part by protracted political crisis in Lebanon, especially
after the 2019 thawra protests against government incompetence and financial collapse—is
another area where new theoretical and empirical insights are emerging (see Deets, 2018;
Fakhoury, 2019; Salloukh, 2023).
This focus on government performance also brings attention to the power of informal
institutional practices, particularly in democratizing states. Investigation of informal rules helps
to elucidate and bring into view moments of rule circumvention or the repurposing of existing
rules in new ways or how the translation of formal rules into everyday practice can produce
unintended consequences or take on new meanings (McCulloch & Vandeginste, 2019). Especially
in situations of contested state legitimacy or postconflict democratization, where new
institutional settlements are not yet consolidated, political actors may attempt to create
institutional responses in parallel to formal institutional structures (Grzymala-Busse, 2006;
Zdeb, 2021). This represents an opportunity for the rich and robust literature on neo-
patrimonialism, clientelism, and state formation in the Global South to intersect with debates on
institutional settlements, conflict regulation, and peacebuilding (Babalola, 2018; Kendhammer,
2015). Again, these conversations are beginning to occur, but more remains to be uncovered about
any causal connections between power-sharing and clientelism.
The literature on institutional and territorial settlements is rich and varied and has given rise to
an impassioned and fruitful debate on the first-order question of how to organize inclusive state
institutions in divided settings. Indeed, there is far more scholarship than what can be covered in
a single review. Yet these debates—including those encapsulated here—sometimes miss the
opportunity to engage more productively with local scholars and citizens. Greater exchange
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between scholars from different parts of the world is needed, with due consideration for
positionality, power dynamics, and modes of knowledge production (Bouka, 2018; Curtis, 2019).
There is much to learn and share about the nature of institutional and territorial settlements in
the Global South and beyond.
Further Reading
Bogaards, M., & Helms, L. (Eds.). (2019). Half a century of consociationalism: Cases and comparisons [Special issue].
Swiss Political Science Review, 25(4), 341–574.
Bormann, N.-C., Cederman, L.-E., Gates, S., Graham, B. A. T., Hug, S., Strøm, K. W., & Wucherpfennig, J. (2019). Power
sharing: Institutions, behavior, and peace. American Journal of Political Science, 63(1), 84–100.
Cammett, M., & Malesky, E. (2012). Power sharing in postconflict societies: Implications for peace and governance. The
Journal of Conflict Resolution, 56(6), 982–1016.
Farag, M., Jung, H. R., Montini, I. C., de Fontenay, J. B., & Ladhar, S. (2022). What do we know about power sharing after
50 years? Government and Opposition, 1–22.
Fiseha, A. (2023). Federalism, devolution, and territorially-based cleavages in Africa: Does institutional design matter?
In C. M. Fombad, A. Fiseha, & N. Steytler (Eds.), Contemporary governance challenges in the horn of Africa (pp. 83–131).
Routledge.
Fraenkel, J. (2020). The “Uncle Tom” dilemma: Minorities in power-sharing arrangements. International Political
Science Review, 41(1), 124–137.
Guelke, A. (2012). Politics in deeply divided societies. Polity Press.
Keil, S., & Kropp, S. (Eds.). (2022). Emerging federal structures in the post-Cold War era. Palgrave Macmillan.
Matlosa, K., & Shale, V. (2013). The pains of democratisation: The uneasy interface between elections and power-
sharing arrangements in Africa. Africa Review, 5(1), 1–22.
McEvoy, J. (2014). The role of external actors in incentivizing post-conflict power-sharing. Government and Opposition,
49(1), 47–69.
Nagle, J. (2020). Consociationalism is dead! Long live zombie power-sharing! Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism,
20(2), 137–144.
Ottmann, M., & Vüllers, J. (2015). The power-sharing event dataset (PSED): A new dataset on the promises and
practices of power-sharing in post-conflict countries. Conflict Management and Peace Science, 32(3), 327–350.
Reilly, B. (2019). Powersharing and power dividing in the Asia Pacific. In C. Lutmar & J. Ockey (Eds.), Peacebuilding in
the Asia Pacific (pp. 99–122). Palgrave Macmillan.
Walsh, D. (2018). Territorial self-government as a conflict management tool. Palgrave Macmillan.
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Notes
1. It is worth noting, however, that centripetalism nonetheless remains associated with a range of institutional
devices, including majoritiarian-preferential voting systems, like the alternative vote, distribution requirements for
presidential elections, administrative federalism, and multiethnic centrist coalitions (see Reilly, 2001; McCulloch,
2013).
2. While both accommodation and integration support a broad interpretation of power-sharing, they can also be
contrasted with other forms of state design. For example, Kuperman (2015) maps a spectrum of constitutional design
based on identity promotion, starting with assimilation, integration, centripetalism, accommodation, and secession.
McGarry and O’Leary (1993) developed a taxonomy of macropolitical ethnic conflict regulation, distinguishing
approaches that seek to eliminate difference (genocide, forced population transfers, partition/secession, and
integration and/or assimilation) and those that manage differences (hegemonic control, arbitration, federalization,
and power-sharing/consociationalism). They later distinguish between assimilation, integration, and accommodation
(McGarry et al., 2008).
3. Lijphart often employs “consociationalism” and “power-sharing” interchangeably, although this terminology is
disputed by other scholars (Bogaards, 2000). Power-sharing is perhaps more accurately understood as an umbrella
term for a variety of broadly inclusive political practices, and consociationalism is a specific manifestation of power-
sharing.
4. Note that ethnicity can be employed as a kind of umbrella term, which also covers other forms of politicized
identity, including racial, religious, linguistic, tribal, or regional divisions.
5. Earlier work by Stefan Wolff (2009) on “complex power-sharing” also captures considerations of hybridity (complex
power-sharing regimes, he suggests, can be distinguished in part by the fact that “they no longer depend solely on
consociational theory” nor “solely upon integrative theory”), a point also made by Carmen Kettley in a 2001 article,
thus suggesting that the two iterations of the debates are not necessarily entirely temporally discrete (Kettley, 2001).
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