Power‐Sharing in Deeply Divided Societies: Consociationalism and Sectarian Authoritarianism

Abstract

Consociationalists have traditionally embraced sectarian authoritarianism combined with a very limited form of democracy as the only democratic way of managing plural conflicts. New Generation consociationalists, by contrast, believe their theory is compatible with opposing sectarian authoritarianism in places like Iraq and the Lebanon. Traditional consociationalists have tended to claim that all power-sharing is consociational, whereas revisionist and liberal consociationalists claim that consociationalism does not require power-sharing and that the Iraqi Constitution of 2005 is therefore a consociational success. This paper argues that 'classic' consociationalism has constantly been revised to deflect criticism and capture apparently successful cases of conflict management. Consociationalists have deployed a 'Wonderland' definition which allows them to make such contradictory claims. Paradoxically, this definitional ambiguity and incoherence allows consociationalism to be 'all things to all people', resulting in its successful domination of the academic debate. Consociationalism in Wonderland The protests taking place in Lebanon and Iraq in 2019 and 2020 are protests against what Toby Dodge has appropriately called 'sectarian authoritarianism' (Dodge 2012). Yet the 'New Generation' of consociationalists, including Allison McCulloch and John Nagle, claim to support the revolutionary struggle against the sectarian ruling elites of Lebanon and Iraq (McCulloch 2014; but contrast Nagle and Clancy 2012 with Nagle 2020 in this issue and the critique of Nagle and Clancy in Dixon 2011). This is puzzling, because

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