Conditional Consociationalism: Electoral Systems and Grand Coalitions∗ Nils-Christian Bormanny March 25, 2011 Abstract Consociationalism is a complex set of rules and norms that is sup- posed to enable democratic governance and peaceful coexistence of different social segments in plural societies. Statistical studies of con- flict often reduce it to either a PR or federalism dummy in a regression. I extract the core definition of consociationalism from Lijphart's writ- ing and explicitly link its institutional and behavioral dimensions. I also address the possible endogeneity of electoral systems and show that once endogeneity is accounted for PR has a positive effect on eth- nic elite cooperation although historical, socio-structural and interna- tional factors exert a more robust influence. A history of violence in a country seems to antagonize elites and hinder cooperation. ∗Paper to be presented at the ECPR Joint Sessions workshop on Political Violence and Institutions from 12-17 April in St. Gallen, Switzerland. I thank Manuel Vogt and Julian Wucherpfennig for helpful discussion and comments. yCenter of Comparative and International Studies, ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Email: [email protected] 1 1 Introduction Was Lijphart (1977, 238) correct in pronouncing that \[f]or many of the plural societies of the non-Western world (. ) the realistic choice is not between the British normative model of democracy and the consociational model, but between consociational democracy and no democracy at all?" The appraisal of the alleged blessings of consociationalism has been incom- plete and/or hotly disputed. Most studies focus on the application to single cases, and large-N studies have only gained systematic insight at the expense of conceptual clarity. Too often consociationalism is equated with propor- tional representation and/or federalism. However, consociationalism is more than institutions. It consists of at least two dimensions: institutions and elite behavior. The behavioral dimension has been completely ignored by quan- titative scholars, and it is unclear whether the institutional side, often PR electoral rules, actually increases the likelihood of elite accommodation in a grand coalition, the \primary characteristic" of consociationalist arrange- ments (Lijphart, 2002b, 39). Anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that there may be a connection. Up to 1977, politics in Brazil were not structured along ethnic lines. When the military regime partially retreated in 1977 the sizable Afro-Brazilian minor- ity began voicing political demands. Ethnicity became a relevant cleavage in the political system governed by proportional electoral rules. Afro-Brazilians remained powerless for 26 years, but in the early 21st century the Lula gov- ernment implemented anti-discriminatory reforms, appointed multiple Afro- Brazilians to the cabinet and made some executive power-sharing a reality. 2 In the United States, a far more economically advanced but similarly un- equal presidential and federal democracy, it took until 2009 before minority ethnic groups gained access to the highest state offices.1 Halfway around the globe, in a completely different political environment Zimbabwe and South Africa emerged out of years of the worst racial discrimination in the early 1980s and 1990s respectively. While South Africa adopted a completely new constitutional framework, Zimbabwe stuck to its British majoritarian insti- tutions although it reserved some parliamentary seats for minorities. While under Mugabe's rule a majority of Blacks was represented by the govern- ment, whites basically left the country and the political exclusion of other linguistically different groups continued and even increased in recent years. In South Africa, under a system of proportional representation the ANC has managed to give representation to all ethnic groups within the country. But did the electoral system really play a decisive role? After all, India has man- aged to maintain ethnic cooperation among the majority of ethnic groups in the similar catch-all Congress party under a majoritarian electoral system since independence in 1948. As much as these examples refer to the interaction between institutions and elite behavior within a country they also address a second fundamen- tal problem of the quantitative literature on institutional effects. To my knowledge, all studies that investigate the consequences of institutions as- sume them as given. However, institutions understood as the \rules of the game" are often the outcome of historical legacies, social structure and dis- 1Although some minority members did serve in the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton admin- istration, none of them really made any claims on representing an ethnic group or tried to push minority issues explicitly. 3 ruptive events (North, Wallis and Weingast, 2009). In early writings, Lijphart (1977, 53-99) himself argued that the success of consociational institutions depends partly on exogenous conditions among which he listed colonial his- tory, cleavage structure, or the presence of prior conflicts. Unfortunately, he later cast aside these considerations and nowadays recommends consen- sus institutions to all societies irrespective of their social make-up (Lijphart, 1999, 1999). Yet, external constraints need to be taken seriously because PR systems surely will work differently in the Netherlands than in South Africa. Put differently, proposing that electoral rules will have the same effects in all countries irrespective of conditions historical conditions is a daring state- ment or as Cheibub (2007, 25) puts it: \The language of institutional `choice' must be used carefully, since this choice is usually constrained by historical circumstances." In order to take into account the conditions under which electoral systems operate in a country I employ conditional recursive mixed-process models, a generalization of the more widely known bivariate probit regressions. The models allow me to account for the endogeneity of electoral rules and esti- mating the endogenous effect on ethnic elite cooperation in all states where ethnicity is or was politicized from 1946 until 2000. My empirical analysis still falls short of capturing the complexity of consociational systems. Yet, it steps beyond equating consociational democracy with the presence or absence of PR, and makes an explicit link between the institutional and behavioral components of consociationalism. The paper is organized in four parts. First, I will superficially review the long debate on consociationalism and try to dissect from it the core definition 4 of consociationalism. Second, I will argue that attempts to measure consoci- ationalism have been insufficient so far because they have solely focussed on one institutional aspect of consociational theory but ignored its behavioral components. Third, I will develop hypotheses on the conditional nature of consociational institutions and how they influence consociational practices. Fourth, I will describe my data and method in greater detail, and finally analyze the effect of electoral systems on ethnic elite cooperation. 2 Confusing Consociationalism One possible reason for the simplistic equation of consociationalism with PR electoral rules and the complete disregard for the behavioral pillars may be Lijphart's frequent reformulations of consociationalist theory. In this section, I will give a concise summary of the evolution of consociational theory. Since its first formulation in the late 1960s (Lijphart, 1968), the con- cept of consociational democracy has been a moving target. Lijphart and his critics altered and redefined the concept multiple times and extended it far beyond its originally conceived scope (Lijphart, 1977, 1985; van Cranen- burgh and Kopecky, 2004; Van Cranenburgh, 2006). Lijphart first described consociational democracy in the Netherlands as seven implicit political rules governing elite behavior (Lijphart, 1968) { a characterization lacking any mentioning of institutions and one he never returned to again (Bogaards, 2000, 400). Later consociational democracy was integrated with the pre- vailing types of democracy: majoritarian, centripetal and centrifugal democ- racies (Almond, 1956; Lijphart, 1969). It was understood as the type of 5 democracy present in the low countries in Europe and juxtaposed with the Anglo-American majoritarian version as an alternative stable democratic sys- tem. In these early formulations, the institutional setup was inextricably linked to the social structure of society. The more homogeneous societies of the West could sustain the conflictual atmosphere inherent in majoritarian democracy, while the plural societies of the third world could not. Accord- ingly, Lijphart moved from case studies of smaller European countries to a comparison of states around the globe. Here for the first time, consociational democracy was clearly defined by four pillars: (1) a grand coalition of elites from different groups, (2) a veto for each group in important policy areas, (3) proportional representation in key institutions, and (4) group autonomy (Lijphart, 1977, 25). The first pillar, the grand coalition, is the \primary characteristic" of consociational democracy, while the three remaining pillars are \secondary instruments". Behavioral components, i.e. elite cooperation, and institutional rules, e.g. federalist arrangements as an expression of group autonomy, are both equally important features of consociationalism. Later, consociational democracy was re-baptized power-sharing democ-