Power-Sharing in Europe: Past Practice, Present Cases, and Future Directions 3030535894, 9783030535896

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FEDERALISM AND INTERNAL CONFLICTS SERIES EDITORS: SOEREN KEIL · EVA MARIA BELSER

Power-Sharing in Europe Past Practice, Present Cases, and Future Directions Edited by

Soeren Keil · Allison McCulloch

Federalism and Internal Conflicts Series Editors Soeren Keil School of Law, Policing and Social Sciences Canterbury Christ Church University Canterbury, UK Eva Maria Belser University of Freiburg Freiburg, Switzerland

This series engages in the discussions on federalism as a tool of internal conflict resolution. Building on a growing body of literature on the use of federalism and territorial autonomy to solve ethnic, cultural, linguistic and identity conflicts, both in the West and in non-Western countries, this global series assesses to what extent different forms of federalism and territorial autonomy are being used as tools of conflict resolution and how successful these approaches are. We welcome proposals on theoretical debates, single case studies and short comparative pieces covering topics such as: – Federalism and peace-making in contemporary intra-state conflicts – The link between federalism and democratization in countries facing intra-state conflict – Secessionism, separatism, self-determination and power-sharing – Inter-group violence and the potential of federalism to transform conflicts – Successes and failures of federalism and other forms of territorial autonomy in post-conflict countries – Federalism, decentralisation and resource conflicts – Peace treaties, interim constitutions and permanent power sharing arrangements – The role of international actors in the promotion of federalism (and other forms of territorial autonomy) as tools of internal conflict resolution – Federalism and state-building – Federalism, democracy and minority protection For further information on the series and to submit a proposal for consideration, please get in touch with Ambra Finotello ambra.finotello@palgrave. com, or series editors Soeren Keil [email protected] and Eva Maria Belser [email protected] More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15730

Soeren Keil  •  Allison McCulloch Editors

Power-Sharing in Europe Past Practice, Present Cases, and Future Directions

Editors Soeren Keil School of Law, Policing and Social Sciences Canterbury Christ Church University Canterbury, UK

Allison McCulloch Department of Political Science Brandon University Brandon, MB, Canada

Federalism and Internal Conflicts ISBN 978-3-030-53589-6    ISBN 978-3-030-53590-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53590-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the ­publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and ­institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Westend61 / Getty Images This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgments

Completing this book has been quite a journey. A project like this one is the labor of many people, and we are ever so grateful for their hard work and dedication. We are thankful to our authors and their invaluable contributions, and also for their patience and their willingness to revise, amend and develop their chapters once we had provided feedback. At Palgrave, we would like to thank Ambra Finotello and Anne-Kathryn Burchley-­ Brun, who have supported this project from the beginning. We also thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. The original idea for this book came from a workshop in Brussels in 2018, organized by Timofey Agarin and the Exclusion amid Inclusion research team on Political Representation in Diverse Societies. We are very grateful to Timofey for bringing us together and laying the foundations for this project. Soeren Keil would like to thank his co-editor for the enjoyable work on this book as well as his colleagues at Canterbury Christ Church University, in particular Professor David Bates, Dr. Sarah Lieberman and Dr. Paul Anderson. He would also like to thank Professor Jelena Dzankic for her humor and support, Dr. Zeynep Arkan for being a wonderful friend, and Professor Bernhard Stahl for endless discussions on foreign policy, EU integration and good beer and food. Allison McCulloch first would like to thank Soeren who has been an excellent co-editor; it’s been a pleasure to work together on this project. She would also like to thank Dr. Siobhan Byrne, Dr. Joanne McEvoy, Dr. Cera Murtagh and Dr. Timofey Agarin: ongoing discussions and collaborations with each continue to inform and enrich my understanding of v

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power-sharing. Long-distance writing sessions with Dr. Jennifer Beaudry were a source of motivation and inspiration. We would both like to extend a special thank you to Aidan Trembath who provided excellent research assistance. As academics, we get to work with our colleagues all over the world, share our thoughts and ideas and comment on each other’s work. While doing this, we get to read and learn about new cases, and understand better those cases familiar to us, all while also enjoying the possibility of writing and making our own contribution. Yet, working on projects such as this book would not be possible without the support of our families. Often, they carry the burden of living with an academic—who are notorious for working long hours and becoming more anti-social as they get older. We hope that we did not become more anti-social over the course of editing this book, but we appreciate the time, the support, the cups of tea, the biscuits, cakes and cookies and the love we have been given from them during the process. Soeren Keil would like to particularly thank his brother Andreas Keil and his family, his partner Claire Parker and their daughter Malindi Parker as well as Thomas, Lilly and Athena for their welcomed distractions and permanent need for love. Allison McCulloch would like to thank her partner David Winter and their son Xavier McCulloch for all their love and support. Josie and Fionn also provided their own kind of support in the form of early mornings, long walks and lots of treats. Finally, we dedicate this book to some of the most important people in our lives: the people who raised us and shaped our values, beliefs, work ethics and commitment. None of this would be possible without our parents, Peter and Regina Keil and Elizabeth and Ray Prevost.

Contents

1 Introduction: Power-Sharing in Europe—From Adoptability to End-Ability  1 Allison McCulloch 2 Consociationalism in the Netherlands: Polder Politics and Pillar Talk 19 Matthijs Bogaards 3 Power-Sharing in Austria: Consociationalism, Corporatism, and Federalism 43 Peter Bussjäger and Mirella M. Johler 4 The Politics of Compromise: Institutions and Actors of Power-Sharing in Switzerland 67 Sean Mueller 5 Power-Sharing in Belgium: The Disintegrative Model 89 Patricia Popelier 6 Power-Sharing and Party Politics in the Western Balkans115 John Hulsey and Soeren Keil

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Contents

7 Toward Inclusive Power-Sharing in Northern Ireland: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back141 Cera Murtagh 8 South Tyrol’s Model of Conflict Resolution: Territorial Autonomy and Power-Sharing171 Elisabeth Alber 9 A Consociational Compromise? Constitutional Evolution in Spain and Catalonia201 Paul Anderson 10 Why Has Cyprus Been a Consociational Cemetery?227 John McGarry 11 Conclusion: The Past, Present and Future of Power-­ Sharing in Europe257 Soeren Keil and Allison McCulloch Index275

Notes on Contributors

Elisabeth  Alber  is a senior researcher and program head at the Eurac Research Institute for Comparative Federalism in Bozen/Bolzano, South Tyrol, Italy. She researches on comparative federalism and decentralization processes, territorial autonomies and minority rights, and deliberative democracy and participatory constitution-making. As a visiting scholar, she has worked in Germany, the USA, Spain, Australia, Overseas France and North Macedonia. Most recently, she also acts as a consultant for international organizations in Moldova, Ukraine and Myanmar. Paul  Anderson is Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK.  His main research interests include territorial politics, autonomy and secessionist movements and federalism/decentralization as tools of conflict resolution. He is a co-lead of the UACES Research Network (2020–2023) ‘(Re)Imagining Territorial Politics in Times of Crisis.’ Matthijs Bogaards  is a Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. He has previously held faculty positions in Germany and the UK.  His research focuses on democracy in divided societies, regime change, political institutions and terrorism. Peter Bussjäger  is a professor at the Institute of Public Law, State and Administrative Science at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. He is also

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the head of the Institute of Federalism in Innsbruck and member of the State Court of the Principality of Liechtenstein. John Hulsey  is Associate Professor of Political Science at James Madison University, USA.  Hulsey’s research focuses on party politics in divided societies, state-building after civil wars, state capture, ethnopolitics, the politics of the Balkans and of Eastern Europe, the politics of empire, and the European Union. His work has been published in Democratization, International Peacekeeping and Communist and Post-Communist Studies. He holds a PhD from Indiana University Bloomington. Mirella  M.  Johler  holds degrees in political science and law from the University of Innsbruck. She has worked in several scientific projects on federalism and comparative constitutional law. Soeren Keil  is Reader in Politics and International Relations at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK.  He is also a visiting professor at Centre International de Formation Europeene (CIFE) in Nice, France. His research focuses on the use of territorial autonomy as a tool of conflict resolution, the political systems of the Western Balkan states and the process of EU enlargement. His recent publications include The Europeanisation of the Western Balkans—A Failure of EU Conditionality? (Palgrave 2019, co-edited with Jelena Dzankic and Marko Kmezic) and Federalism and Conflict Resolution (forthcoming with Palgrave, coauthored with Paul Anderson). Allison McCulloch  is Associate Professor of Political Science at Brandon University, Manitoba, Canada. Her research considers the politics of deeply divided societies, with a specific emphasis on the design of political power-sharing (consociational) institutions. This includes how power-sharing governments handle political crises, the incentive structures for ethnopolitical moderation and extremism that power-­sharing offers, and how power-sharing arrangements can be made more inclusive of identities beyond the ethnonational divide. She is the author of Power-­ Sharing and Political Stability in Deeply Divided Societies and co-editor of Power Sharing: Empirical and Normative Challenges (with John McGarry). John McGarry  is Canada Research Chair in the Department of Political Studies, Queen’s University (Kingston, Ontario, Canada). He is also the Senior Advisor on Governance and Power-Sharing to the UN Secretary-General’s Good Offices Mission in Cyprus. His research focuses

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on the politics of deeply divided places and on how power-­sharing and autonomy can be used as tools of conflict resolution. His recent publications include Power-Sharing: Empirical and Normative Challenges (2017, co-edited with Allison McCulloch). Sean Mueller  is an assistant professor at the Institute of Political Science, University of Lausanne. His position is funded entirely by the Swiss National Science Foundation (‘Eccellenza’ grant, 2020–25). Before that, he was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Bern and editorial assistant of the Swiss Political Science Review. He holds a PhD in Politics and Government from the University of Kent/UK (2013) and an MA from the University of Fribourg/CH (2006). His main research areas are Swiss and comparative federalism as well as subnational politics and multilevel governance more broadly. Cera  Murtagh  is Assistant Professor of Irish Politics and Comparative Politics at Villanova University in the USA. Her research concerns conflict and peace and gender politics, focusing particularly on the mobilization of civic political parties and movements in deeply divided societies. Her work has been published in a number of journals including International Political Science Review and Nations and Nationalism. Murtagh has previously worked as a research fellow at Queen’s University Belfast on an Economic and Social Research Council project entitled Exclusion amid Inclusion: Power-Sharing and Non-Dominant Minorities. She holds a PhD and an MSc from the University of Edinburgh. She has also worked as a political journalist in Edinburgh and political researcher in the Scottish Parliament. Patricia Popelier  is Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Antwerp in Belgium and Director of the research group on Government and Law. She is Vice-President of the International Association of Legislation; convenor of the standing research group on subnational constitutions in federal and quasi-federal systems of the International Association of Constitutional Law; member of the scientific committees of EURAC—Institute for Federalism (Bolzano), Sofia Legal Science Network (SLSN) and Ossevatorio AIR (Rome); co-promoter of the interdisciplinary Centre of Excellence TRUSTGOV; and member of several editorial boards, including the journal Theory and Practice of Legislation (TPLeg) and the book series Law and Cosmopolitan Values and Diversitas.

List of Figures

Fig. 4.1 Fig. 4.2 Fig. 4.3 Fig. 4.4 Fig. 11.1

Religious-linguistic cross-cuttingness at canton-level, 1900 vs. 2000 72 Cross-cuttingness between wealth and culture, 2016/17 72 Cross-cuttingness between urbanity, wealth and religion, 2016/1773 Combined SVP and SP seat shares, 1919–2019. (Note: Own figure based on data from the BFS 2019) 81 Functional adaptation in European power-sharing cases 262

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List of Maps

Map 2.1 Map 3.1 Map 4.1 Map 5.1 Map 6.1 Map 7.1 Map 8.1 Map 9.1 Map 10.1

The Netherlands Austria Switzerland and its 26 cantons Communities and Regions in Belgium Western Balkans Northern Ireland South Tyrol Spain Cyprus

20 43 67 89 116 142 171 201 227

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List of Tables

Table 4.1 Table 4.2

The ten popular votes held at the national level in Switzerland in 2018 Government composition of the 26 cantons, September 2019 [seats]

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Power-Sharing in Europe— From Adoptability to End-Ability Allison McCulloch

1   Introduction The publication of a single-case study monograph on elite accommodation in the Netherlands—more than 50  years ago now—sparked what would become one of the most enduring, contentious and debated research programs in Comparative Politics and International Relations. At the heart of The Politics of Accommodation: Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands, Arend Lijphart shows how the combination of three factors—the joint effort on the part of political leaders from different communities to resolve conflict and maintain peace, the participation of the leaders of all blocs in any such settlement, and the invocation of the principle of proportionality in the substance of the settlement—worked together to facilitate and maintain democracy amid division and pluralism (Lijphart 1968: 111). While he did not apply the term ‘consociationalism’ to this mode of governance until subsequent publications, including a World Politics article a year later (Lijphart 1969), Lijphart’s thesis has

A. McCulloch (*) Department of Political Science, Brandon University, Brandon, MB, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 S. Keil, A. McCulloch (eds.), Power-Sharing in Europe, Federalism and Internal Conflicts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53590-2_1

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remained remarkably consistent over 50  years: “cooperation at the elite level could overcome the conflict potential inherent in […] deep cleavages” (2008: 2). Over time, this mode of government began to cohere into precise institutional form to include the concurrent use of grand coalitions, proportionality rules, veto rights and group autonomy provisions (Lijphart 1977). Sharing power between majority and minority groups through these four intersecting institutions, it is claimed, encourages them to govern together with a “spirit of accommodation” (Lijphart 1968). Constitutional designers and external conflict mediators have tended to support Lijphart’s starting assumption, seeing power-sharing as a preferred institutional strategy for mediating ethnic, linguistic, religious and national divisions. While consociationalism may have originated as a descriptive device to explain democratic stability in the Netherlands—and later Switzerland, Austria and Belgium—it has, beginning in the 1980s and especially since the 1990s, taken a distinctly prescriptive turn. A ‘new wave’ of consociational cases—often emerging out of violent conflict and adopted with international mediation support—appeared across Europe and around the world (Taylor 2009). For those places where conflict ends via negotiation and there are no clear victors, external mediators in particular see some form of power-sharing as being able to reconcile contrasting norms of territorial integrity and self-determination, as enhancing internal and regional security, and as promoting democracy and minority rights (McCulloch and McEvoy 2018). At an empirical level, there appears to be a power-sharing dividend: it supports the end of violent conflict, it reduces group-based insecurities, and it supports minority inclusion in democratic processes. Not everyone agrees. Indeed, consociationalism remains hotly contested today. These concerns are well-rehearsed elsewhere, but in brief, they follow three main tracks: 1. Consociationalism is difficult to adopt: Majorities and minorities will bring divergent institutional preferences to any negotiation on the contours of the state with majority leaders favoring majoritarianism and minority elites preferring consociation and other forms of power-sharing. This inability to agree on what shape the state should take makes consociational settlements “as rare as the arctic rose” (Horowitz 2002: 197).

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2. Consociationalism has difficulty functioning: Consociation is often seen as a dysfunctional form of democracy as it brings together disparate and reluctant power-sharing partners, who may be divided not only by ethnicity, nationality, language or religion but also by ideology. This makes the consensus that consociationalists seek very hard to find, with immobilism, legislative deadlock and ethnic outbidding as more likely outcomes. 3. Consociationalism is difficult to modify, and even harder to move beyond: Consociation is often seen as “sticky,” that is, by locking in ostensibly divisive identities, it is thought to block the transition to a more “normal” majoritarian politics. Parties are either not willing to change a set of rules under which they benefit or, because they have so little in common in terms of how they envision the role of the state, they cannot agree on new institutional arrangements. This implies an inability to reform or exit consociational arrangements. The ongoing debates over consociation, power-sharing and how to design inclusive political institutions amid deep division thus remain as salient today as they did 50  years ago. We contribute to these debates through the application of a temporal lens on the past, present and future of consociationalism in Europe. With these concerns front of mind, we seek in this volume to query the performance of power-sharing in European states across three dimensions: adoptability, functionality and what we might call end-ability.

2   Power-Sharing from Start to Finish Consociationalism represents a specific type of power-sharing institutional design. Power-sharing is best employed as an umbrella term to capture “those rules that, in addition to defining how decisions will be made by groups within the polity, allocate decision-making rights, including access to state resources, among collectivities competing for power” (Hartzell and Hoddie 2003: 320). Understood in this way, power-sharing includes not only consociationalism but also federalism, another institutional approach deployed in many of the European cases considered in this volume. Both consociationalism and federalism combine institutions of shared-rule and self-rule, and both can take a variety of institutional forms. The four consociational institutions can be designed either according to a logic of predetermination or self-determination. Predetermined—or

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corporate—consociation “accommodates groups according to ascriptive criteria, such as ethnicity or religion” (McGarry and O’Leary 2007: 675), often in the form of ethnic quotas and reserved seats. Self-determined—or 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 identities” (McGarry and O’Leary 2007: 675). This includes the allocation of executive posts on the basis of parties’ legislative seat-share, the use of qualified majority rules and opt-in clauses for autonomy provisions. Federalism, too, can appear in various institutional configurations. Federations vary according to the number and composition of the subunits, the extent of competencies allocated to the subunits versus the amount of power retained by the center, as well as by whether competencies are allocated on a symmetrical or asymmetrical basis. Consociationalism and federalism share a number of conceptual affinities but they remain empirically distinct. Federalism often exists outside the consociational framework, and not all consociations enact federal rules. While our primary focus in this volume is on consociational power-sharing, we also consider the relationship between consociationalism and federalism in our selected cases. In this volume, we consider how consociationalism is adopted, how it functions and how it ends (McCulloch and McEvoy 2020). To start, we are interested in adoptability. By adoptability, we mean the conditions under which parties agree to share power or come to see power-sharing as an acceptable arrangement for mediating and resolving their collective disputes (McGarry 2017). As noted above and as Paul Anderson and John McGarry show in this volume (see Chaps. 9 and 10 respectively), getting to consociational agreement is no small feat. Beyond the asymmetrical preferences majorities and minorities might bring to the table, adoptability also highlights how agreement on political institutions is only one of many moving parts in a comprehensive settlement. That is, the acceptability of power-sharing institutions is often contingent on the parties agreeing to other conflict-related matters; in Chap. 10, for example, McGarry demonstrates in the case of Cyprus, it is the inability to resolve self-­ determination and security matters (such as the ongoing presence of Turkish troops on the island) that contributes to holding up reunification efforts. As McGarry notes in his chapter, “it is not just that a consociation may need a comprehensive settlement that involves agreement on multiple disputes, but [it is] how these other disputes are settled [that] will affect

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the prospects for consociational adoption and maintenance.” To understand why it is that consociation is difficult—but, it should be stressed, not impossible—to adopt, we thus need to understand the adoptability of the agreement itself, both in terms of the agreement’s constituent parts as well as the wider environment in which power is to be shared. We also consider the functionality of the different power-sharing systems in our selected cases. Functionality can be understood as the ability to ‘get things done,’ a vital precondition for any institutional package. As Joanne McEvoy and Eduardo Aboultaif (2020) suggest, “a functional power-sharing system is one that proves useful for its intended purpose, ostensibly to promote elite cooperation, help the state transition to democracy and secure peace.” McGarry employs the term ‘performance’ in similar fashion, defining it as “the ability of consociations to be adopted, maintained and to secure peaceful stability” (2019: 540). Functionality assumes that power-sharing institutions work as intended and do not experience regular legislative logjams or decision-making vacuums. A concern with functionality gets to the heart of the debate over what a consociation is designed to do: keep peace or deliver democracy? Especially in new-wave cases, consociationalism is often seen as a vehicle for ending violence and securing peace. Yet, peace and democracy are connected. As McEvoy argues, “if power-sharing governments are unable to provide sufficient levels of good governance, the whole post-agreement edifice will likely be at stake” (2017: 211). In other words, peace alone cannot be a measure for the success of power-sharing, although it is vital for power-­ sharing to succeed at all. While it has a reasonably strong track record at ending violence and shoring up peace, there are reasons to be skeptical of consociational functionality as it relates to democracy and good governance. Coalition-­ building between former adversaries can be a protracted process, and parties, in the absence of trust, may lean on their veto powers, curtailing the legislative agenda. Indeed, sometimes, consociation has been shown to incentivize a brinkmanship-style politics, with parties seeking to extract concessions from the other side (Roeder and Rothchild 2005; Jarstad 2008). This may result in legislative deadlock and other forms of immobilism. Yet, at other times, consociation’s fear-reducing ability aligns with politicians’ power-seeking nature to induce compromise. Consociationalism offers a number of confidence-building measures which encourage parties to take up their share of power and to remain in their governing posts and

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get on with the business of governing (Martin 2013; Mattes and Savun 2009; McGarry and O’Leary 2006). Our volume highlights both moments of compromise and moments of breakdown, sometimes within a single case. In Chap. 7, for example, Cera Murtagh considers 20 years of consociationalism in Northern Ireland, the trajectory of which is characterized by “crisis,” “setbacks,” “tumult” and “staggered progress.” Yet, in likening the peace process to “two steps forward, one step back,” she also sees “critical openings” for greater inclusion, equality, and social justice amid crisis moments. The slow gains in these areas are detailed in Chap. 7. The “two steps forward, one step back” analogy will surely resonate with John Hulsey and Soeren Keil, who, in Chap. 6, also see mixed performance in the consociational experiences in the three Balkan states of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and North Macedonia. Seeing consociationalism as key to facilitating peace after violent conflict, Hulsey and Keil nonetheless also expose its role in limiting political competition and in enabling state capture. Indeed, the cases considered in this volume suggest that consociation has a mixed track record on functionality, with many contemporary systems—especially those adopted after violent internal conflict—persisting in a kind of bounded instability whereby periods of political stability and the routines of day-to-day governing are punctuated by grave moments of crisis and brinkmanship, with a looming threat of institutional collapse or even renewed violence. To understand why, we need to explore both the institutional design of power-sharing rules themselves as well as how such institutional choices translate into political processes and outcomes in divided settings. How a consociational system is adopted and how it operates over time is also connected to how it might eventually end. We thus also turn our attention to the “end-ability” of consociationalism (McCulloch and McEvoy 2020). By end-ability, we mean the ability of a polity to reform its power-sharing rules and to move beyond such a system if and when the governing partners agree to do so. A concern with end-ability stems from an ongoing debate regarding consociational longevity. Whereas earlier scholars, including Lijphart (1977) and Daniel Elazar, saw consociationalism as inherently flexible—with Elazar arguing about consociationalism that “these processes are subject to change with relative ease when the conditions that generated them change” (1985: 23)—others suggest an inherent ‘stickiness’ to the system. As Donald Horowitz suggests, consociational rules “tend to rigidify conflicts and do not lend themselves to

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renegotiation. Most agree that consociational institutions, once established, are sticky” (Horowitz 2014: 12). John Nagle (2019) offers a more colorful analogy for how consociationalism can get stuck by introducing the concept of “zombie power-sharing.” As he sees it, in many places, including Lebanon, Northern Ireland and Bosnia, consociationalism has “long since ceased functioning in a way healthy to the body politic, but yet it somehow remains dominant.” This ‘zombification,’ he suggests, means “it is almost impossible to change, reform or accommodate new policies.” The cases considered in this volume illuminate both sides of this debate. In Chaps. 2 and 3, Matthijs Bogaards and Peter Bussjäger  and Mirella M. Johler demonstrate, respectively, the gradual transition away from consociationalism in the Netherlands and Austria. By contrast, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s experiences at the European Court of Human Rights embody the concern expressed by Horowitz and others regarding a lack of exit from consociationalism (Boldt 2012; Agarin et al. 2018). Repeated rulings from the court suggesting the rules for the tripartite presidency and House of Peoples, both of which require ethnic affiliation with one of the three constituent peoples (Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats), were discriminatory have done little to move the country away from strict corporate consociation rules. The early consociational experience in Cyprus, discussed in Chap. 10, demonstrates a worst-case scenario, with violence, occupation and partition following the collapse of the power-sharing government in 1963. To understand why and when consociation is difficult to reform, modify or end, we need to explore the social, political and institutional conditions under which reforms—or indeed, peaceful exit—are considered feasible.

3   Organization of the Book In this volume, we are interested in two broad questions, which we have selected in order to provoke theoretical and empirical insights about power-sharing in Europe: • How do consociations come in and out of being? • How do consociations work, that is, how do they resolve political crises and other forms of deadlock between power-sharing partners? We take up these questions through a series of country case studies, all from the European continent, organized in loose chronological fashion.

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In Part I, we consider past cases of consociation (Netherlands, Austria), in Part 2, we consider contemporary consociations (Belgium, Switzerland, the Balkans, South Tyrol and Northern Ireland), and, in Part 3, we turn our attention to possible future cases (Cyprus and Spain). Europe is an apt focal point for such an inquiry. First, Europe represents the so-called birth-place of consociational theory as a research program. Starting with the four ‘classic’ cases of consociationalism—the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland and Belgium—exploration of European cases has set out many of the propositions still being tested today, including on questions of adoptability, functionality and end-ability. This is also true of the ‘new wave’ cases in which Northern Ireland, Bosnia and North Macedonia factor large, but where conditions are notably different from the classic cases. A focus on European cases allows us to consider whether the same theoretical propositions about how consociation ‘works’ still hold in new cases as compared to the classic cases. Second, while consociational systems are found all around the globe, there is a high concentration of consociational cases in Europe. This allows us to highlight how and why the cases converge or diverge, while holding other case attributes constant. This is not to suggest that consociation is necessarily or distinctly European but a specific focus on these cases allows us to isolate and identify those factors that help to explain consociational performance at distinct stages, including adoption, function and exit. Further, a focus on these cases allows us to investigate the relationship between types of power-sharing, namely between consociationalism and federalism. With the exception of the Netherlands, all the cases considered in this volume entail some degree of territorial autonomy. This takes a variety of forms, including devolution to a region where power is then shared (e.g., Northern Ireland, South Tyrol), federal systems of government (Austria, Bosnia, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain and as proposed in Cyprus), and decentralization processes in municipalities where national minorities become local majorities (North Macedonia, Kosovo). The relationship between territorial autonomy, federalism and consociationalism, we suggest, is far from straight-forward. Consociationalism and federalism can, at times, work in tandem to support a politics of accommodation and compromise while at other times they make it difficult to reach agreement, even lowering the costs of non-agreement, thus affecting functionality prospects (see Caluwaerts and Reuchamps 2015: 279). We start, in the first part of the book, with two countries that were early adopters of consociational processes but which have both since moved

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on—at least institutionally—toward other forms of power-sharing or consensus democracy. In Chap. 2, Matthijs Bogaards suggests that there are two stories to tell about the Netherlands, one about the rise and fall of consociationalism and one about the “allegedly emancipative power of pillars.” As to the second story, Bogaards contrasts the skepticism of pillarization in American political science with a decidedly more favorable understanding of it in Dutch sociology, showing how these competing perspectives played out in relation both to de-pillarization and to the prospect of an ‘Islamic pillar’ in the 1990s. Bogaards’ analysis suggests a need to re-evaluate the role of pillarization in consociational theory. As to the first story, he suggests that there is no clearly delineated end-date to Dutch consociationalism—that is, “no mirror of the Pacification of 1917.” Rather than a wholesale and immediate transformation of the system, there was a gradual transition away from consociationalism, prompted in part by de-­ pillarization. A similar process plays out in Austria, where, while the highwater mark of consociationalism between 1945 and 1966 is easier to identify, the actual decline of consociational policy-making occurred gradually from the 1960s into the 1980s. In Chap. 3, Peter Bussjäger  and Mirella M.  Johler detail Austria’s experience with “multi-dimensional power-sharing” by tracing the interconnections between consociationalism, federalism and corporatism. They explain the ability of consociationalism to give way to a more competitive style of politics through these interconnections, in particular demonstrating how the federal power-­ sharing structure served as a kind of institutional safety net allowing political elites to move beyond the post-war ‘grand bargain.’ Both cases seem to recall early theorizing on how consociationalism can help to develop “sufficient mutual trust at both elite and mass levels to render itself superfluous” (Lijphart 1977: 228). What Bogaards and Bussjäger and Johler show in these cases is that this unfolded in a gradual, evolutionary fashion. While the Netherlands and Austria give some credence to the ability to move beyond consociationalism, their experiences may be less generalizable to the contemporary period. Given that consociationalism has not proven to be the “transient arrangement” anticipated in early consociational theory (Elazar 1985: 31), new-wave cases may have more to learn from places such as Switzerland, where power-sharing has successfully adapted to new challenges and to shifting political and societal circumstances, than from the Netherland and Austria, where consociationalism proved temporary. Indeed, the cases considered in Part II have all had extended periods of consociational practice, but none show immediate

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signs of abandoning their power-sharing systems. In Chap. 4, Sean Mueller provides a comprehensive overview of power-sharing politics in Switzerland. Like Austria, power-sharing in Switzerland is multi-­dimensional; as Mueller explains, it is hard to find a Swiss institution that does not share power in one form or another. Combining consociationalism, federalism, direct democracy, bicameralism and a distinctly Swiss-style of collegialism, Swiss power-sharing is the product of both ‘grand design’ and evolutionary practice. Rather than presenting as ‘sticky,’ there appears to be a kind of inherent flexibility to the Swiss system, with Mueller highlighting key moments of power-sharing reform. While power-­sharing  broadly  has its origins in the promulgation of the 1848 constitution, the system has proven adaptable, with new rules introduced at various points, including in 1874, 1891, 1918, 1959 and 2003. Thus, unlike in Austria and the Netherlands, where consociationalism was able to gradually fade away, power-sharing in Switzerland has proven remarkably resilient and adaptive. If and when “de-consociationalization” (Helms et  al. 2019) comes to Switzerland, it is unlikely to entail the abandonment of power-sharing writ large. As with Austria, federalism and collegialism provide an institutional safety net for ensuring broad inclusion of the different linguistic, ideological and territorial communities (though, it must be said, not everyone is able to partake of this inclusion, with 25% of Swiss residents unable to gain citizenship and voting rights). Any threat to collegial decision-making comes instead from the “double polarization” of the party system, with recent elections showing not only the left and right poles gaining in electoral strength but also widening in distance from one another. The more ideologically polarized the party system, the more difficult it becomes to reach consensus in government. How adaptative Swiss power-sharing will be in the face of these new developments remains an ongoing process. Whereas federalism has functioned as an institutional safety net in Switzerland and Austria, the same cannot be said for Belgium. Here, not only has the country become more consociational and federal over time, federalism and consociationalism also threaten to work at cross-purposes. This is what Patricia Popelier demonstrates in Chap. 5. As she sees it, the Belgian federal structure “both reinforces and undermines the consociational regime.” Federalism’s mandate of self-rule and group autonomy, she explains, “reinforces regional identity, committing citizens to one group or another.” While this should support consociational decision-­ making, it instead takes away “the will to cooperate and compromise.” A combination of decentralist dynamics and anti-consociational sentiment

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has thus brought Belgium to the brink of dissolution. Nonetheless, Popelier shows that Belgium remains “viable” as a unit, but only at the cost of complexity. Compounding these centrifugal tendencies, however, has been the rise of party polarization with growing support for the far right in Flanders and far left in Wallonia. As in Switzerland, it risks becoming difficult to make consociation work with parties attempting to co-­ govern across multiple divides, including ethno-linguistic, territorial and ideological cleavages. Tensions between federalism and consociationalism also play out in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which rivals Belgium in terms of its institutional complexity. As John Hulsey and Soeren Keil see it in Chap. 6, it is the combination of strict corporate consociational power-sharing rules and a radically decentralized federal system that serves as a barrier to political change in Bosnia, especially as it concerns the composition of coalition governments at the state-wide level. Conceding that consociationalism helped to end the war and to keep the peace over the last 25 years, they nonetheless worry that it has also shaped political competition “in ways that discourage accountability through alternation in power.” They suggest that the shape of the federal structure (which divides the country into two Entities, Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and further devolves power to ten cantons in the Federation, all held together loosely by a central state with minimal competencies) is partly to blame. The federal apparatus makes it difficult to form state-level governing coalitions without the support of major ethnic actors from the entities and cantons, thus reinforcing the ethnic status quo and stifling competition. They observe a similar process in Kosovo, where open competition, at least in the Serb community, is undermined. There, the corporate rules on Serb representation in Kosovo’s central state institutions combines with autonomy provisions for Serb enclaves to put the ethnic Serb party, the Serb List (Srpska Lista), at a double advantage: the party is able to both dominate the reserved seats at the center and control political processes in North Kosovo. The Serb List consequently has few rivals, leaving Kosovar Serbs with little to no electoral choice other than the List. Hulsey and Keil are slightly more optimistic about the state of political competition in North Macedonia where party turnover in coalition governments is more frequent. They attribute this to North  Macedonia’s more liberal consociational rules and to its comparatively low degree of decentralization. As they argue in Chap. 6, “liberal consociationalism might not only be better for non-ethnic groups and identities to find

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accommodation in the system, but it might also increase competition within ethnic groups and thereby offer a balance between the need for inclusion and power-sharing amongst groups on the one side and party competition and voter choice on the other side.” Alongside these contrasting institutional choices in the three cases, Hulsey and Keil also acknowledge that the extent of violent internal conflict has some explanatory value for consociational functionality. North  Macedonia, while not immune to the violence that accompanied the breakup of Yugoslavia, was able, unlike Bosnia and Kosovo, to avoid the worst manifestations of it. This also helps to explain North Macedonia’s more flexible form of consociational power-sharing. Especially in the wake of violent conflict and profound mistrust, parties are liable to seek corporate guarantees of their share in power, as they did in Bosnia and Kosovo; in the absence of protracted violent conflict, liberal rules may suffice, as they have done in North Macedonia (McCulloch 2014). Internal violent conflict has also played a significant role in Northern Ireland, both in terms of bringing the region to consociationalism as a way to end its 30-year armed conflict, but also in terms of influencing its functionality over time. More than 20 years on from the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, as Cera Murtagh explains in Chap. 7, progress, by which she means the ability of the system to facilitate broad inclusion beyond the main groups to the conflict, remains “far from unidirectional” and “vulnerable to regression.” The legacy of the conflict looms large, with major sticking points between the parties relating to how to deal with the past, from arms decommissioning and the release of political prisoners to the establishment of independent commissions to investigate Troubles-­ related deaths (e.g., the Historical Investigations Unit or the Independent Commission on Information Retrieval) (for more on independent commissions, see Walsh 2017). Cultural issues related to the conflict, including flags and parades, also remain contentious. But as Murtagh evaluates, “amidst the tumult, there have been advances,” such as the completion of arms decommissioning, the devolution of justice and policing and more recent advances on cultural and moral issues, such as the extension of marriage equality and abortion rights, bringing the region into legislative line with the rest of the UK as well as the Republic of Ireland. Symbolic gestures have also been forthcoming, including Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness shaking hands with Queen Elizabeth and the Democratic Unionist Party’s Peter Robinson and Arlene Foster attending Gaelic Athletic Association games. Importantly, there has been a willingness to

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use crisis moments to open the door to institutional reforms, including modifications to the method for electing the First Minister and deputy First Minister, reducing the total number of executive portfolios and seats in the Assembly, creating an official opposition and restructuring of the Petition of Concern veto mechanism (Murtagh and McCulloch 2019). While many of these reforms necessitated a willingness to cooperate on the part of the power-sharing partners, political changes of this magnitude have also been assisted by Northern Ireland’s status as a regional consociation. Indeed, it is difficult to see how the local parties could arrive at some of these decisions without the well-timed and constructive mediation efforts of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, who, as co-­ guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement, have a clear stake in supporting power-sharing in the region. The two governments have used their powers as co-guarantors to convene and mediate inter-party talks to facilitate dialogue, defuse tensions and redirect energies toward crisis resolution (McCulloch and McEvoy 2019). It is not that the stakes are low in regional consociations; rather, they are able to deploy a set of deadlock-­ breaking mechanisms not always available to other consociations. That is, in some regional consociations, the wider state can operate in a mediatory capacity if and when the regional power-sharing partners find themselves in a stalemate. South Tyrol represents another regional consociation where the “territorial scale of the arrangement” helps to facilitate cooperation between communities (Wolff 2004). South Tyrol is heralded as a consociational success story by both scholars and practitioners. In Chap. 8, Elisabeth Alber outlines three factors for this success: mutual trust, time and adaptability. As she explains, “creating mutual trust takes time. Even in the presence of favourable conditions, as in the case of South Tyrol, it took much more time than expected to implement the detailed autonomy and power-sharing arrangements.” In addition to the time it takes to build trust, time is also critical for the development of institutional capacity, especially in the context of linguistic differences. As she notes, the system has to manage the logistics of a trilingual public sphere, necessitating, for example, translating German terminology into Italian legal codes and training civil service personnel in German, Italian and Ladin. Adaptability, meanwhile, which Albers defines as “the institutional and procedural capacity of a system for adaptive evolution,” remains an ongoing process in South Tyrol. Despite the corporate consociational features of its power-sharing system, Alber sees the system as both internally and

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externally adaptive, though, as she admits, the time may have come for further adaptation. A novel attempt at “participatory consociationalism”—the establishment of an Autonomy Convention that carried out its work over 2016–2017 and which sought input from citizens, civil society and politicians—highlighted the challenges of adaptability. It showcased both the willingness of the different communities to come together in deliberative forums in search of a common vision for the region but also the extent to which that shared vision remains at least somewhat elusive. Indeed, divergent opinions remain across a range of salient issues, including the institutional framework itself, with German-speakers preferring expanded institutional competences for the province and Italian-speakers preferring a relaxation of the proportionality rules (Larin and Röggla 2019). The lessons Alber outlines from South Tyrol could well be read as a dictum for the other cases considered in this volume and yet, as our authors demonstrate, trust, time and adaptability are often in short supply in divided places. Looking toward the future, what might the cases considered in Part III learn from the experiences of past and present consociations? Could, for example, a regional consociation be in the cards for Catalonia? Paul Anderson, in Chap. 9, does not seem too optimistic about such prospects, suggesting that it is currently “outside the realm of feasible solutions to the constitutional impasse.” If we understand adoptability as “the extent to which the groups support the establishment of a power-sharing polity” (McEvoy and Aboultaif 2020) then Anderson is right to be pessimistic. As he explains, consociationalism requires an elite willingness to make it work, a willingness largely absent in the Spanish state. The Spanish government maintains a hostility to plurinational solutions to the conflict, at least in part out of a fear of a cascading effect amongst the other autonomous communities. Whereas the UK and Italy eventually came around to accepting power-sharing solutions for Northern Ireland and South Tyrol, respectively, the same cannot—yet?—be said for Spain. Nor does Catalonia have a kin state to help encourage the parties toward power-sharing, as the Republic of Ireland and Austria were able to do for the other regional consociations considered in this volume (though it should be noted that not all kin states play a conducive role in conflict settlement, as experiences in the Balkans highlight). A third unfavorable factor relates to the divergent opinions on independence within Catalonia itself. For Catalan separatists, consociationalism risks being too integrationist and signaling defeat for the independence project. For those who reject independence, consociationalism represents too strong a medicine. If consociationalism is not

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at the top of any of the parties’ institutional wish lists, what might a consociational lens offer for breaking the constitutional impasse? As Anderson proposes, the parties would benefit from some movement in the direction of consociational philosophy, even if the actual remedy falls short of consociation itself. This may mean moving toward a more plurinational federation, one that might involve asymmetrical powers for those who seek them, or a return to consensus democracy, but with the addition of more deliberative democratic features, as a way to reinvest Catalan separatists into the Spanish governing structure. Anderson’s chapter offers important insights into the challenges of adoptability, where even seeing power-­ sharing as a viable option remains a formidable hurdle. The challenge of adoptability plays out differently—but no less acutely—in Cyprus. While Cyprus embodies the typical demographic scenario seen as unconducive to consociational adoption—a bipolar divide with a very large majority community—as John McGarry explains, the Greek Cypriots’ reluctance to agree to a power-sharing deal goes beyond demographic calculations. As he notes in Chap. 10, “no party in Cyprus, Greek Cypriot or Turkish Cypriot, has ever sought to conclude a power-­ sharing deal without a comprehensive settlement.” Instead, reaching a comprehensive settlement to reunify the two parts of the island also requires reaching agreement on other core issues, including security, self-­ determination and property restitution and a perception that—decades after de facto partition—any reunification deal on the table has to be “better than the status quo.” Here, it is not just agreement on the contours of the power-sharing relationship that continues to challenge adoption; instead, it is the circumstances under which such an agreement becomes viable that holds up the process. Beyond highlighting the challenges of adoption and adoptability, Cyprus also offers stark lessons about functionality and, unlike in the Netherlands and Austria, how consociational experiments can come to an abrupt and violent, rather than peaceful and gradual, end. The early attempt at consociational power-sharing between 1960 and 1963, also covered in Chap. 10, was widely seen as ineffective—as McGarry notes, the words most frequently used to describe it include ‘dysfunctional’ and ‘unworkable.’ The reasons are layered: it was an agreement imposed on the local actors, reflecting the power balance between Turkey and Greece, rather than between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots; it enacted a form of dis-proportional representation and strong veto powers for Turkish Cypriots, to which the Greek Cypriots were opposed; and it was

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implemented alongside competing goals of security and self-­determination, most manifestly in terms of enosis and taksim. This early experience offers an important lesson for contemporary attempts to revisit consociational processes in Cyprus (and elsewhere): weak adoptability (e.g., “when one or more of the groups have less than majority support for the deal”) begets dysfunctionality, even if the adoption problem can be overcome (McEvoy and Aboultaif 2020). Dysfunctional outcomes, in turn, risk the abrupt and possibly even violent end to power-sharing. Adoptability, functionality and end-ability are, ultimately, intimately related. In what follows, the authors trace the ups and downs of sharing power in their respective cases. They point to a range of variables affecting power-­ sharing adoption, including: the acceptability of consociationalism amongst would-be power-sharing partners; the wider set of issues and grievances power-sharing is meant to address; and the role of external actors in imposing or supporting such adoption. They also consider the range of factors that affect power-sharing functionality, not least of all the conditions under which it comes to be adopted. Other factors affecting performance include the role of violent internal conflict; the relationship between consociationalism and other institutional responses, especially territorial ones, such as federalism and regional consociations; and the design of the rules themselves, especially whether they hew toward liberal or corporate manifestations. Indeed, the distinction between liberal and corporate consociation matters not only for the extent of political competition the system can support, as Hulsey and Keil demonstrate in Chap. 6, but also for the extent of inclusion for “women, gender minorities, sexual minorities, racial and ethnic minorities and linguistic minorities not included in power-sharing pacts and those who simply do not identify with the main ethnic groups or with ethnicity at all” (Murtagh, Chap. 7). Finally, the chapters also illuminate how consociationalism ends, sometimes abruptly, sometimes gradually, how sometimes power-sharing gets ‘stuck’ with parties seemingly unable to move beyond—let alone reform— it, and how modifications to the existing rules can sometimes support more functional power-sharing over the long term. These lessons are recapped by Soeren Keil and Allison McCulloch in the conclusion (Chap. 11). We may not definitively resolve debates more than 50  years in the making, but the chapters that follow offer careful and nuanced analysis of the complexities of power-sharing across a wide range of European cases, adding more theoretical and empirical evidence to our collective understanding of how consociations come in and out of being and how they function in practice.

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References Agarin, T., McCulloch, A., & Murtagh, C. (2018). Others in Deeply Divided Societies: A Research Agenda. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 24(3), 299–310. Boldt, H. (2012). Ending Consociational Power-Sharing: The Sejdić and Finci Case and the Prospects for Constitutional Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Vienna Journal on International Constitutional Law, 6(3–4), 489–547. Caluwaerts, D., & Reuchamps, M. (2015). Combining Federalism with Consociationalism: Is Belgian Consociational Federalism Digging its Own Grave? Ethnopolitics, 14(3), 277–295. Elazar, D.J. 1985. Federalism and Consociational Regimes. Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 15(2): 17–34. Hartzell, C., & Hoddie, M. (2003). Institutionalizing Peace: Power-Sharing and Post-Civil War Conflict Management. American Journal of Political Science, 47(2), 318–332. Helms, L., Jenny, M., & Willumsen, D. M. (2019). Alpine Troubles: Trajectories of De-Consociationalisation in Austria and Switzerland Compared. Swiss Political Science Review, 25(4), 381–407. Horowitz, D.  L. (2002). Explaining the Northern Ireland Agreement: The Sources of an Unlikely Constitutional Consensus. British Journal of Political Science, 32(2), 193–220. Horowitz, D. L. (2014). Ethnic Power Sharing: Three Big Problems. Journal of Democracy, 25(2), 5–20. Jarstad, A. (2008). The Prevalence of Power-sharing: Exploring the Patterns of Post-election Peace. African Spectrum, 44(3), 41–62. Larin, S., & Röggla, M. (2019). Participatory Consociationalism? No, but South Tyrol’s Autonomy Convention is Evidence that Power-Sharing Can Transform Conflicts. Nations and Nationalism, 25(3), 1018–1041. Lijphart, A. (1968). The Politics of Accommodation: Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lijphart, A. (1969). Consociational Democracy. World Politics, 21(2), 207–225. Lijphart, A. (1977). Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration. New Haven: Yale University Press. Lijphart, A. (2008). Thinking about Democracy: Power-Sharing and Majority Rule in Theory and Practice. London: Routledge. Martin, P. (2013). Coming Together: Power-sharing and the Durability of Negotiated Peace Settlements. Civil Wars, 15(3), 332–358. Mattes, M., & Savun, B. (2009). Fostering Peace after Civil War: Commitment Problems and Agreement Design. International Studies Quarterly, 53(3), 737–759. McCulloch, A. (2014). Consociational Settlements in Divided Societies: The Liberal-Corporate Distinction. Democratization, 21(3), 501–518.

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McCulloch, A., & McEvoy, J. (2018). The International Mediation of Power-­ Sharing Settlements. Cooperation and Conflict, 53(4), 467–485. McCulloch, A., & McEvoy, J. (2019). ‘Bumps in the Road Ahead’: How External Actors Defuse Power-Sharing Crises. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 13(2), 216–235. McCulloch, A., & McEvoy, J. (2020). Understanding Power-Sharing Performance: A Lifecycle Approach. Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism.  McEvoy, J. (2017). Power-Sharing and the Pursuit of Good Governance: Evidence from Northern Ireland. In A. McCulloch & J. McGarry (Eds.), Power-Sharing: Empirical and Normative Challenges. London: Routledge. McEvoy, J., & Aboultaif, E. (2020). Power-Sharing Challenges: From Weak Adoptability to Dysfunction in Iraq. Ethnopolitics. Online First. https://doi/ org/10.1080/17449057.2020.1739363 McGarry, J. (2017). Centripetalism, Consociationalism and Cyprus: The ‘Adoptability’ Question. In A. McCulloch & J. McGarry (Eds.), Power-Sharing: Empirical and Normative Challenges. London: Routledge. McGarry, J. (2019). Classical Consociational Theory and Recent Consociational Performance. Swiss Political Science Review, 25(4), 538–555. McGarry, J., & O’Leary, B. (2006). Consociational Theory, Northern Ireland’s Conflict, and Its Agreement. Part One: What Consociationalists Can Learn from Northern Ireland. Government and Opposition, 41(1), 43–63. McGarry, J., & O’Leary, B. (2007). Iraq’s Constitution of 2005: Liberal Consociation as Political Prescription. International Journal of Constitutional Law, 5(4), 670–698. Murtagh, C., & McCulloch, A. (2019). Beyond the Core: The Inclusion of ‘Others’ in Maturing Power-Sharing Systems. Paper Presented at the Political Studies Association Annual International Conference 2019, Cardiff. Nagle, J. (2019). Zombie Power-Sharing and Destitutent Resistance. Paper presented at the Workshop on The Challenges of Power Sharing in the Post-­ Uprisings Arab World, Lebanese American University, Beirut. Roeder, P., & Rothchild, D. (2005). Power-Sharing as Impediment to Peace and Democracy. In D. Rothchild & P. Roeder (Eds.), Sustainable Peace: Power and Democracy after Civil Wars. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Taylor, R. (2009). The Promise of Consociational Theory. In R.  Taylor (Ed.), Consociational Theory: McGarry and O’Leary and the Northern Ireland Conflict. London: Routledge. Walsh, D. (2017). Independent Commissions and Contentious Issues in Post-Good Friday Northern Ireland. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Wolff, S. (2004). The Institutional Structure of Regional Consociations in Brussels, Northern Ireland, and South Tyrol. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 10(3), 387–414.

CHAPTER 2

Consociationalism in the Netherlands: Polder Politics and Pillar Talk Matthijs Bogaards

M. Bogaards (*) Department of Political Science, Central European University, Vienna, Austria e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 S. Keil, A. McCulloch (eds.), Power-Sharing in Europe, Federalism and Internal Conflicts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53590-2_2

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Map. 2.1  Map of the Netherlands. Source: https://d-maps.com/carte. php?num_car=4114&lang=en

1   Introduction The Netherlands is the first case of consociationalism. It was the first country where cooperation among political elites was identified as a crucial factor in maintaining a stable system in a divided society, making democracy possible. And, if the so-called Pacification of 1917 is viewed as

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the starting point, it is also the first country in modern history to become consociational, predating other classic cases such as Austria, Lebanon, and Switzerland. For these reasons alone, much can be learned from an analysis of the origins, functioning, challenges, and transformation of consociationalism in the Netherlands. This chapter has two stories to tell. The first is about politics: the reinvention of traditions of compromise and tolerance, the staying power of consensus institutions, and the phenomenon of “polder politics,” described as “an institutional structure and a spirit of peaceful deliberation aimed for consensus in which all parties are more or less equal, do not force a one-­ sided conclusion and pragmatically acknowledge (societal) pluriformity” (Te Velde 2010: 206).1 A relatively recent term from the 1990s, “polder politics” is used by some to complain about backroom dealing, slow decision-­making, and the inability to push through what are deemed badly needed reforms, and by others to celebrate a non-adversarial style of policy making (Hendriks and Toonen 2001). The second, much less familiar story, is about the Netherlands as a divided society and the alleged emancipative power of pillars. In comparative politics, reinforcing cleavages of class, religion, and ideology are seen as a threat to political stability and social harmony. Before Lijphart introduced “consociationalism” in the 1960s, American political science even held that democracy might be impossible in societies organized around deep divisions, including the Netherlands (see Bogaards 2000). Less well known is that several Dutch sociologists at the time emphasized the positive role of pillarization in the emancipation of the Catholics, Calvinists, and Socialists (Daalder 1985). This positive evaluation of a segmented form of pluralism became visible again in the 1990s when a debate emerged about the social integration of immigrants in general and Muslim immigrants in particular (Maussen 2012). However, Lijphart’s recommendation of an “Islamic pillar” was heavily criticized and important questions were raised about the desirability and feasibility of separate organizations for and by immigrants. This chapter starts with the socio-political side of the consociational model: a divided society. It contrasts two approaches to pillarization, one negative and rooted in (American) political science, the other positive and grounded in (Dutch) sociology. In the second part, the chapter then reviews the debate about a new ethnic (Moroccan, Turkish) or religious 1

 All translations from Dutch are by the author.

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(Muslim) pillar in the 1990s to show the lasting power of the emancipative interpretation of pillarization. The final part of the chapter looks at the political side of the consociational model, placing and tracing Dutch democracy in three of Lijphart’s typologies of democracies. Depending on the yardsticks used, the analysis highlights continuities or changes. The conclusion reflects on the contemporary relevance of the Dutch case for thinking about communal organization and politics in divided societies.

2   Pillars as Problem Consociational theory, following early work by American scholars such as Almond, posits that when “a society is divided by sharp cleavages with no or very few overlapping memberships and loyalties—in other words, when the political culture is deeply fragmented—pressures toward moderate middle-of-the-road attitudes are absent” (Lijphart 1969: 208–209). Although “it remains a matter of debate to what degree the Netherlands did have cross-cutting cleavages or not” (Daalder 1984: 113), there is little doubt that Dutch society was organized in “pillars,” defined by the sociologist Kruijt (1957: 15) as “legally equal blocs of social organizations and subcultures based on a belief system within a larger, plural, but racially and ethnically mostly homogenous democratic society (nation).”2 Catholics, Protestants, Calvinists, Socialists and Liberals read their own newspapers, listened to their own radio programs, watched their own television programs, spent their leisure time with their own kind of people in their own associations—including sports clubs—maintained separate trade unions, sent their children to their own schools, even universities—with liberal and Socialist offspring meeting in public schools—and voted for their own parties. The degree and extent of pillarization can be measured. Kruijt (1957) distinguishes between: (1) the institutional level of pillarization or the number of social activities for which pillar organizations exist; (2) the participation rate or the membership of pillar organizations expressed as a percentage of all persons eligible from that particular group; (3) the internal degree of integration or the extent to which the various  A similar notion is that of “segmented pluralism,” defined by Lorwin (1971: 141) as “the organization of social movements, educational and communications systems, voluntary associations, and political parties along the lines of religious, socio-economic, and political affiliations.” 2

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parts of a pillar are integrated. Some pillars were more “pillarized” than others, with the Catholic pillar seen as the prototype (Thurlings 1978). The number of pillars is contested—Lijphart is alone in sometimes detecting a fourth, Liberal pillar (Pennings 1990: 71).3 Finally, there were important local differences and changes over time (Blom 2000). Lijphart (1968a, 1975) devotes several chapters of his case study of the Netherlands to mapping pillarization. His main aim is to demonstrate the absence of the cross-cutting cleavages that would explain political stability in American pluralist theory of the time. Or at least, partly. The two Christian pillars were socio-economically diverse and this softened the class cleavage. Lijphart’s account of pillarization is not the only one. At least five other interpretations can be identified (See Daalder 1985; Pennings 1990). First, those who see pillarization as a defensive mechanism, as a “church strategy against secularization” (Rigthart 1986: 174) or, in the words of Bornewasser (1988: 1987), “as a modern means to a traditional end: to protect the faithful against the dangers of a modernizing world.” Second, those who see it as a control theory, which sees pillarization as a deliberate elite strategy to sharpen societal divisions to entrench their own positions of power (Van Doorn 1956; Van Schendelen 1978, 1984). A fragmented culture calls for leadership and political leaders have cleverly exploited this. Until the changes of the mid-1960s, political elites benefited from stable electoral support (Houska 1985) and a deferential and passive citizenry that came with the encapsulation of their followers in pillars. Third, Neo-Marxist readings are even more critical, blaming pillars for dividing the working class (See Stuurman 1983). The fourth and fifth interpretations of pillarization are more positive as they focus on pillars as promotors of emancipation and modernization respectively. They will be discussed in the next section.

3   Pillars as Promoters of Emancipation and Modernization The argument that pillarization furthered the “emancipation” of religiously and socio-economically defined groups that suffered from historical disadvantages can already be found with Kruijt (1956: 43), who judged 3  More often, though, Lijphart writes about three pillars, the third “general” pillar combining Socialists and Liberals, differently from most of the literature which sees the Socialists as the third pillar.

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the struggle for emancipation through pillarization a “just” cause. The most famous statement is by Verweij-Jonker (1962). In her analysis of four emancipatory movements, she concentrates on the Catholic and Calvinist subcultures and on workers and women.4 With the exception of women, all groups organized in their own political party, which stood at the apex of a pillar structure that prominently included media and trade unions. All four emancipatory movements were united in their desire for “freedom,” even though this meant different things to the different groups. The Catholics were long considered “second class citizens” (Bakvis 1981: 24) who, until the mid-1800s, could not practice their religion freely and were underrepresented in the professions, administration, and politics. The Calvinists always had been in a minority position with respect to the dominant Protestants. Success was defined as emancipation, which in turn meant equal opportunities, and was seen as proof of integration (Verweij-Jonker 1962: 122).5 The book by Hendriks (1971, see also Janse 1985), The Emancipation of the Calvinists, is a good example. It tells the story of how mostly poor and simple, religiously conservative (Calvinist) masses, increasingly out of touch with the more progressive dominant state church, used religious zeal to overcome their marginal position in society. The goal of their leader Abraham Kuyper was “to end discrimination” (p. 13). The Calvinists are described as an “ethnocentric emancipation minority,” which means that the aim is integration, not assimilation, with the group’s distinctive traits recognized as meriting equal treatment (p. 251). This resembles the early definition of emancipation by Van Doorn (1958: 202) as “the principal and practical attainability of equal positions.” Much the same narrative has been developed for the Catholics (see especially Goddijn 1957; Thurlings 1978).6 Finally, pillarization has been interpreted as a specific form of modernization. In the view of Ellemers (1984: 140), pillarization “became a selfperpetuating mechanism … It became the accepted way of dealing with problems of modernization.” In other words, the Dutch modernized 4  Following Bakvis (1981), the collection of Protestant Churches known in the Netherlands as “Gereformeerden” is identified as “Calvinist” here. “Protestant” refers to the “Hervormde kerk.” 5  In the 1960 census, Catholics made up 40 per cent of the population, Protestants (Dutch Reformed) 28 per cent, and Calvinists 9 per cent (Daalder 1966: 215). 6  A practical opportunity presented by pillarization is the multiplication of positions, thereby increasing participation (Lorwin 1971: 157).

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within and through their pillar organizations. Ellemers (1984) even links pillarization to national integration, although Pennings (1990: 83) qualifies this claim by writing about “segmented integration: a process of organizational and mental scaling up within their own circle.” In the middle of the 1960s a rapid process of depillarization got under way. The boundaries between the pillars became blurry, their internal coherence weakened, secularization reduced the role of the church, while voters and citizens became restive (Van Mierlo 1986). For example, survey data show that if the majority of respondents in 1966 still thought that youth organizations and broadcasting channels should be organized on the basis of religion, four years later this had decreased to a minority (Middendorp 1979: 183). Interestingly, though, denominational schools remained very popular. The parliamentary elections of 1967 are seen as a watershed because of increased electoral volatility and the success of a new party, D66, established on a platform of democratic change. Although Daalder (1996: 5) detects a “self-destructing logic” in the process of pillarization, by which he means the proliferation of sectoral organizations that increasingly worked together within sectors and across pillars, no claim is made that consociationalism itself contributed to or resulted in the weakening of socio-cultural divisions. Depillarization was a societal process, not a political one, though it had political consequences. Already at the time of writing in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the literature on pillarization saw this phenomenon as largely historical and unlikely to be repeated in any form in the future. Emancipation was seen as completed (Verweij-Jonker 1962). Once modernization had reached a certain stage, “the old principles failed to solve newly emerging problems” (Ellemers 1984: 142). New social movements were too diverse, internally heterogeneous and openly anti-institutional. In the phrase of Hellemans (1985: 253), “the old movements are depillarizing and the new movements do not pillarize any more.” It is therefore ironic that pillarization, at least in public debate, made a come-back in the 1990s in the context of policies targeted toward non-Western migrants and their descendants.7

7  In 2006, out of a total population of 16.5 million, 1,722,500 were classified as nonWestern. Of these 364,000 were Turkish, 332,000 Surinamese, 323,000 Moroccan, and 129,400 were from the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba (Nicolaas and Sprangers 2006: 25).

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4   An Islamic Pillar? At the end of 1991, beginning of 1992, the issue of an Islamic pillar was discussed in the media. The main question was whether an “Islamic pillar” was a desirable form of social organization and would foster the integration of Muslims in Dutch society.8 This debate was kicked off by an interview with Lijphart in the leading Dutch quality newspaper, which was published under the title “‘Give Muslims Separate Schools’: Prof. Lijphart Advocates the Use of Pillarization for Integration” (Versteegh 1991). In this newspaper interview, Lijphart showed himself to be a proponent of pillarization of ethnic minorities from foreign descent, especially of Moroccan and Turkish guest-workers and their children. This should happen through the establishment of their own schools and other pillar organizations. Lijphart is quoted as being even more in favor of schools based on nationality, that is, Moroccan and Turkish schools instead of schools based on faith, as “national differences are more important than those based on belief systems, although they sometimes coincide” (Versteegh 1991). In such Moroccan and Turkish schools, what is known as “education in their own language” should have an important role as an expression of their culture. In national politics, ethnic parties would play only a minor role, but in the big cities, where ethnic minorities are present in larger numbers, they should be more involved in  local government, according to Lijphart. The sociologist and Christian-Democrat Zijderveld (1991) came out strongly opposed to ethnic pillars because these would lead to “ghettoization.” Instead, Zijderveld favored pillarization on a religious basis, that is, an Islamic pillar. No education in the minority language and culture, but Islamic schools and an Islamic party. It is this notion of an Islamic pillar, also supported by Lijphart, which dominated the debate. The proponents formulated their plea as a call for action. Minorities have the right to their own organizations, but not the duty to form a new pillar, stressed Lijphart (1992a). This is an especially sensitive issue because of Lijphart’s involvement with South Africa in the early 1980s, at a time that the South African government tried to come up with new ways to legitimate apartheid.9 The formula of “separate but equal” has lost all credibility as it all too often  On a Muslim pillar in Belgium, see Torrekens (2019).  Lijphart now regrets using the term “voluntary apartheid” in a positive manner to describe distinct lines of cleavage between subcultures, one of the favorable factors for consociational democracy (Bogaards 2015: 91). 8 9

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turns out to mask “exclusion and inequality.” In a reaction published under the title “Against Forced Pillarization,” Lijphart (1992a) stresses that group formation should be voluntary and that individual members of an ethnic or religious group should be free to join any group or organization. A few years later, Lijphart (1995) wrote powerfully about the advantages of the self-determination of segments and the downside of predetermination.10 The aim of renewed pillarization, paradoxical as this may sound, is integration. The lesson that Zijderveld draws from Dutch history can be summarized as “integration through emancipation in isolation.” The assumption, more implicit than explicit, is that a minority pillar will lead to emancipation and integration through the same process that worked for Catholics and Calvinists a century ago. That pillarization at the end of the past century would have the same effect as in the beginning of the past century is, however, hotly contested. For one thing, how would an Islamic pillar function in a depillarized society? Some contend that new, smaller pillars can very well exist in a depillarized society (Ellemers 1998: 431), but others are more skeptical.11 Sunier (1999), for example, sees Muslim mobilization limited to the religious sphere in a depillarized society with a welfare state. The historian Rigthart (1992: 14) accuses Lijphart of “sloppy and a-historical thinking.” That Catholic and Calvinist subcultures eventually integrated into modern Dutch society is despite—rather than because of—pillarization, posits Rigthart (1992: 15). Pillarization is not a means of integration and especially nowadays would lead to the opposite: the long-term isolation of ethnic minorities (see also In ’t Veld 1992; Chavannes 1991). This concern was shared by secular politicians, who feared “parallel societies” and disintegration (Van Dam 2011: 113). 10  The terms liberal and corporate consociationalism capture the same distinction. Also, there is a clear preference for liberal consociationalism here (what Lijphart called self-determination). See further McCulloch (2014). 11  Turning the causal arrow around, Bracke (2013: 224) suggests that the discourse on Islam and Dutch society after 1989 reflects a cultural shift that hastened depillarization. In this reading, there were limits to the inclusiveness of the social-cultural side of consociationalism: whereas Christian and ideological pillars were allowed, a new Muslim pillar would not be tolerated and the advantages enjoyed by the (remnants) of the old pillars would be denied to the newcomers. This is an interesting thesis, but not more than that at the moment as empirical evidence is lacking. If correct, it would reveal a deliberate limit to the inclusiveness of consociational democracy, though different from the militant consociational democracy Bogaards (2020) sees in Belgium’s cordon sanitaire around the extreme right.

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Christian politicians and scholars have a different view.12 Probably the first argument in favor of a Muslim pillar in the Netherlands was made by Klop (1982) in the magazine of the research institute of the Christian Democratic Party, the author’s employer. Referring to the experience of the Calvinists and using similar terminology, Klop (1982: 531) argues that Muslims should enjoy the same “right to a gradual development within their own circle,” calling upon the government to facilitate the emergence of an “open pillar” and warning that if Muslims in the Netherlands are denied the facilities enjoyed by other religions during pillarization, the result might be a “closed” pillar of Muslims that turn away from a society that does not allow them to practice their religion to the full. At the end of the millennium, Klop (1999: 8) repeated his plea for “open pillars as a way to integrate non-Western migrants” although he recognizes that this model is not being widely followed by the people it is intended for. The main contributors to the exchange were Dutch academics. The debate was about Dutch citizens with a migrant background, not with them. This fits a pattern: “The call for a separate Islamic pillar reflects more the need for spokesmen and contacts of current administrations than a desire coming from the Muslim population itself” (Leezenberg 2006: 196). Also, little attention was paid to the feasibility of new minority pillars. Shadid and Van Koningsveld (1995) highlight four factors that complicate the emergence of an Islamic pillar. First, they doubt that a sufficiently large number of Muslims will be ready to identify with and become active in an Islamic pillar. Tellingly, the overwhelming majority of Muslim parents send their children to public and Christian schools, not to Muslim schools. Second, the internal heterogeneity of the Muslim community in the Netherlands would lead one to expect the emergence of several Muslims pillars. Third, the pool of religious, social, and political leaders is limited. Parties that appeal to voters with a migration background only appeared on the scene in the second decade of the new millennium.13 NIDA was formed in 2013 and since 2014 is represented in the city council of the country’s second largest city, Rotterdam. On its 12  As late as 2003, the small protestant Christian Union party could devote its annual congress to the question of “integration and pillarization: reflections on the multicultural society,” featuring prominent discussions of an Islamic pillar (ChristenUnie, various authors 2003). 13  Before Turkish and Moroccan politicians made their careers within mainstream parties, which stayed “away from individuals who are ‘too ethnic’” (Michon and Vermeulen 2013: 610).

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website, the party characterizes itself as “an emancipation movement inspired by Islam.”14 In 2014, two members of the national parliament with a Turkish background split from the Labour Party and formed DENK. The party presents itself “as an emancipation movement of people with a migration background,” but its votes mostly come from TurkishDutch and Moroccan-Dutch voters (Otjes and Krouwel 2019: 1153). Finally, Shadid and Van Koningsveld (1995) argue that Islam is a religion, not a church, and therefore lacks the organizational core around which the Catholic pillar was built.15 Pillarization left behind an opportunity structure that could be used by new groups (Duyvené de Wit and Koopmans 2005: 57). However, there is very little evidence of the emergence of an Islamic pillar, concludes Rath (1999: 59): “there is no question of an Islamic pillar in the Netherlands, or least one that is in any way comparable to the Roman Catholic or Protestant pillars in the past.” So far, the story has focused on the sociological perspective. That is no coincidence: the political aspects of a Turkish/Moroccan/Islamic pillar were either neglected or treated as a corollary. The political complement of pillarization is only addressed by In ’t Veld. The problems caused by pillarization seem to be forgotten, as is the self-negating prediction that was necessary to hold the country together. However, according to consociational theory, the political pluralism brought about by the new pillar would require political accommodation. And indeed, Lijphart’s plea for minority parties and the involvement of minorities in local government in the big cities seems to hint at a wholesale recommendation of the consociational package: segmental pluralism plus its political accommodation. Hoogenboom and Scholten (2008) are the only scholars to systematically connect the two sides of the coin in their analysis of the impact of the legacy of pillarization on the organization of migrants in the Netherlands.16  See: http://www.nidarotterdam.nl/onze-oproep/.  For an early overview of the organization(s) of Muslims in the Netherlands, see Rath et al. (1996). 16  Vink (2007) offers a similar overview of the development of government policies toward non-Western migrants. He likewise notes the absence of a Muslim pillar and the very limited efforts, at best, to create one. In his attempt to debunk the “pillarization myth,” however, he ignores the debate about the desirability of a Muslim pillar from the early 1990s and also omits any mention of the earlier sociological literature on pillars as a force of emancipation. For an even more comprehensive attempt to dispel the “myth” of pillarization and de-pillarization, which begins and ends with the recommendation to stop using the term, see Van Dam (2011). 14 15

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They do so by, first, examining the evidence for the emergence of an Islamic pillar (distinct outlook, exclusive organizations, integration of Islamic organizations into one pillar, key role for pillar elites) and, second, the rules of the game. Hoogenboom and Scholten identify three episodes in policy toward Dutch citizens with a non-Western background: migrants as socio-cultural minorities (up to 1989), migrants as socio-economic minorities (1989–2001), and migrants as socio-cultural individuals (since 2001). The first period was heavily influenced by the legacy of pillarization, with Dutch policies actively promoting exclusive migrant organizations based on the ideal of “identity-based integration” (integratie met behoud van eigen identiteit). In other words, new Dutch citizens would integrate into Dutch society while cultivating the differences that set them apart. This followed the logic of “group-based emancipation” (p. 114). In the second period, the focus shifted to socio-economic issues but the end-­ effect, if not goal, remained the same: socio-cultural emancipation. Only in the third period did socio-cultural differences become a problem, a problem for socio-economic success and for integration. Using the language of bonding and bridging, Scholten and Holzacker (2009: 94) show how the early appreciation of Dutch government policy for migrants bonding in their own culture and organizations has turned into the conviction that bonding is “an obstacle to bridging and a threat to national cohesion.” In the Netherlands, it is quite common nowadays to talk about the failure of multiculturalism.17 For each period, Hoogenboom and Scholten (2008), in addition to analyzing governmental policy toward migrants, also examine the seven rules of the game that Lijphart (1968a) deemed typical of the politics of accommodation. Tellingly, they refer to these as the “rules of the pillarization game,” as if political behavior logically follows from the functional demands of pillarization. And in their account, there is indeed a striking similarity: the logic of pillarization and the consociational rules of the game vis-à-vis non-Western immigrants prospered and withered together.18

17  In their comparative study, Wright and Bloemraad (2012: 90), though, find “no evidence that multiculturalism hinders socio-political integration, at least among first generation migrants, and much to suggest it fosters political inclusion.” 18  This leads Tillie (2008: 153–155) to call for a return to some of Lijphart’s rules of the game, especially businesslike politics and pragmatic tolerance, to make a multicultural society work.

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5   Accommodation, Consociationalism, and Consensus The history of different forms of power-sharing in the Netherlands can be told with the help of three types of democracy, all invented by Lijphart, a Dutch political scientist who received his university education in the United States and spent most of his career there. Back in the Netherlands to do field research for his PhD on Dutch decolonization in the 1960s, he ended up writing a second book about Dutch democracy, published in Dutch titled Verzuiling, Pacificatie en Kentering in de Nederlandse Politiek and in English as The Politics of Accommodation: Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands. In this study, Lijphart described a divided society kept together by political elites who worked together following seven “rules of the game”: pragmatism, tolerance, summit diplomacy, proportionality, depoliticization, secrecy, and the government governs. In Dutch, the term Lijphart coined for this way of engaging in politics was pacificatie politiek, named after the Pacification of 1917 at which the Calvinist, Protestant, Socialist and Liberal leaders settled three issues in one package deal: public subsidies for denominational schools, suffrage extension, and electoral reform. In English, Lijphart used the term “politics of accommodation.” Lijphart’s theoretical contribution is to show how democracy and social peace can be secured in deeply divided societies if elites engage in accommodative behavior and forsake centrifugal competition in a self-negating prediction. In his words: “Overarching cooperation at the elite level can be a substitute for crosscutting affiliations at the mass level” (Lijphart 1975: 184). Already in 1968, Lijphart noted that something was changing, as reflected in the Dutch title of his study, which includes the term kentering, meaning a shift, or even turnaround. In the preface of the second edition of his Dutch case study, Lijphart (1975: vi) wrote: “I now think that the politics of accommodation in the Netherlands came to an end around 1967.” It certainly seemed that way. Ideological fervor, opposition, grassroots activism, polarization, politicization, transparency, and calls for more democratic control replaced the old rules of the game in the 1970s (Van Praag 1990: 102). However, the following decade already showed a return to the politics of accommodation (Van Praag 1990: 106), and Lijphart (1984: 10) later revised his “misjudgment of the far-reaching nature of the events of the 1960s.” In the new millennium, the picture is mixed (Pennings and Keman 2008: 175). Successive anti-immigrant and

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anti-establishment parties have thrived on controversy and critique, and social media has made it easier to avoid deliberation and pursue a strategy of polarization. It is therefore tempting to conclude, once again, that the politics of accommodation has come to an end. However, as discussed below, this might be premature. In his first book on the Netherlands, Lijphart did not yet use the term “consociationalism,” which was introduced in two articles that placed the Dutch experience in comparative perspective (Lijphart 1968b, 1969). The political features of consociational democracy are government by a grand coalition of segmental elites; a proportional electoral system and proportionality in the allocation of jobs and other resources; segmental autonomy—territorial and/or functional; and a mutual veto—implicit or explicit. The socio-political feature of consociational democracy is a plural society, characterized by distinct and recognizable social segments; corresponding divisions between social, economic, and political organizations and stability in the electoral support for segmental parties (Lijphart 1981). The proto-typical West European consociational democracies are or were the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, and Switzerland. The entry of the term consociationalism signals three changes. First, the focus shifts from behavior to institutions (Bogaards 2000). Second, whereas pacificatie politiek is a Dutch term for a specifically Dutch phenomenon, the consociational universe is much broader. Third, consociational democracy is part of a typology of democracies. What remains the same is the largely informal character of Dutch consociationalism. With the exception of Article 23, which guarantees state funding for religious schools (segmental autonomy), and article 53, which prescribes a proportional electoral system, the four consociational principles were never enshrined in the constitution.19 Keman sees “dramatic” change, observing that “Dutch traditions of consensus, cooperation and seeking compromise by means of consociational practices appear to have evaporated” (Keman 2008: 150). However, looking at the four consociational principles, only limited change is visible. Coalition governments have become less inclusive (Andeweg 2008), but proportionality, segmental autonomy, and a mutual veto—especially if taken to mean that decision-making tends to be inclusive and consensual—remain in force. For Andeweg (2019: 10), therefore, “the

 On formal and informal consociational institutions, see Bogaards (2019).

19

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Netherlands post pillarization is best classified as a depoliticized democracy.”20 In Lijphart’s (1968b) typology of democracies, this means consociational practices continued in the context of depillarization. This is also what Koole and Daalder (2002: 40–41) observe: “Consociational democracy, when defined as the combination of a segmented society and elite cooperation, definitively belongs to the past in the Netherlands. But consociationalism in terms of consensual politics is flourishing, albeit in a changed society.” This is not necessarily a good thing. Depoliticized or cartel democracy is an inherently unstable type of democracy, as coalescent elite behavior lacks the legitimacy that comes from the need to keep a divided society together and instead is increasingly viewed as a self-serving ploy of the political elites.21 The culmination came in 1994, as the Labour Party, the reformist D66, and the conservative liberals formed a so-called “purple cabinet” (named after the mixing of party colors), which for the first time in a century excluded the Christian Democrats. The reaction came in the form of an anti-establishment party, Lijst Pim Fortuyn, that became the second largest in the national parliament less than a year after its formation (Andeweg and Thomassen 2011). The third term that applies to the Netherlands is consensus democracy. Again, a type of democracy conceptualized by Lijphart, but this time not to generalize the Dutch experience but rather to come up with his most comprehensive typology of democracies, contrasting consensus and majoritarian democracy as polar types (Bogaards 2000, 2017). Consensus democracy is characterized by ten features clustered in two dimensions with five features each. In a consensus democracy, cabinets are oversized, there is a balance of power between the government and parliament, a multi-party system, an electoral system based on proportional representation, and a corporatist system of interest intermediation (the executivesparties dimension); a federal, decentralized state, a bicameral parliament with a strong senate elected on a different principle than the house of representatives, a rigid constitution, judicial review, and an independent 20  Middendorp (1979: 14) characterizes the Netherlands in the late 1960s and 1970s as a centrifugal democracy because of polarizing strategies and ideological divisions. As the Italian experience suggests, consociationalism works less well with ideological divisions (Bogaards 2005). 21  However, if Pellikaan et al. (2003) are right about a new “antithesis” in Dutch politics based on “Christian cultural values on the one hand and Islamic cultural value on the other,” then consociational polits might be called for to prevent a centrifugal tendency.

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central bank (the federal-unitary dimension). The typical cases are Switzerland and Germany. The Netherlands are consensual on the first dimension but not on the second, a continuation of the centralizing legacy of the Napoleonic occupation. Majoritarian democracies on each feature are the opposite of consensus democracies. Examples are Barbados and the United Kingdom, especially before the reforms introduced by the New Labour government around the turn of the century. According to Lijphart (1989, 2012) the Netherlands remain a consensus democracy. Using annual data instead of Lijphart’s averages over time, Pennings and Keman (2008: 167) show a cyclical pattern with a shift toward more adversarial politics in the 1980s and 1990s before a return to more consensual politics. In their study of parliamentary opposition behavior in the Netherlands, Otjes et  al. (2018: 69) conclude that also after the financial and economic crisis of 2007/2008, “consensus trumps all other patterns.” “The changes which have occurred in the Netherlands are puzzling. Seen from one perspective, the Dutch system appears to be greatly changed. Seen from another, the system barely changed at all,” wonders Wolinetz (1990: 421). Evaluating continuity and change with the help of three types of democracy that are widely used to characterize Dutch politics, this section has found more continuity than change. At least politically: society has changed, politics less so. The old pillars are gone and no new one has emerged. In contrast, attempts at democratic reform in the Netherlands have largely failed. Hendriks (2009: 259) concludes that “the established institutions continue to be largely rooted in consensus democracy and these institutions continue to have a solid basis in society.” And this is a good thing. Hendriks (2009: 261) praises “reinventing tradition” as the most suitable way of democratic reform in the Netherlands, observing that “the Dutch tradition of pacification and accommodation has continued to resurface in new guises”. And under new labels. Nowadays, the term “polder model,” without roots in political science, is used to describe an atmosphere of pragmatic collaboration. There is even a verb, polderen, to capture this kind of behavior.

6   Conclusion In her analysis of “pathways from power sharing,” McCulloch (2017: 416) lists the Netherlands as an example of politically initiated reform. She sees the country as having undergone wholesale reform after

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consociationalism became “‘superfluous.’” (Ibid.).22 However, even if depillarization removed the need for consociational democracy, this does not mean that existing structures and practices simply ceased to exist. McCulloch envisions this process of political change as emerging out of a consensus on the need for reform among the main political actors, who together agree on constitutional reform or “institutional tinkering” (McCulloch 2017). In other words, a reversal of the “self-negating prediction” that brought consociationalism into being. However, there was no point that clearly marks the end of consociationalism in the Netherlands, no mirror of the Pacification in 1917. In fact, it is debatable whether the Pacification of 1917 was a radical departure from previous practice and whether it was a response to pillarization or rather its prelude (Daalder 1971, 1984). Consociationalism certainly contributed to pillarization, and de-pillarization by definition resulted in the end of consociationalism understood as elite collaboration in a divided society. But society changed more than its politics. Even without the need to pacify pillars, the politics of accommodation, the consociational principles, and consensus democracy continued, culminating in the contemporary “polder model.” The Dutch case shows the relationship between the political and the socio-political side of consociationalism to be dynamic, interactive, and contested. These intricacies were not always appreciated. Dutch sociologists like Schöffer (1956) saw pillars and arches as two sides of the same coin. In the extreme, this line of reasoning can lead to the kind of functionalist fallacy visible in the following quote: “However divided Dutch society might be, at the top the elites have to settle divisive issues and work out certain arrangements, under penalty of complete disintegration of society” (Ellemers 1984: 136, emphasis added). Unfortunately, the experience of other divided societies shows there is nothing automatic about elite cooperation, not even when it is most badly needed. Lijphart’s analytical distinction between social structure and elite behavior opened the way to an examination of the relationship between the two. Over the years, Lijphart has evolved from being a student of consociational democracy to its advocate (Bogaards 2000). Less well known is that Lijphart had also become more positive about segmentation. In a divided 22  McCulloch (2017) actually writes about power-sharing in the Netherlands. The terms power-sharing and consociationalism should not be confused. The first concept is broader and more recent. See Bogaards (2000) and Bogaards et al. (2019).

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society, Lijphart always saw “distinct lines of cleavage” as a favorable factor for consociational democracy and political stability because conflict comes from contact (Bogaards 1998). That consociationalism actively strengthens segmentation is also positive because strong pillars help to support the consociational roof (Lijphart 1985: 106–107). But by now, pillarization is not merely a problem that necessitates and facilitates a (consociational) solution, pillarization becomes a goal in itself. This is evident from the title of a Dutch article, “Pillarization and Accommodation as Empirical and Normative Models in Comparative Perspective” (Lijphart 1992b). This article is the text of a public lecture in which Lijphart directly addressed his critics in the debate on an Islamic pillar. Lijphart is not alone. The Dutch sociological literature on pillarization highlights its social and political functions more than its danger.23 Pillars are seen as the organizational vehicle of emancipatory movements that helped the social integration of historically disadvantaged minorities. Wintle (2000: 143), who embraces the emancipation theory of pillarization, regrets that such views are “currently unfashionable.” That is not correct. It would be more accurate to say they never went away in the Netherlands. They resurfaced in the early 1990s in the debate about a Muslim Pillar and can still be found in the work of such scholars as Tillie (2008: 33), writing about the “integrating force of ethnic organisations,” and Fennema (2003: 9), who has rescinded his earlier criticism of consociational democracy and now professes “the stronger the ethnic ties, the stronger political participation.” The debate about an Islamic pillar in the Netherlands points at the need to re-evaluate the role of pillarization in consociational theory. It raises interesting questions about the relationship between segmentation and integration, about the emancipatory versus defensive roles of subcultural organizations, about the factors that contribute to subcultural mobilization, about the self-understanding of the subculture as part of society, about the relationship between multiculturalism and pillarization, about the conditions under which the positive effects of pillarization might be replicated, about the possibility of a stand-alone pillar in a depillarized society, about ethnic versus religious bases of organization, and about possible lessons for the integration of migrant minorities. We are not done talking about pillars yet. 23  Bornewasser (1988: 172) is one of the few scholars to note how much Lijphart’s view of pillarization as a problem contrasted with the more positive Dutch literature.

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ChristenUnie (various others). (2003). Kort Commentaar 6: Integratie en Verzuiling: Bezinning op de Multiculturele Samenleving. Amersfoort: Mr. G. Groen van Prinsterer Stichting. Daalder, H. (1966). The Netherlands: Opposition in a Segmented Society. In R.  Dahl (Ed.), Political Oppositions in Western Democracies (pp.  188–236). New Haven: Yale University Press. Daalder, H. (1971). On Building Consociational Nations: The Cases of the Netherlands and Switzerland. International Social Science Journal, 23(3), 355–370. Daalder, H. (1984). The Origins of the Consociational Democracy Model. Acta Politica, 19(1), 97–116. Daalder, H. (1985). Politicologen, Sociologen, Historici en de Verzuiling. BMGN, 100(1), 52–64. Daalder, H. (1996). The Netherlands: Still a Consociational Democracy? Vienna: Institut für Höhere Studien, Political Science Series No. 33. Duyvené de Wit, T., & Koopmans, R. (2005). The Integration of Ethnic Minorities into Political Culture: The Netherlands, Germany and Great Britain Compared. Acta Politica, 40(4), 50–73. Ellemers, J. E. (1984). Pillarization as a Process of Modernization. Acta Politica, 19(1), 129–144. Ellemers, J. E. (1998). Besprekingsartikel: Studies over Verzuiling: De Stand van Zaken aan het Eind van de Jaren Negentig. Sociologische Gids, 45(6), 426–438. Fennema, M. (2003). Over de Kwaliteit van Politieke Elites. Amsterdam: Vossiuspers. Goddijn, J. J. O. (1957). Katholieke Minderheid en Protestantse Dominant. Assen: Van Gorcum. Hellemans, S. (1985). Elementen voor een Algemene Theorie van Verzuiling. Tijdschrift voor Sociologie, 6(3), 235–258. Hendriks, F. (2009). Democratic Reform Between the Extreme Makeover and the Reinvention of Tradition: The Case of the Netherlands. Democratization, 16(2), 243–268. Hendriks, F., & Toonen, T. (2001). Towards an Institutional Analysis of Dutch Consensualism. In F.  Hendriks & T.  Toonen (Eds.), Polder Politics: The Reinvention of Consensus Democracy in the Netherlands (pp.  3–19). London: Routledge. Hendriks, J. (1971). De Emancipatie van de Gereformeerden: Sociologische Bijdrage tot de Verklaring van Enige Kenmerken van het Huidige Gereformeerde Volksdeel. Samsom: Alphen aan den Rijn. Hoogenboom, M., & Scholten, P. (2008). Migranten en de Erfenis van de Verzuiling in Nederland: Een Analyse van de Invloed van de Verzuiling op het Nederlandse Migrantenbeleid (Circa 1970-Heden) B en M: Tijdschrift voor Beleid, Politiek en Maatschappij, 35(2), 107–124.

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Houska, J. (1985). Influencing Mass Political Behavior: Elites and Political Subcultures in the Netherlands and Austria. Berkeley, CA: Institute of International Studies, Research Series No. 60. In ’t Veld, R. (1992). Nieuwe Zuil Waarschijnlijk Geen Bijdrage aan Integratie. NRC-Handelsblad, 9 January. Janse, C.  S. L. (1985). Bewaar het Pand: De Spanning Tussen Assimilatie en Persistentie bij de Emancipatie van de Bevindelijk Gereformeerden. Houten: Den Hartog. Keman, H. (2008). Introduction: Politics in the Netherlands after 1989: A Final Farewell to Consociationalism? Acta Politica, 43(2–3), 149–153. Klop, C. J. (1982). De Islam in Nederland: Angst voor een Nieuwe Zuil? Christen-­ Democratische Verkenningen, 11, 526–533. Klop, C.  J. (1999). Religie of Etniciteit als Bindmiddel? Migrantenstudies, 15(4), 1–10. Koole, R., & Daalder, H. (2002). The Consociational Democracy Model and the Netherlands: Ambivalent Allies? Acta Politica, 37(3–4), 23–43. Kruijt, J. P. (1956). Verzuiling. Zaandijk: Heijnis. Kruijt, J.  P. (1957). Sociologische Beschouwingen over Zuilen en Verzuiling. Socialisme en Demokratie, 14(1), 11–29. Leezenberg, M. (2006). De Minnaret Zal Nooit een Zuil Worden: Moslims en Secularisme in Nederland en Frankrijk. In M. ten Hooven & T. de Wit (Eds.), Ongewenste Goden: De Publieke Rol van Religie in Nederland (pp. 191–204). Amsterdam: SUN. Lijphart, A. (1968a). Verzuiling, Pacificatie en Kentering in de Nederlandse Politiek. Amsterdam: J.H. de Bussy. Lijphart, A. (1968b). Typologies of Democratic Systems. Comparative Political Studies, 1(1), 3–44. Lijphart, A. (1969). Consociational Democracy. World Politics, 21(2), 207–225. Lijphart, A. (1975). The Politics of Accommodation: Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands (2nd Rev. ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. Lijphart, A. (1981). Consociational Theory, Problems and Prospects, A Reply. Comparative Politics, 13(2), 355–360. Lijphart, A. (1984). The Politics of Accommodation: Reflections—Fifteen Years Later. Acta Politica, 19(1), 9–17. Lijphart, A. (1985). Power-Sharing in South Africa. Policy Papers in International Affairs, no. 24. Institute of International Studies, Berkeley. Lijphart, A. (1989). From the Politics of Accommodation to Adversarial Politics in the Netherlands. West European Politics, 12(1), 139–153. Lijphart, A. (1992a). Tegen Gedwongen Verzuiling. NRC-Handelsblad, 9 January. Lijphart, A. (1992b). Verzuiling en Pacificatie als Empirische en Normatieve Modellen in Vergelijkend Perspectief. Acta Politica, 27(3), 323–332.

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Lijphart, A. (1995). Self-Determination versus Pre-Determination of Ethnic Minorities in Power-Sharing Systems. In W.  Kymlicka (Ed.), The Rights of Minority Cultures (pp. 275–287). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lijphart, A. (2012). Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries (2nd ed.). New Haven: Yale University Press. Lorwin, V. (1971). Segmented Pluralism: Ideological Cleavages and Political Cohesion in the Smaller European Democracies. Comparative Politics, 3(2), 141–175. Maussen, M. (2012). Pillarization and Islam: Church-State Traditions and Muslim Claims for Recognition in the Netherlands. Comparative European Politics, 10(3), 337–353. McCulloch, A. (2014). Consociational Settlements in Deeply Divided Societies: The Liberal-Corporate Distinction. Democratization, 21(3), 501–518. McCulloch, A. (2017). Pathways From Power Sharing. Civil Wars, 19(4), 405–424. Michon, L., & Vermeulen, F. (2013). Explaining Different Trajectories in Immigrant Political Integration: Moroccans and Turks in Amsterdam. West European Politics, 36(3), 597–614. Middendorp, C. P. (1979). Ontzuiling, Politisering en Restauratie in Nederland: De Jaren 60 en 70. Meppel: Boom. Nicolaas, H., & Sprangers, A. (2006). Internationale Migratie: Nederland in een Europese Context. In F. van Tubergen & I.  Maas (Eds.), Allochtonen in Nederland in Internationaal Perspectief (pp. 13–36). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Otjes, S., & Krouwel, A. (2019). Why Do Newcomers Vote for a Newcomer? Support for an Immigrant Party. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 45(7), 1148–1167. Otjes, S., Louwerse, T., & Timmermans, A. (2018). The Netherlands: The Reinvention of Consensus Democracy. In E. De Giorgi & G. Ilonszki (Eds.), Opposition Parties in European Legislatures: Conflict or Consensus? (pp. 53–72). London: Routledge. Pellikaan, H., van der Meer, T., & de Lange, S. (2003). The Road from a Depoliticized to a Centrifugal Democracy. Acta Politica, 38(1), 23–49. Pennings, P. (1990). Verzuiling: Consensus and Controverse. In U. Becker (Ed.), Nederlandse Politiek in Historisch en Vergelijkend Perspectief (pp.  63–90). Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis. Pennings, P., & Keman, H. (2008). The Changing Landscape of Dutch Politics since the 1970s: A Comparative Exploration. Acta Politica, 43(2–3), 154–179. Rath, J. (1999). The Politics of Recognizing Religious Diversity in Europe: Social Reactions to the Institutionalization of Islam in the Netherlands, Belgium and Great Britain. The Netherlands Journal of Social Sciences, 35(1), 53–68.

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Rath, J., Penninx, R., Groenendijk, K., & Meijer, A. (1996). Nederland en zijn Islam: Een Ontzuilde Samenleving Reageert op het Ontstaan van een Geloofsgemeenschap. Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis. Rigthart, H. (1986). De Katholieke Zuil in Europa: Het Ontstaan van Verzuiling onder Katholieken in Oostenrijk, Zwitserland, België en Nederland. Meppel: Boom. Rigthart, H. (1992). Wil de Turkse Abraham Kuyper Opstaan? HP/De Tijd, 10 January. Schöffer, I. (1956). Verzuiling, een Specifiek Nederlands Probleem. Sociologische Gids, 3(7), 121–127. Scholten, P., & Holzacker, R. (2009). Bonding, Bridging and Ethnic Minorities in the Netherlands: Changing Discourses in a Changing Nation. Nations and Nationalism, 15(1), 81–100. Shadid, W., & van Koningsveld, P. S. (1995). De Mythe van het Islamitisch Gevaar: Hindernissen bij Integratie. Kampen: Kok. Stuurman, S. (1983). Verzuiling, Kapitalisme en Patriarchaat. Nijmegen: SUN. Sunier, T. (1999). Verzuilen of Niet Verzuilen? Dat is de Vraag. Migrantenstudies, 15(4), 1–5. Te Velde, H. (2010). Van Regentenmentaliteit tot Populisme: Politieke Tradities in Nederland. Amsterdam: Bert Bakker. Thurlings, J.  M. G. (1978). De Wankele Zuil: Nederlandse Katholieken tussen Assimilatie en Pluralisme. Deventer: Van Loghum Slaterus. Tillie, J. (2008). Gedeeld Land: Het Multiculturele Ongemak van Nederland. Amsterdam: Meulenhoff. Torrekens, C. (2019). La Constitution d’un Pilier Musulman? Entre Essai de Structuration et Éclatement des Communautés Musulmanes Belges. In L. Bruyère, A.-S. Crosetti, J. Faniel, & C. Sägesser (Eds.), Piliers, Dépilarisation et Clivage Philosophique en Belgique (pp. 101–114). Brussels: CRISP. Van Dam, P. (2011). Staat van Verzuiling: Over een Nederlandse Mythe. Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek. Van Doorn, J.  A. A. (1956). Verzuiling: Een Eigentijds Probleem van Sociale Controle. Sociologische Gids, 3(3-4), 41–49. Van Doorn, J. A. A. (1958). De Emancipatie der Nederlands Rooms Katholieken in de Sociologische Literatuur. Sociologische Gids, 5(5), 194–204. Van Mierlo, H. J. G. A. (1986). Depillarisation and the Decline of Consociationalism in the Netherlands: 1970–1985. West European Politics, 9(1), 97–119. Van Praag, P. (1990). Continuïteit en Verandering in de Nederlandse Politiek. In U. Becker (Ed.), Nederlandse Politiek in Historisch en Vergelijkend Perspectief (pp. 91–112). Amsterdam: Het Spinhuis. Van Schendelen, M. C. P. M. (1978). Verzuiling en Restauratie in de Nederlandse Politiek. Beleid en Maatschappij, 5(2), 42–54.

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CHAPTER 3

Power-Sharing in Austria: Consociationalism, Corporatism, and Federalism Peter Bussjäger and Mirella M. Johler

Map 3.1 Austria. 17743&lang=en

Source:

https://www.d-maps.com/carte.php?num_car=

© The Author(s) 2021 S. Keil, A. McCulloch (eds.), Power-Sharing in Europe, Federalism and Internal Conflicts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53590-2_3

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1   Introduction: Austria as a Role Model of Consociational Democracy and Corporatism In Austria, power-sharing is multi-dimensional. The country has gained prominence for being a prime early example of consociationalism (Lijphart 1969: 211). This counts especially for the years between 1945 and 1966 as the period of classical consociationalism. Likewise, federal arrangements divert political power away from the central government. While the federal— vertical and territorial—form of power-sharing continues to shape Austrian politics, the consociational pattern has experienced significant changes toward more competitive politics. Therefore, this chapter attempts to analyze both strands of power-sharing modes in Austria. Given that important power-players of Austrian politics, such as the Landeshauptleutekonferenz or the Social Partnership are or have been informal (not constitutionally fixed) bodies, the piece borrows from historical institutionalism (Broschek 2012: 662–687) to explain the trajectory of power-sharing in the country. The approach will thus be an interdisciplinary one that combines constitutional law and political science. An interdisciplinary perspective helps to explain how and why consociational power-sharing arrangements evolved into a more conflict-orientated style of policy-making.

2   Theoretical Foundations 2.1  Consociational Democracy Following Arend Lijphart, “consociational democracy means government by elite cartel designed to turn a fragmented political culture into a stable democracy” (Lijphart 1969: 216). The mentioning of an elite cartel should not obscure the point that consociational power-sharing may not only engulf horizontal power-sharing among political elites, but it may also touch down through a corporatist organization of society (Lehmbruch 2003: 36–37). These arrangements are referred to as pillarization or division of society into the camps (Lager in German) of capital and labor (mediated through party political affiliations) or ethnical or religious

P. Bussjäger (*) • M. M. Johler Institute of Public Law, State and Administrative Science, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]

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allegiances (Crepaz 2002: 157–164).1 Consociationalism occurs if the elites on top of the respective pillars/camps agree to cooperate rather than compete with each other. The concept of consociational democracy was developed in order to explain the paradox of political stability in multi-party systems with fragmented political sub-cultures (Lijphart 1969: 207–211). The phenomenon was first observed in the Scandinavian and Low Countries, Switzerland, and Austria and regarded as a distinct feature that would set them apart from Anglo-American and Continental European (France, Germany or Italy) systems as a new category of systems (Lijphart 1969: 207). Thereby, the overall peculiarity was seen within governments (or governmental coalitions) which ruled, although they (or their coalitions’ partners) could not enjoy compelling societal majorities (without each other’s coalition partner) (ibid.: 225). To be precise: this notion upsets a very basic idea of democracy, namely rule by the majority. In the absence of authoritarian rule, the answer must thus have lied within certain forms of power-sharing arrangements, which interlinked the fragmentation of society into different ideological/religious/ethnical groups. Thereby, the consociational model builds a sharp contrast to “the majoritarian tendencies of the Westminster model” (Lijphart 1999: 34). Austria’s federal constitution (hereinafter B-VG) of 1920/1929 was re-adopted in 1945. The re-adoption was administered by the provisional state government and supervised by the allied forces. The First (1918–1938) and the Second Republic (since 1945) operate(d) on largely the same constitution, but politics changed fundamentally: while the First Republic collapsed in  1933/1934 into civil-war and dictatorship of the authoritarian constitution of the Ständestaat, the Second Republic brought the stability paradigm which made the country a prime example of consociational democracy (Lijphart 1969: 211–212). From this follows that it is not only the constitution that needs to be scrutinized for power-­ sharing mechanisms but political culture and social structure need to be included as well. In other words, the political sociology of vertically encapsulated (and mutually adverse) sub-cultures (“pillars”) and the accommodating behavior of political elites deliver the puzzle pieces to explain stability in a fragmented environment (Luther 1999: 43). Lijphart detailed his seminal definition of consociational democracy by establishing a list of characteristics: executive power is carried out by broad coalition governments as the country’s most important parties tend to share 1

 For more, see the contributions on the Netherlands and Belgium in this volume.

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executive power in coalition games; the political systems in question are neither fully presidential nor parliamentary; the executive-legislative relations are more relaxed, best visible through the fact that members of government usually do not need to resign if government proposals are defeated by Parliament even though the government depends on the confidence of parliament; consociational democracies exhibit multi-party systems and proportional electoral systems; consociational systems tend to know (varying degrees of) corporatist interest group representation; a tendency toward a federal or decentralized government can be noted; bicameralism, as a means to represent minorities and federal units is another criterion of consociational democracy; and consociationally organized polities tend to have written and rigid constitutions, as well as judicial review (Lijphart 1999: 35–47). Among the characteristics established by Lijphart, federal governance stands out in Austria. This is why this chapter pays special attention to the interlinkage of consociationalism and federal theory. If the aforementioned definition of consociationalism is contrasted with the concept of separation of powers, power-sharing is understood as a de-facto politically agreed-upon joint exercise of power which is not necessarily constitutionally granted. By contrast, the separation of power concept stands for a constitutional limitation of the scopes of different statist powers (legislative, executive, judicative). The constitutional fixing “transforms the political relationship between the different arms of governments into a legal relationship” (Fleiner and Fleiner-Basta 2009: 230). In this context, the federal design of statist institutions bridges the constitutional separation of powers with consociational theory’s idea of exercising power jointly. Consociational theory holds that divided societies achieve peace under a ‘grand bargain.’ The latter includes segmental autonomy—an autonomy that can be shaped territorially-vertically, that is, federally, or horizontally (such as it is the case for religious or cultural autonomy) (Choudhry and Hume 2014: 374). In this context, federalism is seen as a means to pacify and govern the cleavages of divided societies (ibid.). In Austria, the respective cleavages were neither ethnic nor religious but ideologically politically motivated and reinforced by center-provincial tensions (Fallend 2011: 179). Depending on different countries, segmental autonomy may (or may not) be constitutionally granted. Another connection of consociational theory with federal organization of state structures lies within parliamentarism: Bradley and Pinelli (2012: 569) found a correspondence between parliamentary systems and federations through the Second Chamber which represents the regional units.

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2.2  Federal Power-Sharing Federalism is another important means by which to share power. Classically, the federal principle can be described as “the general and the regional governments must be coordinate and independent in their respective spheres” (Wheare 1964: 4–5). Constitutionally, the federal principle should materialize through written constitutions which distribute legislative and administrative powers between the central and regional governments, elections for the parliamentary assemblies of both statist levels, the power of governments to act independently of each other, and a high court (supreme court or constitutional court) acting as arbiter between the levels of governments (Choudhry and Hume 2014: 357). Different levels of governments indicate that federalism is a vertical form of power-­ sharing. The reference to the center and the provinces shows that federal power-sharing has a territorial dimension as well. In constitutional terms, a federally organized country may exhibit the organs of the statist division of power on two layers: on the level of the federation (i.e., organs which are competent for the whole federation as such) and at the level of the federal units. Federal constitutions distribute the powers between the governmental levels and exhibit a vertical-territorial separation of powers. The constitutional establishment is referred to as constitutional guarantees (Fleiner and Fleiner-Basta 2009: 529). Shared rule is crucial for legitimate rule (ibid.: 571). In other words, shared rule between the levels of governments is part of the ‘grand bargain’ of consociational theory (Choudhry and Hume 2014: 374). Federalism (and decentralization) are “not only a guaranteed division of power between the central and noncentral levels of government but also, in practice, strong noncentral governments that exercise a substantial portion of the total power available at both levels” (Lijphart 1999: 186). Federalism is thus used primarily either in relatively large or pluralistic countries (ibid.: 195). The vertical-territorial separation of powers holds especially for the cooperative type of federalism. The latter is a type of federalism in which the federation is given the primary prerogative of legislation, and the federal units are primarily tasked to execute the respective legislation. By contrast, the dualist type is marked by horizontal divisions of powers between the levels of the state: certain subject matters are reserved for the federation to legislate and administrate while other matters can be legislated and executed by the federal units (Halberstam 2001: 175).

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The cooperative and thus power-sharing nature of Austrian federalism is visible through several features: The division of competences between the federation and the Länder (Articles 10-15 B-VG) is accompanied by the “indirect administration through the Länder” (Article 102 B-VG). The respective subject matters are legislated by the federal legislator but administrated by the administrative apparatus of the Länder. Further, the Länder and the federation enjoy certain participatory rights in each other’s legislative procedures (exemplarily Articles 14b and 98 (2) of the Federal Constitution) (Gamper 2010: 35–43). The Austrian Constitutional Court has coined the term, Berücksichtigungsprinzip (principle of consideration), which implies that the different levels of governments’ legislators need to take into account each other’s legislative competences when drafting legislation. In other words, they may not use their legislative competences to impede each other’s radius of action.2 Besides legislative entanglements, informal institutions such as the conference of governors (Landeshauptleutekonferenz) or diverse expert commissions and working groups on permanent and ad-hoc basis complete the picture of cooperative federalism (Bussjäger 2010: 121, 2017: 244). Yet, the abovementioned definition of federalism appears to be overly legalistic (Choudhry and Hume 2014: 357). International authors (e.g., Erk 2008: 17–30) tend to overlook that the constitutional gravity in favor of the federation (i.e., its majority of legislative competences) is counterbalanced by the de-­ facto political weight of regional party power-houses and the Land Governors who carry different hats (responsibility for the Länder administration, the indirect federal administration, and high-ranking functions within the political parties or their regional segments) (Bussjäger 2012a: 310–319). Austrian scholars talk of an “executive federalism” with a de-­ facto political component (ibid.; Karlhofer and Pallaver 2013: 41–59). In other words, federal power-sharing is experienced best through the realm of political flexibility resulting from administrative interdependences. The circle between consociational theory and federalism closes again by referring to the ‘grand bargain’ of divided societies: whereas an initial bargain may have resulted in the establishment of a federally organized constitution and polity, the shape of a cooperative federalism provokes bargains on a basis of day-to-day politics. In other words, cooperative federalism 2  Gamper (2010: 42), with reference to VfSlg 8831/1980, 10.292/1984, 14.403/1996, 15.281/1998, 15.552/1999, 16.452/2002, 17.212/2004, 17.497/2005, and 18.096/2007.

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reinforces the consociational idea of bargained solutions. Scharpf has coined the saying of a “joint decision trap” (Scharpf 2006: 845–864). One level of government cannot decide or act without the other, or at least without taking into account the other’s opinion and sphere of (legislative) influence on its actions. Thus, the constitutional arrangements of cooperative federal designs cause power-sharing by negotiation.

3   The Birth of the Federal Constitution of Austria The proclamation of the Republic on 9 November 1918 and the adoption of the Federal Constitution on 1 October 1920 are starting points for the development of power-sharing in Austria. Constitutional developments evolved over a prolonged period. When the first republican government took over in November 1918, statist power was difficult to consolidate as it was primarily exercised by the Länder (Austria’s federal units). Correspondingly, attempts to shape the provisional state constitution in a centralist manner (as expressed by the first laws enacted) failed. Back then, the Länder had declared themselves as independent parts of the German-Austrian state which suffered from unclear contours. Whereas the then-constitutional doctrine attempted to relativize those declarations of independence (Brauneder 2000: 72; Pernthaler 1979: 26), it should be noted that the declarations differ from each other rather significantly. The central government attempted to counteract these aspirations by issuing the “Law of 14 November 1918 on the Assumption of State Power in the Länder”3 (Häfele 2006: 75) which, according to Kelsen, had the intention of nationalizing the entire provincial administration, “but the effect of the law [was] the exact opposite” (ibid.). The law created a duplication of administrative structures between the Landesrat and the Landeshauptmann (Provincial Governor). Both were elected by the Landtag (Provincial Assembly). The Landesrat had to oversee the formerly autonomous administration of the province (Landesverwaltung), while the Landeshauptmann was tasked with carrying out the former state administration. Given that the state legislator did not foresee any regulations governing the interaction between the two bodies, chaos and uncertainty were preprogrammed. The intention of the Vienna-based central government was clear, namely, to gain greater control over the Länder. 3

 StGBl 1918/24.

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The Länder exercised their legislative powers and their constitutional sovereignty in an original manner which stemmed from a historic self-­ conception as a distinct territory (a Land). The respective authority fueled constitutional autonomy (Pernthaler 1979: 27). From a federal point of view, it was, therefore, the independent constitutional sovereignty of the Länder which, by recognizing the central power of the State, established the Federal State of Austria, and not vice versa (ibid.). Consequently, the facts created in the provinces through their continuation of provincial legislation and implementation can be interpreted as the original foundation of the state, even if the central government in Vienna set the course for a (decentralized) unitary state (Pernthaler 2004: 285–286). The agenda-setting activities of the central government and the Länder were increasingly overlaid by party-political interests. The province-center cleavage was co-opted with tensions between Christian-social (conservative) and social-democratic fractions (the forerunners of today’s parties ÖVP [Österreichische Volkspartei/Austrian People’s Party] and SPÖ [Sozialdemokratische Partei Österreichs/Social Democratic Party of Austria]). The voters of the latter were predominantly seated in the provinces, while the social-democrats enjoyed their greatest support in and around Vienna. In light of the rising tensions between political factions, the Federal Constitution is perceived as a rather value-neutral constitution (Öhlinger and Eberhard 2016: 38)4 that was designed to function as a set of rules for the struggle for political power and parliamentary majorities. The rules ought to protect minorities insofar as the governing majority could not amend the rules without much ado during their legislative period in favor of their continuous rule (ibid.: 29). One thus talks of a Spielregelverfassung (Drexel 2013: 187). The understanding of the constitution as a code of procedure for the political game dominated constitutional interpretation and jurisdiction up until the 1980s (Öhlinger and Eberhard 2016: 36–37). The Austrian Constitution and its interpretation are thus an example of how political realities and theoretical/methodological foundations presupposed each other—this is to say that even if Kelsen’s positivist approach may be criticized today, it should be acknowledged that its neutrality helped to initiate parliamentary democracy after centuries of monarchic rule and in the midst of ideological confrontations. Austria seems to be a case for Weber’s assumption that “constitutional 4  Value-neutral needs to be understood against the backdrop of today’s focus on fundamental rights, arguably induced by the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

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drafters cannot help but pay attention to the nature of the political parties within the polity when thinking through various possible design models” (Skach 2012: 887). Overall, the formation of the Federal Constitution of Austria was established by two fundamental aspects: first, the relationship between the central government and the federal states, whereby the positions of the federal states weakened seemingly in parallel to the strengthening of the central government; and secondly, party-political disputes between the ‘citizen bloc’ on the one hand (Christian-Socialists, Landbund, Greater Germans) and the Social Democrats, as well as the less significant Communists on the other hand increasingly overlapped with the center-periphery cleavage. Contrary to the political parties, the business associations and trade unions had little influence on politics, although they were increasingly used by the political parties.

4   Developments During the First Republic Karl Renner (social-democratic) became chancellor in 1918 and presided over the first grand coalition. Despite an initial grand coalition, the politics of the First Republic were centrifugal, both territorially and party-­ politically (Pelinka 2002: 139). The federal states of Vorarlberg, Tyrol and Salzburg exhibited tendencies to pull out of the Republic and join either Switzerland (Vorarlberg) or Germany (Tyrol and Salzburg) or declare their independence (Tyrol) (Steiner 2004: 72–95). The years from 1920 to 1934 witnessed conservative governments. While the conservative government enjoyed the support of the provinces, Vienna was dominated by Socialists. In a way, the programs by the municipal government (e.g., public housing projects, such as the famous Karl-Marx Hof ) and the narrative of a soon-to-come dictatorship of the proletariat increased the fear of Bolshevism as known from the Russian Revolution (ibid.: 81). Soon, the conservative (Kriechbaumer 2008: 7–80) and the socialist (Konrad 2008: 63–70) camps created para-military organizations: the conservative Heimwehr and the socialist Republikanischer Schutzbund. The Schattendorf demonstration in early 1927 was the trigger of further radicalization: two participants of socialist demonstrations were shot dead, but the perpetrators were acquitted. The demonstration against this judgment resulted in the storming of the Palace of Justice and the latter’s burning. The year 1929 brought about a constitutional amendment which strengthened the role of the Federal President: the latter was now elected due to popular direct

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election, tasked to appoint and dissolve government (which was formerly elected by parliament) and the supreme commander of the army (Brauneder 2008: 23). The hardened tensions between the political Lager were aggravated by the fact that most of the former Habsburg monarchy’s industry was located outside the borders of the new Austrian republic. Thus, the tiny new state was hit even harder by the upcoming world economic crisis (Steiner 2004: 103). Alongside tensions between the black and red Lager, a rising number of people started to fancy the “third Lager” of National Socialism waving in from neighboring Germany and begun articulating desires to join Germany. Austro-Fascism emerged. Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss used the 1917 “Wartime Enabling Act” (Kriegswirtschaftliche Ermächtigungsgesetz) to sidetrack parliament and rule by (administrative) decrees. The Constitutional Court was side-tracked too, censorship was introduced, and socialists were confronted with hostile measures such as house searches. In this context, gunfights between the paramilitary organizations resulted in the Austrian Civil War of February 1934 and an attempted coup sponsored by the German National Socialists in July 1934.

5   The Ständestaat between 1934–1938 In 1934 the First Republic slipped into the Ständestaat. The latter took inspiration from the Mussolini type of fascism, but also exhibited totalitarian traits (Steiner 2004: 39–49). The Ständestaat was introduced by the imposed constitution of 1 May 1934 and caused a stratification of society into representatives of occupational stands (Stände) which formed corporations. The corporations replaced political parties and parliamentarism. The new type of interest representation was imposed from above and eliminated the voluntarily formed, bottom-up labor movement and its associations (Tálos 2008b: 277). The Bundestag did not enjoy genuine legislative work but mainly affirmed governmental bills. Many regulations were issued as decrees based on the Enabling Act (Steiner 2004: 147–161). It is sometimes argued that authoritarian corporatism was a desperate attempt by the conservatives to shield Austria from accession to Germany— which was pursued externally by Germany itself and internally by the country’s rising numbers of respective supporters (ibid.: 168–200). In April 1938, German troops marched into Austria, and the country became part of Germany during the Second World War.

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6   Developments During the Second Republic 6.1  1945–1966 The years after the Second World War were devoted to reconstruction. Pelinka argues that the old elites of the First Republic learned their lessons: as a result of the Austrian civil-war, Austro-Fascism and Nazism, Social-Democrats (now SPÖ) and Christian-Socials (now ÖVP) agreed to dampen unbridled competition and cooperate instead. The cooperation was a product and means to prove to the Allies that Austria would overcome Nazism and later survive between the frontiers of the Cold War (Pelinka 2002: 141). The elitist cooperation formed out as governmental and parliamentary alliances and synergies between employee and employers (ibid.). The years between 1945 and 1966 are the classical consociationalism period. Party membership (i.e., membership of ÖVP or SPÖ, one of the big Lager parties) accumulated to 25–27 percent of the Austrian electorate. The political integration of the population was not only orchestrated by the parties, but by auxiliary organizations (Tálos 2008a, b: 32–35). Thus, it appears to be a logical consequence that Austria was named a primary example of classical consociationalism—whose theory was built upon the empirics of stratified societal organization. Partially, membership of the latter was occupation-based and thus functioned automatically through the means of compulsory membership in the chambers. Employees were to become members of the Chamber of Labor and self-employed, and entrepreneurs were associated with the Federal Chamber of Business. The occupational organizations are named “Social Partners” (Sozialpartner): the Federal Chamber of Business, the Chamber of Labor, the Chambers of Agriculture and the Association of Austrian Industrialists. These organizations were mostly organized as statuary bodies under public law and referred to as chambers (Luther 1999: 66). By contrast, the trade unions were created based on private law and voluntary membership. This duality of interest representation is seen as an Austrian peculiarity (Armingeon 2017: 287). As a consequence, one talks of neo-corporatist interest representation. From a federal perspective, these arrangements appeared clearly centralist. Back in the days, politicians could easily change from party to chamber functions and back again; double-functions (Personalunion) were no rarity and even regarded as a guarantee of success (Pelinka 2002: 144; Crepaz 2002: 163). Important socio-economic

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decisions were fine-tuned by the Social Partners (Crepaz 2002: 161) exemplarily by the Parity5 Commission for Wages and Prices (Paritätische Kommission für Lohn- und Preisfragen). Indicated by their name, the Parity Commission regulated Austrian markets, though, notably, only informally. The Social Partnership was not mentioned in the Federal Constitution of Austria (ibid.: 158). However, the mandatory membership of the Chambers as regulated by federal law indicates that the state promoted corporatist integration (Armingeon 2017: 290). The public law status enabled interest groups to be consulted during legislative drafting. The interest groups were not only consulted but allowed to state their proposals. These advisory procedures were highly accommodating and are symptomatic of a consociationalist culture of compromise (Crepaz 2002: 163). Other auxiliary organizations provided childcare or leisure activities such as the Kinderfreunde or the Austrian Club for Automobilists, Motorbikers and Cyclists. Members of the political Lager (Müller 2001: 191) were encapsulated in their political milieus from ‘womb to tomb’ (Luther 1999: 44; Pelinka 2002: 143). Patronage on party-group and individual levels was key to maintain Lager party loyalties (Pelinka 2002: 54; Méndez-Lago 1999: 195–220; Plasser and Seeber 2017: 341). Election outcomes reflected these loyalties. SPÖ membership rose from 614,366 members in 19496 to 699,432 by 1966. SPÖ voters accounted for up to 1,623,524 in 1949 to 1,928,985 in 1966. From 1966, however, membership figures declined. By 1995, only 487,490 members were recorded (Luther 1999: 45). Similar trends were observed at the level of party membership: party membership increased from 485,000 members in 1949 to 700,000 in 1966. The following years recorded a decline to 552,000 members in 1995. Between 1949 and 1966, the voters rose from 1,846,581 to 2,191,109; however, the following decades witnessed a decline too: in 1995, 1,370,497 voters were counted (ibid.). Between 1945 and 1966, Austria was a classic case of pillarization (Méndez-Lago 1999: 192). Sociologically, the political cleavages of the First Republic were frozen and forestalled a dichotomist view of society (Méndez-Lago 1999: 50; Pelinka 2002: 140). During this time, the country rarely encountered substantial strikes or unrest—indeed, the system is largely seen as having brought social peace and stability (ibid.). 5  “Parity” refers to the fact that the commission was equipped with members of the ÖVP and the SPÖ. 6  The data provided by Luther (1999: 45) do not capture the immediate post-war period.

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The Federal Constitution of 1920 was re-enacted in 1945 and with it the federal divisions of power.7 Whereas not much has changed overall, the same can be stated with regard to federalism. The stability of the party system was reflected in their relationship to the constitution. It seems that they agreed to cooperate on the basis of the Spielregelverfassung (see above). In other words, consensus was based on a functional set of rules rather than on values. With regard to federal power-sharing, the Federal Council (Bundesrat) remained a rather toothless instrument given that its veto-power was only suspensive (Article 42 B-VG). The rise of social politics and statist economics made the division of competences (Articles 10-15 B-VG) increasingly inadequate. Forestallment was aggravated by the casuistic and conservative jurisprudence of the constitutional court. This is to say that the Constitutional Court developed the so-called Versteinerungstheorie. This method of interpretation sought to determine the meaning of the division of competence provisions (Articles 10-15 B-VG) by reference to the historic meaning of the provisions when they came into effect (in most cases1 October 1925) (Öhlinger and Eberhard 2016: 33–37). Benefiting from coalitions, the necessary majorities were used to equip federal laws with constitutional clauses—a legalistic technique employed to surpass the rigid corset of the constitutional division of competences. Although the grand coalition would have had the necessary two-third majorities (Article 44 B-VG) for constitutional amendments because they comprised almost more than 90 percent of the seats of the National Council, Austrian federalism was not further developed in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. If competence-related projects are examined, the post-war period was dominated by centralist tendencies. One reason is that the second chamber of parliament, the Federal Council, had at this time no veto-power toward amendments of the Federal Constitution restricting Länder competences. Such a veto-power was introduced only in 1984. In 1962, the education sector served as an example wherein Länder competences were transferred to the federal level.8 Meanwhile, the constitutional recognition of the municipal communities was completed in exchange for transferring the competence of community law from the Länder to the central government (Bussjäger 2015: 210–212). However, it would fall short of real politics to assume an overall centralist tendency of Austrian federalism. The federalization of Austrian politics 7 8

 StGBl. Nr. 232/1945.  BGBl. Nr. 215/1962.

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was largely carried out through informal channels, both through political parties and the Conference of the Land Governors (Karlhofer 2015: xxvi– xxviii; Fallend 2003: 27). The influence of the political parties was reflected by the fact that many issues of public concern were discussed on the federal and the Länder level (Bussjäger 2017: 244–245; Fallend 2004: 83–96), and both coalition parties enjoyed regional power-houses which were important constituencies for national elections. The Land Governors started to meet during the 1950s (Bussjäger 2015: 214). Their get-­ together is seen as a reaction against centralizing tendencies. Informal power was crucial for further reforms. To sum up, the period between 1945 and 1966 developed the Austrian variant of consociationalism. Consociationalism, which largely overlapped with federal power-sharing, thus resulted in high degrees of centralization. 6.2  1966–1999 The grand coalition ended in 1966. The following years witnessed the election of both single-party governments, including ÖVP (1966–1970) and SPÖ (1970–1971, 1971–1983) governments, and SPÖ/FPÖ coalitions, between 1983 and 1987. The classic grand coalition experienced a revival in 1987 (Luther 1999: 64). Yet, what caused these shifts in the decades after 1966? To begin with, the structures of party membership altered: starting in the 1970s, SPÖ membership became more attractive to white-collar members who, by the early 1990s, accounted for up to 30 percent of the members of the former blue-collar party. ÖVP membership meanwhile continued to be dominated by farmers, the self-employed and persons with intermediated or higher education. Yet, the membership of both parties began to age and the Austrian social structure recorded a decline of agriculture and industrial production (Luther 1999: 50). At the same time, partisan affiliation decreased from 65 to 34 percent between 1966 and 1999 (ibid.: 51). Old-school patronage and clientelism began to spark public frustration (ibid.: 55). The 1980s were marked by the emergence of parties outside the system of the red-black coalition, as the Greens and the FPÖ created new oppositions on the left and the right end of the political scale (Méndez-Lago 1999: 233). Younger voters especially were reported to leave the political camps into which they were born, moving their sympathies to the FPÖ or the Greens, which did not lure voters with the package offers as known by the ÖVP or SPÖ (Pelinka 2002: 148). The

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(relative) decline of agriculture and industrial production has been accompanied by modernization, higher levels of general education and a shift from materialist (e.g., security, welfare) to post-industrial values (such as natural protection, civic participation and self-empowerment). By and large, a correlation between higher education and post-materialistic values in the electorate of the Greens, as well as a correlation between anti-­system tendencies of the FPÖ and blue-collar workers’ fears as potential losers of modernization could be observed (ibid.: 149; Leser 2002: 151–154). In this context, the rise of the right-wing FPÖ has been described as a journey of a party that competed against the established consociational system (Karlhofer 2013: 245–266). The party was reported to rebel against the “establishment”—in so doing, targeting the old elites of the ÖVP/SPÖ leadership. This finding fits in the somewhat international diagnosis of Politikverdrossenheit (a fatigue toward politics): democracies which are based on negotiated consensus are reported to be particularly prone to populist anti-establishment critique (Papadopoulos 2005: 73–81). Party political rhetoric shifted from solidarity appeals (between the rival Lager) to promoting distinct party leaders along with sharpened and more expensive campaigns (Luther 1999: 62). This finding supports the hypothesis that the absence of significant opposition in a de-pillarized9 system that is still dominated by elite-cartels would lead to anti-system opposition (Andeweg et al. 2009: 61). The post-1975 experience of both pillar parties as opposition led to the enhancement of parliamentary control and minority rights (Andeweg et al. 2009: 76–79). Professionalization instead of volunteers became fashionable, and de-pillarization impacted on the development of Lager parties into (attempted) catch-all parties (Nassmacher 2009: 383). It can be concluded that power-sharing became more of a sharing between parliament and government, as well as between the federation and the Länder instead of a sharing between the political parties. The corporatist structure was stable until the 1980s. Besides the aforementioned political culture, the still large share of state-owned enterprises helped to keep corporatism running smoothly (Tálos 2006: 428–431). 9  De-pillarization is understood as ”that the depth and width of the penetration of pillar organizations in societies declines, that pillar organizations de-ideologize, that cross-pillar merges may take place, that new non-pillarized parties and organizations emerge, and that structural bonds between pillar parties and pillar organizations weaken” (Andeweg et  al. 2009: 60).

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However, following Austria’s EU membership in 1995, the economy became liberalized, and, consequently, the radius of influence of corporatist organizations declined. Economic policies were confronted with competitive pressures, and making Austria attractive to foreign business became an influential rationale (Standort-Politik) (Marterbauer 2005: 57–65). The “policies on subsidies, deregulation of capital markets, EU-wide limitations on fiscal policies, deficit spending, exchange rate policies and other measures to…harmonize European policy-making, limit[ed] corporatist policy-makers’ room for maneuver” (Crepaz 2002: 170; Tálos 2006: 436–441). EU membership has also strengthened the judiciary as court action has been used more often to counter governmental measures (Andeweg et al. 2009: 86). Concerning federalism, the Länder started to issue joint claims. When the federation asked the Länder to contribute to the financial recovery of the federal budget, the Länder submitted their catalog of claims in 1964. This catalog built (Fallend 2003: 26–37) the basis for the 1974 constitutional amendment and is seen as a crucial point for the rise of the influence of the Land Governors (Bussjäger 2015: 216). Notably, a constitutional amendment was introduced during an SPÖ government and brought about Article 15a of the Federal Constitution. According to this provision, the federation and the Länder are allowed to conclude treaties with each other, which function as the core of today’s cooperative federalism in Austria (Glantschnig 2010: 66–73). The constitutional amendment further expanded some of the Länders’ competencies, such as within the realm of environmental protection (Bussjäger 2015: 217). However, the 1994 attempt for a second federalist reform failed (Bussjäger 2013: 628–631). Similar to the social partnership, EU membership changed the federal dynamics: EU membership changed the division of competences between the federation and the Länder in as far as both have to respect legislative acts by the EU and implement them. “The scope of what Bund and Länder governments can regulate independently when it comes to legislation below EU level has been narrowed down intensely” (Eppler and Staudigl 2015: 93) The roles of the federation and the Länder have changed from being legislators and policy-makers to managers of (institutional) interdependencies (ibid.). From an inner-Austrian perspective, Article 23d B-VG needs to be mentioned because the Länder are equipped with participatory rights in the Austrian decision-making process at EU matters—Article 23d B-VG is thus an instance of shared rule within EU matters (ibid.: 97–102).

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6.3  1999–2019 Concerning corporatist politics, the tendencies of liberalization and privatization continue(d). The Parity Commission for Wages and Prices met for the last time in 1998. As infrastructure was privatized, other parity consultative committees lost their function and ceased to exist (Tálos 2006: 438). The elections to the national council in autumn 1999 brought about a stalemate between three parties with approximately equal results: The SPÖ under the former federal chancellor Viktor Klima, the FPÖ under Jörg Haider and the ÖVP under its chairman Wolfgang Schüssel. The SPÖ did not succeed in forming a government with the ÖVP, which can be seen as a telling sign of the departure from the structures of a consociational state with grand coalitions between those two parties. Parts of the ÖVP believed that a continued grand coalition would strengthen oppositional vibes within the FPÖ camp. Tálos argues that the overall political style developed from negotiation and compromise to conflict and more belligerent measures (ibid.: 441). The consensus-style of policy-­ making (Verhandlungsdemokratie) seems to have been overlaid by the usage of the majority of votes (Tálos and Stromberger 2005: 98–106). The ÖVP/FPÖ government (the Schüssel-I government of 2000–2002) led to distinct changes of the old structures: The ÖVP-FPÖ coalition preferred external advisors rather than expertise provided by the chambers or trade unions/associations (Tálos 2006: 438). After the break-up of this government, Schüssel formed a second coalition (Schüssel II), which lasted until 2006. The external façade of corporatism remained largely unchanged: mandatory chambers’ membership was maintained as was the role of the associations in the negotiation of collective agreements for employees. The social security funds whose decisive bodies are composed of representatives of employers and employees (another typical feature of Austrian consociationalism) remained essentially unchanged. Nevertheless, the government pushed through important reforms to liberalize the economy. Exemplarily, this was the time of the implementation of the Second Energy Package (in the course of EU-driven unbundling of energy production, transmission and retail (Bussjäger 2013: 642)). The federal government set up the Austrian Convention in June 2003 to draft a new federal constitution (Bussjäger 2012b: 97–117). Although no agreement was reached during the convention, several proposals were subsequently used as a basis for constitutional amendments. Surprisingly,

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these amendments included the anchoring of the self-administration of the chambers. Article 120a (1) B-VG10 expressly enabled the legislator to create institutions of self-administration (such as the chambers). Articles 120b and 120c established jurisdiction of the Constitutional Court on the construction of bodies of self-administration (freedom of instruction in its own sphere of activity, organization according to democratic principles). Article 120a para 2 also stipulates that the Republic recognizes the role of the social partners, respects their autonomy and promotes social dialogue through the establishment of self-governing bodies. This amendment was implemented by the 2008 SPÖ/ÖVP government. It seems safe to say that self-administration was secured by constitutional law only in times in which the former was under considerable pressure. Article 120a needs to be seen within the context of the other self-administration (sonstige Selbstverwaltung), that is, the self-administration other than the territorial (federal) self-administration.11 A 2014 decision by the Austrian Higher Administrative Court ruled that any such self-administrative bodies are (only) those whose members are members on an ex lege base.12 Article 120a can thus be seen as only targeting the chambers, but not the voluntary associations or trade unions. Other than the grand coalitions of the classic consociational period, the Schüssel I and II governments did not possess the necessary majorities to pass constitutional reforms. This is why the proposed administrative reform could unfold only on the level of ordinary federal law: exemplarily, jurisdictions of the district administration authorities (Bezirkshauptmannschaft) were pooled (Bussjäger 2013: 631–635). Among other cleavages, the Austria Convention was marked by a conflict over federalism as the effectiveness of federalism in general, and of the Austrian version in particularly was debated intensively by the parties (ibid.: 639). Notably, the EU was used as a reason to justify further centralizations, as in the subject matter of animal protection and procurement law (ibid.: 643). At that time, the Land Governors’ conference was observed to display different colors than the federal government’s: the former was mainly composed of SPÖ and ÖVP governors, while the federal government was an ÖVP/FPÖ coalition. As a result, political tensions rose (ibid.: 645–646).

 BGBl. I Nr. 2/2008.  Mayr, Arbeitsrecht Art 120a B-VG (Stand 1.2.2019, rdb.at), Rc 1. 12  VwGH 27.11.2014, Ra 2014/03/0039. 10 11

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Post-2008, neither the chambers nor the associations and the social partnership were questioned fundamentally, although their influence diminished in light of the international financial crisis and economic turbulences of the euro-zone. The employees’ associations suffered most. While the Chamber of Economics is still interested in cooperating with labor organizations, the Federation of Austrian Industry perceives itself more as a lobby organization than as a social partner. It seems that the recent shift has brought about parallelism of corporatist interest-­ representation (and negotiation) and lobbyism (Karlhofer 2010: 115). The government under Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP/FPÖ coalition), which took office in May 2017 aimed to reform the structure of social insurance. The actual reform can be read as an attack on employee representation in the bodies of the 21 social insurance institutions. Those institutions were reduced to five. Arguably, these reforms were the most important and at the same time controversial projects of the Kurz government. In December 2019, the Constitutional Court affirmed essential parts of the contested reform, such as the merging of different institutions of social insurance and the overrepresentation of employers rather than a representation on parity with employees.13 The decision can be read as a further sign of departure from classical consociational power-sharing. Equally, the influence of the Länder will be reduced given that the territorially organized institutions will be merged into one Austrian body of social security from 1 January 2020 onwards. Given that the Constitutional Court backed the reform, it is unlikely that the new government under Chancellor Kurz will overturn these regulations.

7   Continuities and Changes An overall picture seems noticeable: while the politics of consociationalism experienced shifts toward conflict- and competition-orientated policy-­ making, the federal power-sharing was dominated by quid-pro-quo movements throughout the Second Republic. EU membership has altered structures for both dimensions of power-sharing in Austria. The previous remarks have shown that consociationalism in Austria has changed significantly. Although interest representation does still play an important role, its influence has declined due to various reasons, including fragmentation

 VfgH 13.12.2019, G 67/2019 ua.

13

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of the party system, economic liberalization and privatization of infrastructure. The decline of the social partnership has been contrasted by the rising influence of the Conference of the Land Governors since the 1960s. The organization helped the Länder to compensate for their marginalization in Parliament’s Second Chamber, the Bundesrat. However, it must not be overlooked that the Conference of Land Governors draws its influence from the leading actors at the federal level because it is merely an informal institution. The ÖVP-FPÖ government of December 2017–May 2019 showed that the Länder could lose their influence if not all parties represented by the Conference are represented in the federal government as well. A similar development has been observed during the Schüssel I and II governments. Links between federalism and corporatism are few. Although most chambers and associations are territorially subdivided, the Länder chambers do not provide significant impetus for federalism. Rather, they tend to support centralist positions such as the Chamber of Labor or the Chamber of Commerce—which is partly due to their role in the social partnership. The reform of the organization of social insurance during the government of Kurz 2017–2018 stands in line with a general weakening of corporatism, and can also be seen as an attempt of undermining influence spheres of the Länder in matters of competences of the federation.

References Andeweg, R., Winter, L., & Müller, W. (2009). Parliamentary Opposition in Post-­ Consociational Democracies: Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands. In L.  Helms (Ed.), Parliamentary Opposition in Old and New Democracies (pp. 58–93). London: Routledge. Armingeon, K. (2017). Interessensgruppen und Interessensvermittlung: Internationale Gemeinsamkeiten und österreichische Besonderheiten. In L. Helms & D. Wineroither (Eds.), Die österreichische Demokratie im Vergleich (2nd ed., pp. 287–313). Vienna: Nomos and facultas. Bradley, A., & Pinelli, C. (2012). Parliamentarism. In M.  Rosenfeld & A.  Sajó (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Law (pp. 650–670). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brauneder, W. (2000). Deutsch-Österreich 1918. Die Republik entsteht. Vienna: Amalthea. Brauneder, W. (2008). Die Verfassungssituation in Österreich 1918: ein Staat entsteht, ein Staat geht unter. In S. Karner & L. Mikoletzky (Eds.), Österreich. 90

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Jahre Republik. Beitragsband zur Ausstellung im Parlament (pp.  15–23). Innsbruck, Vienna, and Bozen: StudienVerlag. Broschek, J. (2012). Historical Institutionalism and the Varieties of Federalism in Germany and Canada. Publius, 42(4), 662–687. Bussjäger, P. (2010). Intergouvernementale Beziehungen in Österreich und politische Entscheidungsprozesse. In P. Bussjäger (Ed.), Kooperativer Föderalismus in Österreich. Beiträge zur Verflechtung von Bund und Ländern (pp. 121–130). Vienna and Innsbruck: Braumüller. Bussjäger, P. (2012a). Die Landeshauptleutekonferenz: Vom Schatten in die Sonne? In Europäisches Zentrum für Föderalismus-Forschung Tübingen (Ed.), Jahrbuch des Föderalismus 2012 (pp. 310–319). Baden-Baden: Nomos. Bussjäger, P. (2012b). The “Austrian Convention”: The Failure of an Ambitious Reform. In A.  Benz & F.  Knüpelig (Eds.), Changing Federal Constitutions. Lessons from International Comparison (pp. 97–117). Berlin: Barbara Budrich Publishers. Bussjäger, P. (2013). Zwischen Verwaltungsreform und Österreich Konvent. In R. Kriechbaumer & F. Schausberger (Eds.), Die umstrittene Wende. Österreich 2000–2006 (pp. 627–658). Vienna: böhlau. Bussjäger, P. (2015). Zwischen Entmachtung und Vetomacht: Die Entwicklung des österreichischen Föderalismus seit 1945 mit besonderem Blick auf Landtage und Landeshauptleute. In M.  Schennach (Ed.), Rechtshistorische Aspekte des österreichischen Föderalismus. Beiträge zur Tagung an der Universität Innsbruck am 28. und 29. November 2013 (pp. 210–233). Vienna: Verlag Österreich. Bussjäger, P. (2017). Die territoriale Dimension der österreichischen Demokratie. In L.  Helms & D.  Wineroither (Eds.), Die österreichische Demokratie im Vergleich (2nd ed., pp. 223–250). Vienna: Nomos and facultas. Choudhry, S., & Hume, N. (2014). Federalism, Devolution and Secession: From Classical to Post-conflict Federalism. In T.  Ginsburg & R.  Dixon (Eds.), Comparative Constitutional Law (pp.  356–384). Cheltenham and Northampton: Edward Elgar. Crepaz, M. (2002). Domestic and External Constraints on Austrian Corporatism: Challenges and Opportunities. In J.  Steiner & T.  Ertman (Eds.), Consociationalism and Corporatism in Western Europe. Still the Politics of Accommodation? (pp. 157–174). Amsterdam: Boom. Drexel, C. (2013). Instrumente der direkten und partizipativen Demokratie in der Vorarlberger Landesverfassung unter Berücksichtigung des neu eingeführten Art 1 Abs 4. SPRW, POP A, pp. 165–204. Eppler, A., & Staudigl, F. (2015). Europeanization of Austrian Federalism: The Case of Länder rights in EU Affairs. In G.  Bischof & F.  Karlhofer (Eds.), Austrian Federalism in Comparative Perspective (pp. 86–106). Innsbruck and New Orleans: UNO Press.

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Erk, J. (2008). Explaining Federalism. State, Society and Congruence in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany and Switzerland. London: Routledge. Fallend, F. (2003). Föderalismus–eine Domäne der Exekutiven? Die Bund-Länder Verhandlungen über die Länderforderungsprogramme und die Bundesstaatsreformen in Österreich seit 1945. In H.  Dachs, E.  Hanisch, & R.  Kriechbaumer (Eds.), Der Bund und die Länder. Über Dominanz, Kooperation und Konflikt im österreichischen Bundesstaat (pp.  17–68). Vienna: böhlau. Fallend, F. (2004). Joint, Not Separate Arenas: Party Systems and Coalition Building at the National and Provincial Level in Austria since the Mid-1980s. In R.  Hrbek (Ed.), Political Parties and Federalism. An International Comparison (pp. 83–113). Baden-Baden: Nomos. Fallend, F. (2011). Austria: From Consensus to Competition and Participation? In J.  Loughlin, F.  Hendriks, & A.  Lindström (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Local and Regional Democracy in Europe (pp.  173–195). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fleiner, T., & Fleiner Basta, Lidija R. (2009). Constitutional Democracy in a Multicultural and Globalised World. Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer. Gamper, A. (2010). Intergouvernementale Gesetzgebung. In P. Bussjäger (Ed.), Kooperativer Föderalismus in Österreich. Beiträge zur Verflechtung von Bund und Ländern (pp. 26–47). Vienna and Innsbruck: Braumüller. Glantschnig, G. (2010). Die Rolle von Vereinbarungen und Abkommen zwischen den einzelnen Gebietskörperschaften. In P.  Bussjäger (Ed.), Kooperativer Föderalismus in Österreich. Beiträge zur Verflechtung von Bund und Ländern (pp. 65–73). Vienna and Innsbruck: Braumüller. Häfele, A. (2006). Die Schweiz als Vorbild für die Vorarlberger Landesverfassung: rechtliche und politische Hintergründe des “Kanton Übrig”. Peter-Lang: Frankfurt am Main. Halberstam, D. (2001). State Autonomy in Germany and the United States. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 574(1), 173–184. Karlhofer, F. (2010). The Politics of Asymmetry: (Non) Corporatist Policy Making, 2000–2006. In G.  Bischof & F.  Plasser (Eds.), The Schüssel Era in Austria (pp. 104–118). Innsbruck and New Orleans: UNO Press and Innsbruck University Press. Karlhofer, F. (2013). The Rise and Decline and Rise of Austria’s Radical Right. In G. Bischof & F. Karlhofer (Eds.), Austria’s International Position after the End of the Cold War (pp. 245–265). Innsbruck and New Orleans: UNO Press and Innsbruck University Press. Karlhofer, F. (2015). Austrian Federalism: History-Properties-Change. In G.  Bischof & F.  Karlhofer (Eds.), Austrian Federalism in Comparative Perspective (pp. ix–xxxvii). Innsbruck and New Orleans: UNO Press.

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Karlhofer, F., & Pallaver, G. (2013). Strength through Weakness. State Executive Power and Federal Reform in Austria. Swiss Political Science Review, 19(4), 41–59. Konrad, H. (2008). Das sozialdemokratische Lager. In S. Karner & L. Mikoletzky (Eds.), Österreich. 90 Jahre Republik. Beitragsband der Ausstellung im Parlament (pp. 63–70). Innsbruck, Vienna, and Bozen: StudienVerlag. Kriechbaumer, R. (2008). Paralyse, Neuorientierung, Staatspartei: die Christlichsoziale Partei 1918–1922. In S.  Karner & L.  Mikoletzky (Eds.), Österreich. 90 Jahre Republik. Beitragsband der Ausstellung im Parlament (pp. 71–79). Innsbruck, Vienna, Bozen: StudienVerlag. Lehmbruch, G. (2003). Proporzdemokratie: Politisches System und politische Kultur in der Schweiz und Österreich (1967). In G.  Lehmbruch (Ed.), Verhandlungsdemokratie. Beiträge zur vergleichenden Regierungslehre (pp. 16–58). Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag. Leser, N. (2002). Spezialdemokratie Österreich. Analyse und Perspektive. Vienna, Munich: Amalthea. Lijphart, A. (1969). Consociational Democracy. World Politics, 21(2), 207–225. Lijphart, A. (1999). Patterns of Democracy. Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries. New Haven: Yale University Press. Luther, K. (1999). Must What Goes up Always Come Down? Of Pillars and Arches in Austria’s Political Architecture. In K. Luther & K. Deschouwer (Eds.), Party Elites in Divided Societies. Political Parties in Consociational Democracy (pp. 43–73). London: Routledge. Marterbauer, M.  V. (2005). Rahmenbedingungen und Präferenzen in der Wirtschaftspolitik. In F.  Karlhofer & E.  Talós (Eds.), Sozialpartnerschaft. Österreich und Europäische Perspektiven (pp. 57–78). Vienna and Münster: LIT. Méndez-Lago, M. (1999). Electoral Consequences of (de-)pillarization. The Cases of Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands (1945–1996). In K. Luther & K.  Deschouwer (Eds.), Party Elites in Divided Societies. Political Parties in Consociational Democracy (pp. 191–223). London: Routledge. Müller, W. (2001). Party-Building and Consociational Democracy in Post-War Austria. In H.  Tewes & J.  Wright (Eds.), Liberalism, Anti-Semitism, and Democracy. Essays in Honour of Peter Pulzer (pp.  191–207). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nassmacher, K. (2009). The Funding of Party Competition. Baden-Baden: Nomos. Öhlinger, T., & Eberhard, H. (2016). Verfassungsrecht (11th ed.). Vienna: facultas. Papadopoulos, Y. (2005). Populism as the Other Side of Consociational Multi-­ Level Democracies. In D. Caramani & Y. Mény (Eds.), Challenges to Consensual Politics. Democracy, Identity, and Populist Protest in the Alpine Region (pp. 71–95). Bruxelles: PIE-Peter Lang Verlag. Pelinka, A. (2002). Consociational Democracy in Austria: Political Change, 1968–1998. In J.  Steiner & T.  Ertman (Eds.), Consociationalism and Corporatism in Western Europe (pp. 139–156). Amsterdam: Boom.

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Pernthaler, P. (1979). Die Staatsgründungsakte der österreichischen Bundesländer. Vienna: Braumüller. Pernthaler, P. (2004). Österreichisches Bundesstaatsrecht. Vienna: Verlag Österreich. Plasser, F., & Seeber, G. (2017). Politische Kultur und Demokratiebewusstsein in der Zweiten Republik im internationalen Vergleich. In L.  Helms & D.  Wineroither (Eds.), Die österreichische Demokratie im Vergleich (2nd ed., pp. 337–364). Vienna: Nomos and facultas. Scharpf, F. (2006). The Joint-Decision Trap Revisited: Lessons from German Federalism and European Integration. Journal of Common Market Studies, 44(4), 845–864. Skach, C. (2012). Political Parties and the Constitution. In M.  Rosenfeld & A.  Sajó (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Law (pp. 874–888). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Steiner, G. (2004). Wahre Demokratie? Transformation und Demokratieverständnis in der Ersten Republik Österreich und im Ständestaat Österreich 1918–1938. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Tálós, E. (2006). Sozialpartnerschaft: Austrokorporatismus am Ende? In H. Dachs et al. (Eds.), Politik in Österreich. Das Handbuch (pp. 424–442). Vienna: Manz. Tálos, E. (2008a). Sozialpolitik seit 1918. In S. Karner & L. Mikoletzky (Eds.), Österreich. 90 Jahre Republik. Beitragsband zur Ausstellung im Parlament (pp. 275–293). Innsbruck, Vienna, and Bozen: StudienVerlag. Tálos, E. (2008b). Sozialpartnerschaft. Ein zentraler Gestaltungsfaktor in der Zweiten Republik. Innsbruck, Vienna, and Bozen: StudienVerlag. Tálos, E., & Stromberger, C. (2005). Zäsuren in der österreichischen Verhandlungsdemokratie. In F. Karlhofer & E. Tálos (Eds.), Sozialpartnerschaft. Österreichische und europäische Perspektiven (pp.  79–108). Vienna and Münster: LIT. Wheare, K.  C. (1964). Federal Government (4th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER 4

The Politics of Compromise: Institutions and Actors of Power-Sharing in Switzerland Sean Mueller

Map. 4.1  Switzerland and its 26 cantons. (Source: © BFS, ThemaKart, re-used here with kind permission)

© The Author(s) 2021 S. Keil, A. McCulloch (eds.), Power-Sharing in Europe, Federalism and Internal Conflicts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53590-2_4

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1   Introduction1 If we define power-sharing broadly as at least two actors possessing each “a share” in political decision-making, then it is hard to find a Swiss institution that does not fit that description. Power is shared within the government among seven equally powerful ministers from four different parties representing three language groups; within Parliament, by two equally powerful chambers that are both popularly elected; between government and Parliament, with neither having the power to dissolve or dismiss the other; between these representative organs and the people, through frequently used instruments of direct democracy; and even within the people themselves, through the federal requirement that constitutional change be approved by a double majority of both Swiss citizens nationwide and cantonal electorates. In fact, there are so many veto points along the path of collective decision-­making and numerous political players willing to use them that it is hard to imagine the system functioning at all. However, rather than cancelling each other out, powerful actors and important cultural groups— who are not always coterminous—have usually found ways to work out a solution through compromise (Neidhart 1970; Sciarini and Hug 1999). Much like with cultural divisions, the abundance, flexibility and interlinked nature of power-sharing institutions have turned out to be an advantage. Moreover, the Swiss system of power-sharing as it operates today is the result of both historical continuities and political innovation, consisting also of different types of rules and patterns of behavior: • Some of the most important formal rules were defined in the Constitution of 1848 and have remained unchanged ever since. Modern Switzerland is thus unthinkable without them, providing them with a kind of legitimacy usually encountered only in constitutional monarchies. This is, for example, the case for the seven-mem1  I am grateful to Jürg Steiner, Allison McCulloch and Soeren Keil for comments on prior versions of this text. Remaining errors are mine alone.

S. Mueller (*) Institute of Political Studies, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected]

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ber executive and its election by the two parliamentary chambers as well as for the symmetry of powers among the latter two. • Other—but equally important—rules were introduced only later under pressure from political and cultural minorities. That applies first and foremost to the optional referendum, in existence since 1874 after having been tried out sub-nationally; second, to the popular initiative on partial constitutional change, since 1891; and third, to proportional elections for the National Council, approved in 1918 by the people and the cantons against the wishes of the authorities of that time and in operation since 1919. • Next to these formal rules, there are also much older, informal or cultural patterns of power-sharing. Federalism, with its twin emphasis on regional and local autonomy, on the one hand, and regional, inter-regional and nation-wide cooperation and sharing, on the other, builds on legacies and precedents reaching back into to the Middle Ages. Indeed, although the Helvetic Confederation of 2020 is radically different from the defensive alliance struck in Central Switzerland 700 years ago against the Hapsburgs, its basic goals are still to “protect the liberty and rights of the people and safeguard the independence and security of the country.”2 • Finally, some of the informal rules or conventions of Swiss power-­ sharing are even more recent and political as opposed to ancient and constitutional. Notably the party-political proportionality within the executive in line with their overall electoral score has been established only in 1959. Known as “the magic formula,” the allocation of the seven government seats to the four main parties has been modified only in 2003 after 44 years—and even then, merely in the smallest possible way, by demoting the Christian-Democrats (from two down to one seat) to the benefit of the Swiss People’s Party (from one to two seats). Swiss power-sharing is thus not the result of some grand design—or at least not only, for while some aspects have been wisely chosen and broadly accepted, other elements had to be fought for politically and were only just approved. Some even remain contested. For instance, the magic-­formula 2  Art. 2.1 of the Federal Constitution of the Swiss Confederation of 18 April 1999 (Status as of 23 September 2018); unofficial English version at https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/ classified-compilation/19995395/index.html [23 December 2019].

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as modified in 2003 was temporarily broken between 2008 and 2015 when the Swiss People’s Party chose to withdraw from government rather than being represented by two of its more moderate party members. In turn, despite the “green wave” experienced at the 2019 federal elections, the Green Party’s candidate to join the government at the expense of one of the two Liberals was rejected by Parliament with 145 to 82 votes.3 Of course, not all is well in the Helvetic paradise of power-sharing either. Notably the 25% of residents lacking Swiss citizenship cannot fully participate politically. This makes a mockery of the core idea that all important groups get to possess a share in the making of decisions binding upon them. Yet, because the Swiss system of power-sharing primarily rests on territorial (cantons and municipalities) and functional organizations (parties and interest groups), members of non-territorial, non-organized groups must adjust accordingly. Although the path to citizenship may be burdensome, it is not closed off fully and has recently been made easier for those born in Switzerland. Also, while Swiss power-sharing is extremely democratic, open and flexible, it also privileges those with more resources at their disposal as well as those defending the status quo (the two often coincide). Finally, most worrying from the system’s point of view is the double polarization of the party system throughout the past decades, with the left- and right-wing poles gaining in both electoral strength and distance from each other. This has put a strain on the very compromise-­ seeking behavior resulting from, and by now underpinning, Swiss institutions. I return to this last point below. The key claim defended in this chapter is that the four main power-­ sharing institutions utilized in Switzerland—collegialism as the particular manifestation of executive power-sharing, bicameralism, direct democracy and federalism—have thus far reinforced each other and that the societal fundament necessary for their continued smooth operation is provided by cross-cuttingness. The latter describes situations when different cleavages not only fail to overlap but also weaken each other due to varying saliency over time and topics. But whereas political institutions generally result from deliberate constitutional design, cross-cuttingness in the Swiss case is an accident of history—or rather a potentially dangerous accident at first yet a fortunate circumstance later on with the addition of new cleavages. 3  All results of the 11 December 2019 government elections at https://www.parlament. ch/de/über-das-parlament/archiv/wahlen-im-rueckblick/bundesratswahlen/2019-12-11 [23 December 2019].

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The gradual addition and modification of different power-sharing institutions and conventions was designed to appease the political actors resulting from those cleavages. Let us thus look at the latter first.

2   Cleavages Territorially and politically, the Switzerlands of 1848 and 2019 differ only in that, since 1979, three former districts of Bern canton have formed their own canton: Jura. Map 4.1 shows a map of Switzerland and its 26 cantons. Although formally equal, there are actually three categories of cantons: those which formed the old, very loose confederation until 1798 (numbers 1 to 16); former subject territories upgraded to the status of full canton in 1803 by Napoleon (17 and  19–22); and former allies who joined in 1815 as part of the Restoration (18 and 23–25). There is also the special case of Jura (nr. 26), given to Bern in 1815 at the Vienna Congress but seceding internally in 1979. Four dimensions of conflict have occasionally given rise to protracted and intense, at times even violent, clashes (Linder and Mueller 2020: ch. 2)—none of them fully overlaps with these cantonal borders. Historically, the oldest cleavage is that between cities and the countryside, followed by divisions between Catholics and Protestants. Both are at the root of the separation of two cantons into half-cantons: Basel-City and -Countryside, in 1833, and Appenzell Inner- and Outer-Rhodes, in 1597. The mutual overlap of these two cleavages, through urban areas such as Zurich, Bern, Basel and Geneva embracing the Reformation, was in turn one of the main causes of the civil war of 1847 and the subsequent formation of modern Switzerland. Although they have never entirely disappeared (Linder et al. 2008), those two cleavages were followed by conflicts between defenders of capital and workers, beginning in the late nineteenth-century, and most recently—but never developing into full-fledged cleavages in the sense of pitting two political organizations against each other (Bartolini and Mair 1990)—linguistic differences. That leads to the puzzling conclusion that, although Switzerland is today regarded primarily as a model for the integration of linguistic minorities (e.g., Lacey 2017), neither the French-, Italian- and Romansh-­ speaking minorities nor the German-speaking majority ever developed their own political party. Key to this non-development was and remains the phenomenon of cross-cuttingness. Figure 4.1 exemplifies the use of

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Fig. 4.1  Religious-linguistic cross-cuttingness at canton-level, 1900 vs. 2000

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Fig. 4.2  Cross-cuttingness between wealth and culture, 2016/17

language and religion at the level of cantons, comparing 1900 (left) with 2000 (right). The same is true once we correlate cantonal GDP with either religion or language, as Fig.  4.2—now for current times—shows. In these two scatterplots, exactly as in those shown in Fig. 4.1, there are always four different groups, for example (in Fig.  4.2/left): relatively richer and French-speaking, richer and German-speaking, relatively poorer and French-speaking, and poorer and German-speaking. The consequence of this is that both the receiving and donating groups of fiscal equalization payments are multilingual, and that in turn even members of the same

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language group pursue different fiscal goals. On top of all that, cantons also vary enormously in size, from 16,000 inhabitants in Appenzell Inner-­ Rhodes (AI) to 1.5 million in Zurich. However, once we turn to the oldest and newest cleavage, that between cities and rural areas, matters become slightly more aligned. Indeed, the cantonal share of people living in urban areas is fairly moderately correlated with both wealth (Pearson’s r = 0.414) and especially the share of Catholics (−0.513). Suffice it to look at the canton of Appenzell Inner-­ Rhodes, at the bottom of Fig. 4.3: one of the least prosperous, most rural and Catholic areas. Nevertheless, we can also observe even stronger Catholic areas to be highly urbanized and Protestant areas to be equally poor (Fig. 4.2/right). Thus, although there are instances where the different dimensions of collective identity and wealth (somewhat) overlap, the general pattern is still that they don’t. In any case, cross-cuttingness only has the desired positive—and overlapping cleavages a damaging—effect on societal stability if the different dimensions each possess their own saliency, either over time or across policy issues or both. For if religious differences, for example, had no political relevance whatsoever, they would neither be able to weaken those they cut apart, nor fuel those they overlap with. Varying saliency over both time and issues has indeed been the case in Switzerland (Linder et  al. 2008; Seitz 2014), expressed and observable not only in times of elections but even more so in the frequently held popular votes. This brings us to consider the institutional superstructure defining the rules of the political game.

50 25 0

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3   Design and Operation Four institutions—collegialism, bicameralism, federalism and direct democracy—and two sets of political actors—political parties and cantons—compose the Swiss system of power-sharing: 1. Collegialism is used here as the term describing the composition of the Swiss executive and its powers and behavior toward other political actors. Introduced in basic shape right at the outset of modern Swiss history with the Federal Constitution of 1848, collegialism firstly provides for seven equally important seats in the executive, the Federal Council. Although one of them is elected President of the Federation, that position does not confer additional influence, is held for only one year, and (by convention) rotates among the members of the council according to seniority. The Head of State remains the Council, not the President. Moreover, although internal decisions may well be taken by majority voting, in public all Council members have to defend them, even if they themselves were opposed and even if the party or canton they represent actively campaigns against them. Finally, each Council member is elected individually for four years by the two chambers of parliament united in common session; neither single members nor the entire Council can be dismissed before that term is up. Care is taken to ensure a balanced political, linguistic and cantonal representation in the executive. 2. Bicameralism: Swiss Parliament consists of two chambers, the National Council with 200 members and the Council of States with 46 members. Although of different size and stemming from different logics (representing the Swiss nation vs. giving voice to the 26 cantons), they have the exact same legislative and oversight powers.4 Moreover, since the 26 cantons serve as the constituencies for elections to both houses, and as basically the same parties compete in all of them (see below), differences in the political composition between the National Council and the Council of States are a matter of degree, not kind. And although in practice the territorial chamber is slightly more influential because its members devote more time to politics, sit in more parliamentary committees and profit from the 4  Given their different size and the need to sit in joint session for all elections (of, for example, government members, Federal Supreme Court judges and the Attorney General), the powers of the smaller chamber are de facto reduced in such instances.

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more deliberative but also more disciplined nature of its plenaries, at the end of the day, both chambers need to consent to the exact same version of a bill or decree. Collegialism and bicameralism can be regarded as instances of horizontal power-sharing since they operate at the same level of governance, that is, the national. 3. Turning to vertical-power-sharing, federalism is less of a constitutional straitjacket with a fixed allocation of powers and an arena of competition than an invitation to interact, cooperate, delegate and thus foster trust and solidarity (Vatter 2018b). The nature of Swiss federalism is primarily “administrative” or “executive,” meaning that even if the national level decides, the cantons and often also the municipalities implement and thus execute those decisions (Dardanelli and Mueller 2019). This largely deprives the central government of its own bureaucracy and fuels vertical coordination needs. At the same time, the small size of most sub-national polities and spillover effects among them call for horizontal coordination (Arens 2018). Self-rule and shared-rule channels further reinforce each other (Schnabel and Mueller 2017): the fact that at least eight cantons can attack every Act of Parliament provides them with clout during the drafting process and helps them protect their interests. In turn, since the cantons are mini-states with their own constitutions and bureaucracies, functioning cooperation among them makes centralization redundant. And although over time the national level has assumed more and more legislative powers at the expense of the cantons, the latter have especially been able to hold on to their fiscal autonomy (Dardanelli and Mueller 2019). Even the income tax is first and foremost a cantonal tax. 4. Finally, direct-democratic instruments, notably the popular initiative and the optional referendum, are open to any group of citizens able to collect 100,000 signatures within 18 months or 50,000 within 100 days, respectively. With the popular initiative, an attempt can be made to modify the Federal Constitution; the only substantive restrictions are ius cogens (e.g., ban on genocide) and retro-activity. The optional referendum serves to challenge Acts of Parliament by calling upon the people to reject it in a popular vote. A third institution, the mandatory referendum, subjects every constitutional change initiated by the federal authorities to a popular vote, where just like for popular initiatives a majority of voters and cantons must consent. Unlike the first two, the mandatory referendum needs no

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trigger other than the parliamentary decision to change the constitution. All three have the wider effect of making politics both less predictable and more deliberative for two main reasons: elected politicians do not always have the final say and need to convince a majority of voters to follow their recommendation; and although final decisions come down to a simple “yes” or “no,” well-justified rational reasons can make all the difference (el-Wakil 2017; Gerber and Mueller 2018). The frequency and issue diversity of popular votes further provides parties with an opportunity to distinguish themselves in the eyes of voters despite otherwise being hidden beneath an oversized, collegial coalition (Qvortrup 2018: 187–88). Table 4.1 illustrates the diversity of issues and political constellations using all of the popular votes held in the year 2018 as an example. As has become obvious by now, although these four sets of institutions define the borders and rules of Swiss power-sharing, they still need to be operated and filled by political actors. Just like in any other liberal democracy, political parties count among the most important actors in this regard. In contrast to most other systems, however, Swiss parties do not possess a monopoly over political competition or over representation nor even over final decision-making. The first, political competition, they have to share (!) with interest groups and civil society actors due to the openness and unpredictability of direct democracy. In fact, parties themselves are private-law associations and do not profit from any direct state funding. Regarding representation, there are of course many other “obvious” criteria next to ideology a voter may turn to when identifying her closest political matches, such as gender, age, profession or ethnicity. Yet, what also still matters in Swiss politics, not least because of the electoral system and federalism, is cantonal origin—most notably for membership in the federal executive. Finally, ultimate decision-making is shared by even the largest, most coherent and disciplined government and parliamentary majority with the people and, in case of constitutional change, again the cantons (see Table  4.1). Let us thus take a closer look at parties and cantons: 1. Political parties are federally organized and thus link the national, cantonal and local levels, in contrast to Belgium or Canada for example. They transmit information in both directions and recruit personnel in a bottom-up fashion. At the same time, all four national

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Table 4.1  The ten popular votes held at the national level in Switzerland in 2018 Date

Issue

25 Nov.

Legal basis for the surveillance of insured persons "Swiss law instead of foreign judges (initiative for selfdetermination)" "For the Dignity of Farm Animals (horned cows initiative)"

Type Turn out

People Cantons Result yes yes

Vote Recommendations

Parliament NR yes

SR yes

FC

FDP

CVP

SP

SVP

OR

48%

65%

91%

Yes

73%

74%

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

PI

48%

34%

0%

No

35%

14%

No

No

No

No

Yes

PI

48%

45%

22%

No

30%

15%

No

No

No

Yes

No

"For Food Sovereignty"

PI

37%

32%

17%

No

14%

3%

No

No

No

Yes

No

"For healthy, 23 environmentally Sept. friendly and fair food . products (Fair Food Initiative)"

PI

38%

39%

17%

No

21%

3%

No

No

No

Yes

No

Cycle paths

CP

37%

74%

100%

Yes

62%

97%

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Gambling

OR

35%

73%

100%

Yes

67%

98%

Yes

No

Yes

Yes none

PI

35%

24%

0%

No

5%

0%

No

No

No

No

No

PI

55%

28%

0%

No

20%

5%

No

No

No

No

Yes

MR

54%

84%

100%

Yes

100%

100%

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

10

10

10

9

10

6

6

10 June

4 March

"For crisis-proof money: Money created solely by the National Bank!" "Yes to the abolishment of Radio and TV license fees" New Financial Regulation 2021

Number of wins (out of 10):

Type: OR = optional referendum; PI = popular initiative; CP = counterproposal to PI; MR = mandatory referendum; Parliament: NR = National Council; SR = Council of States; Vote Recommendations: FC = Federal Council; FDP = Liberals; CVP = ChristianDemocrats; SP = Socialists; SVP = Swiss People’s Party. Sources: C2D (2019), Swissvotes (2019).

government parties—FDP, CVP, SP and SVP, see note to Table 4.1— contest elections in all 26 Swiss cantons (Mueller and Bernauer 2018), providing for horizontal cohesion, too. The combination of (largely) proportional elections to the National Council and majoritarian contests for the Council of States also keeps multipartism from fragmenting too much (Vatter 2018a: ch. 2). National Councilors are elected using free list proportionality, except in the six cantons with only one seat, where a simple plurality suffices. Senators are elected using majority/plurality rules, except in Jura and Neuchâtel which practice proportionality.

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2. The Swiss cantons, in turn, are sufficiently autonomous, numerous and diverse to produce varying coalitions of different geometries, yet similar, proximate and few enough to allow for coordination costs to be kept low. At the same time, all of them possess their own direct-­ democratic traditions and instruments (Stutzer 1999; Bühlmann et al. 2014), executive power-sharing (Vatter 2002, 2018a, b) and more or less autonomous local governments (Mueller 2015). Table 4.2 brings those two sets of actors together by identifying the 26 cantons and detailing the composition of their executives as of September 2019. Three main insights emerge. First, there is an enormous variety, from eight clearly right-wing executives, three clearly centrist, four ­balanced to three clearly left-wing governments. One is even composed of a majority of independents, one tends to the left, one to the center and a further five to the right. Governments and the electorates electing them are thus sufficiently diverse to warrant the continued existence of cantonal boundaries, their small average size and other similarities notwithstanding. Second, with the exception of Appenzell Inner-Rhodes, the four parties forming the Federal Council also occupy the large majority of governmental seats at the cantonal level, reaching 84% on average and 100% in nine cases. Ironically, the strongest and most “Swiss” party, the SVP, occupies not only the fewest seats overall (23 seats compared with 30 SP, 38 CVP and 39 FDP), but is also missing from more cantonal governments than the other three main parties (11 compared to 7 SP, 5 CVP and 1 FDP). Nevertheless, power-­sharing at the top, that is, in the Federal Council, still resembles and is thus backed up by power-sharing from below, in the cantonal governments. Switzerland is definitely not the land of single-party cabinets. Third and finally, every cantonal government contains members from a party present in several other, most often adjacent cantons. No executive is composed purely of parties present only there—in fact, with the exception of the Lega, MCG and CSP Obwalden, who occupy a combined total of only four seats, there simply are no canton-specific parties or governments.5 Thus, for all their variety, cantonal governments strongly resemble each other as well as the federal executive, providing for both horizontal 5  The Lega die Ticinesi is regionalist party from and present only in the Canton of Ticino (e.g., Mazzoleni 2005). The Mouvement Citoyens Genevois (MCG) is a regionalist party from and present only in the Canton of Geneva (e.g., Bernhard 2017). Both the Lega and MCG politicize on the nationalist-conservative right. The CSP Obwalden, finally, is simply its own,

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Table 4.2  Government composition of the 26 cantons, September 2019 [seats] Canton AG AI AR BE BL BS FR GE GL GR JU LU NE NW OW SG SH SO SZ TG TI UR VD VS ZG ZH total/avg.

Left 1 0 1 3 2 4 2 3 0 1 1 0 3 0 0 2 1 2 0 1 1 1 4 1 0 3 37

Center 1 2 0 1 1 1 3 1 2 3 3 2 0 3 2 2 0 2 2 1 1 3 0 3 3 1 43

Right 2 1 3 3 2 2 2 3 3 1 1 2 2 4 2 3 4 1 5 3 3 3 3 1 4 3 66

Type Independent right-wing 1 independent 4 right-wing 1 balanced 0 balanced 0 left-wing 0 centrist 0 balanced 0 right-wing 0 centrist 0 centrist 0 right-wing 1 left-wing 0 right-wing 0 right-wing 1 right-wing 0 right-wing 0 left-wing 0 right-wing 0 right-wing 0 right-wing 0 right-wing 0 left-wing 0 centrist 0 right-wing 0 balanced 0 right-wing 8

%FC 80% 43% 80% 71% 80% 71% 100% 71% 80% 80% 80% 80% 100% 100% 60% 100% 100% 80% 100% 100% 60% 100% 86% 100% 100% 86% 84%

Note: Own table based on data from the BFS (2019). Left: SP+Greens; Center: CVP+CSP+BDP; Right: FDP+LP+SVP+Lega+MCG. Highlighted in grey are plurality/parity blocs, majorities (3+/5 or 4+/7) in bold. %FC = seat share of Federal Council parties (SP, CVP, FDP and SVP. See Figure 4.1 for an explanation of cantonal abbreviations.

and vertical cohesion and information flows via intra-party channels. It is thus not only intra-cantonal power-sharing as such that facilitates inter-­ cantonal cooperation (Bolleyer 2009), but also cooperation among essentially the same actors within as between governments. independent Christian-Democratic party present only in the canton of Obwalden (cf. https://www.csp-ow.ch/partei/, 4 May 2020).

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4   Challenges Over the past three decades, Swiss power-sharing has come under pressure from both the inside, via polarization, and the outside, via Europeanization (e.g., Bochsler et al. 2015; Church and Vatter 2016). Polarization as used here refers to three distinct phenomena: 1. The electoral growth of left- and right-wing poles; 2. An increasing distance between these two poles; and 3. The alignment of this conflict dimension with others (“conflict extension”) (cf. Layman et al. 2006). Europeanization, in turn, means that despite not being a member of the EU, Switzerland is nevertheless exposed to its political and legal decisions as well as their economic and social effects. Polarization and Europeanization are linked, in that the main right-wing party, the SVP, has long been advocating for less economic and political and no cultural integration into Europe. By contrast, its polar opposites on the economic left, SP and Greens, defend cosmopolitan values and favor liberal migration policies in parallel. Indeed, the pro- vs. contra-EU conflict has by now developed into one of the main issues structuring national political competition. In some federal popular votes, it further aligns itself with and thus reinforces the urban-rural or linguistic cleavage or even both at the same time. For instance, in the 2014 vote on the SVP’s popular initiative “against mass immigration,” only 28% of voters in the city of Bern voted “yes,” compared to 94% in Horrenbach-Buchen in the German-speaking countryside (Swissvotes 2019). As a new conflict dimension, Europeanization fuels party polarization because two of the main parties taking a clear stance on that issue are located on the polar right and left: the SP is pro-EU, the SVP Eurosceptic. Because a compromise is impossible to reach on related categorical questions—for instance, you either subscribe to the free movement of person or you don’t—this threatens the “amicable agreement”-side of power-­ sharing (Steiner 1974) in the form of collegialism and bicameralism (Freiburghaus and Vatter  2020; Lehmbruch 1993). But what is more, Europeanization also potentially affects the other two institutions discussed above: federalism risks being hollowed out if more and more decisions are taken at a supra-national level where the cantons do not have effective representation; and direct democracy becomes confined to the

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alternative between rubberstamping external decisions and isolation. Finally, the successful negotiation of international treaties greatly depends on the ability and willingness of actors located outside of Switzerland, but these are not subject to the same domestic pressures to seek a broadly acceptable compromise. By way of illustration, Fig. 4.4 shows the evolution of the occasionally arising “unholy alliance” between ideological opposites, the  SP and SVP. We clearly see that beginning in the early 1990s, both have massively gained ground, so that by 2003, they were able to form a majority in the National and Federal Councils. That theirs is most often a blocking majority, albeit for different reasons, adds to the woes of Swiss power-sharing. For instance, they would both reject a new budget for the army: too expensive for the one, too little for the other party. The same evolution has gripped the Council of States but, because the SVP has been unable to transform its nationwide vote gains into seats here, the 50%-border has not been crossed. The 2019 federal elections seem to have brought some respite, but the main winner, the Greens, are as left as the SP in EU and migration questions, while the SVP has lost votes and seats but is still by far the largest party. A number of consequences arise from polarization (Vatter 2016; Sciarini et  al. 2015; Papadopoulos 2005). Where parliament is divided, that is, one chamber dominated by the Center-Left and the other by the

75% 50% 25%

1919 1922 1925 1928 1931 1935 1939 1943 1947 1951 1955 1959 1963 1967 1971 1975 1979 1983 1987 1991 1995 1999 2003 2007 2011 2015 2019

0%

National Council

Council of States

Federal Council

Fig. 4.4  Combined SVP and SP seat shares, 1919–2019. (Note: Own figure based on data from the BFS 2019)

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Center-­Right as in Switzerland between 2015 to 2019, conflicts between the two increase. Parliamentary proceedings foresee a conciliation committee, with half its membership drawn from one chamber and half from the other, after a total of six readings and remaining differences (Freiburghaus 2018). It is however not only the number of such committees that has increased but also their failures, meaning that even their compromise solutions get rejected in one or both chambers. While this never happened between 1992 and 2003, between 2003 and 2019, some 18% of compromise proposals failed (data: Parliamentary Services 2019). The number of direct-democratic challenges has also increased: optional referendums from 38 in the 30 years before 1990 to 36 in the 1990s alone, and 85 ever since; popular initiatives from 58 between 1961 and 1990 to 112 after that (BFS 2019). Swiss politics has become more hotly contested, with EU and migration issues leading the way. The third and final aspect of polarization relates to alignment with other cleavages, which I will show regarding Europeanization, that is, the conflict between those in favor and those against supranational integration. In 1992, when the Swiss rejected accession to the European Economic Area, resistance had come not only from the SVP and other parties on the right but also from the Greens on the left (e.g., Trechsel 2007). Twenty-two years later, when the Swiss voted on the SVP’s popular initiative to limit immigration via imposing fixed annual quotas, the left and the right were firmly entrenched in their opposing camps. Also, while in 1992 no less than three SVP (BE, VD and JU) and six Green cantonal branches (BL, FR, VD, NE, GE and JU) deviated from the vote recommendation of their national umbrellas, by 2014 everybody had fallen in line (Swissvotes 2019). In fact, party discipline has also increased in general, both during the parliamentary (Dermont 2019) and direct-democratic (Mueller and Bernauer 2018) phases of decision-making. But there is further evidence of two very different Switzerlands developing. For in parallel to becoming the largest Swiss party over the course of the 1990s, reaching 29% in the National Council elections of 2007 and almost 30% in 2015, the SVP has become the weakest party in the cities. The six largest municipalities are Zurich, Geneva, Basel, Lausanne, Bern and Winterthur: here, 14% of Switzerland’s total population resides and 29% of its service economy workforce operates (BFS 2019). Looking at the composition of their executives reveals that, whereas in 1983 the SVP held three seats (7%), by 2018 it had none. The SP, in parallel, has doubled its seat share, from 21% to 40%. To this must be added the gains of

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the Greens, which grew from 0 to 23%—almost as much as FDP and CVP combined (ibid.). The united left thus easily dominates urban executives, with the effect that conflicts happen vertically, as when right-wing cantons try to rein in their left-wing cities. In parallel to the left’s urban growth, the SVP has expanded from its traditional areas, the German-speaking Protestant countryside, into the Catholic lands once dominated by the CVP and the Liberal strongholds in the French-speaking suburbs (Kriesi et al. 2005). Looking back in time, the fact that there are two very different Switzerlands—two areas different on many accounts, from cultural values through ideology and economic structure to demographic development— does not bode well. As mentioned above, the last time several salient cleavages overlapped so clearly was before the civil war of 1847, which pitted the Protestant and prosperous cities in favor of centralization, industrialization and free trade against the Catholic-conservative countryside defending confederalism, agriculture and autarchy. But power-sharing rarely works between just two partners; indeed, the temptation for the stronger side is to trample over the preferences of the weaker.

5   Prospects Neither polarization nor Europeanization are likely to disappear or be reverted anytime soon. At the same time, the structural features of Swiss democracy amounting to or at least reinforcing power-sharing are not going away either, for three reasons. First of all, the number seven for the Federal Council is fixed constitutionally and all attempts to increase that or change their role by adding more powerful “vice-ministers” have failed. The SVP’s experiment with going into opposition in 2008 is also regarded as having failed (Church and Vatter 2009; Stojanović 2016): too strong were the structural constraints of having to collaborate, notably to avoid a referendum defeat, and too few were the benefits of being outside the federal government, whose agenda-setting power must not be underestimated. Instead it is the current arrangement that serves the left and the right the best: they can try to institutionally negotiate a compromise, but if that does not work, block everything using direct democracy. Second, bicameralism is equally entrenched constitutionally, with the added reform obstacle that a majority of cantons would have to agree to changing the powers of the Council of States. This is highly unlikely given

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that all but the seven largest cantons plus the two Basels profit from over-­ representation in the Council of States. Third and finally, both direct democracy and federalism have been around for so long that they became part and parcel of Swiss political culture. In that they amount to power-­ sharing between different levels of government as well as between elected officials and “ordinary” citizens, they serve as auxiliary mechanisms to intra-executive and bicameral consensus-seeking. Needless to say, the only way to even get close to such a consensus is by hammering out a compromise. What about the actors giving life to the institutions, above all parties and cantons? Despite polarization and the concomitant need to sharpen a party’s profile especially during electoral campaigns, the country is territorially and socially fragmented enough that no single party can impose its will onto others. Even the conflict between center and periphery could not develop as it did in other contexts—in Switzerland, the functions of the center are shared by Bern, for political decisions; Lausanne, for judicial decisions of last resort; and Zurich, Basel, and Geneva, for economic matters. Cantonal boundaries and the cross-cuttingness they produce and maintain have proven key to this balance. While the Swiss manifestation of federalism, with its administrative nature and bottom-up legitimacy chain, gives political meaning to the cantons, direct-democracy in turn ensures almost permanent popular control. In other words: power-sharing will remain the dominant decision-making paradigm and compromise the default outcome—at least as long as a majority of voting citizens remains convinced that its benefits outweigh the costs.

References Arens, A. (2018). Mitentscheider oder doch nur Mitläufer? Kantonale Parlamente in der interkantonalen Zusammenarbeit. In A. Vatter (Ed.), Das Parlament in der Schweiz. Macht und Ohnmacht der Volksvertretung Vatter (pp. 391–423). Zürich: NZZ Verlag. Bartolini, S., & Mair, P. (1990). Identity, Competition, and Electoral Availability. The Stabilization of European Electorates 1885–1985. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bernhard, L. (2017). Three Faces of Populism in Current Switzerland: Comparing the Populist Communication of the Swiss People’s Party, the Ticino League, and the Geneva Citizens’ Movement. Swiss Political Science Review, 23(4), 509–525.

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BFS—Bundesamt für Statistik [Federal Statistical Office]. (2019). Various Data. Retrieved October 1, 2019, from https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/en/ home.html. Bochsler, D., Hänggli, R., & Häusermann, S. (2015). Introduction: Consensus Lost? Disenchanted Democracy in Switzerland. Swiss Political Science Review, 21(4), 475–490. Bolleyer, N. (2009). Intergovernmental Cooperation: Rational Choices in Federal Systems and Beyond. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bühlmann, M., Vatter, A., Dlabac, O., & Schaub, H.  P. (2014). Liberal and Radical Democracies: The Swiss Cantons Compared. World Political Science Review, 10(2), 385–423. C2D—Centre for Research on Direct Democracy. (2019). Switzerland. Retrieved December 23, 2019, from http://c2d.ch/country/CH. Church, C., & Vatter, A. (2009). Opposition in Consensual Switzerland: A Short but Significant Experiment. Government and Opposition, 44(4), 412–437. Church, C., & Vatter, A. (2016). Shadows in the Swiss Paradise. Journal of Democracy, 27(3), 166–175. Dardanelli, P., & Mueller, S. (2019). Dynamic De/Centralization in Switzerland, 1848–2010. Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 49(1), 138–165. Dermont, C. (2019). Aus bipolar wird tripolar: Polarisierung bei Parlamentsabstimmungen. In M. Bühlmann, A. Heidelberger, & H. P. Schaub (Eds.), Konkordanz im Parlament. Entscheidungsfindung zwischen Kooperation und Konkurrenz. Zurich: NZZ Libro. el-Wakil, A. (2017). The Deliberative Potential of Facultative Referendums: Procedure and Substance in Direct Democracy. Democratic Theory, 4(1), 59–78. Freiburghaus, R. (2018). Ein grosser Scherbenhaufen? Einigungskonferenzen im schweizerischen Zweikammersystem. In A. Vatter (Ed.), Das Parlament in der Schweiz. Macht und Ohnmacht der Volksvertretung Vatter (pp.  197–232). Zürich: NZZ Verlag. Freiburghaus, R., & Vatter, A. (2020). The Political Side of Consociationalism Reconsidered: Switzerland between a Polarized Parliament and Delicate Government Collegiality. Swiss Political Science Review, 25(4), 357–380. Gerber, M., & Mueller, S. (2018). When the People Speak—And Decide: Deliberation and Direct Democracy in the Citizen Assembly of Glarus, Switzerland. Policy & Politics, 46(3), 371–390. Kriesi, H.  P., Lachat, R., Selb, P., Bornschier, S., & Helbling, M. (2005). Der Aufstieg der SVP: Acht Kantone im Vergleich. Zurich: Verlag NZZ. Lacey, J. (2017). Centripetal Democracy: Democratic Legitimacy and Political Identity in Belgium, Switzerland, and the European Union. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Layman, G. C., Carsey, T. M., & Horowitz, J. M. (2006). Party Polarization in American Politics: Characteristics, Causes, and Consequences. Annual Review of Political Science, 9(1), 83–110. Lehmbruch, G. (1993). Consociational Democracy and Corporatism in Switzerland. Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 23(2), 43–60. Linder, W., & Mueller, S. (2020). Swiss Democracy: Possible Solutions to Conflict in Multicultural Societies (4th ed.). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Linder, W., Zürcher, R., & Bolliger, C. (2008). Gespaltene Schweiz—geeinte Schweiz: Gesellschaftliche Spaltungen und Konkordanz bei den Volksabstimmungen seit 1874. Basel: Hier und Jetzt. Mazzoleni, O. (2005). Multi-Level Populism and Centre-Periphery Cleavage in Switzerland. In D.  Caramani & Y.  Mény (Eds.), Challenges to Consensual Politics: Democracy, Identity, and Populist Protest in the Alpine Region (pp. 209–227). Bruxelles: Peter Lang. Mueller, S. (2015). Theorising Decentralisation: Comparative Evidence from SubNational Switzerland. Colchester: ECPR Press. Mueller, S., & Bernauer, J. (2018). Party Unity in Federal Disunity: Determinants of Decentralised Policy-seeking in Switzerland. West European Politics, 41(3), 565–593. Neidhart, L. (1970). Plebiszit und pluralitäre Demokratie: Eine Analyse der Funktion des schweizerischen Gesetzesreferendums. Berne: Francke. Papadopoulos, Y. (2005). Populism as the Other Side of Consociational MultiLevel Democracies. In D. Caramani & Y. Mény (Eds.), Challenges to Consensual Politics: Democracy, Identity, and Populist Protest in the Alpine Regions (pp. 71–81). Brussels: PIE Lang. Parliamentary Services. (2019). Einigungskonferenzen. Retrieved December 23, 2019, from https://www.parlament.ch/centers/documents/de/faktenblatteinigungskonferenz-d.pdf. Qvortrup, M. (2018). The Paradox of Direct Democracy and Elite Accommodation: The Case of Switzerland. In M.  Jakala, D.  Kuzu, & M.  Qvortrup (Eds.), Consociationalism and Power-Sharing in Europe: Arend Lijphart’s Theory of Political Accommodation (pp. 177–196). Cham: Springer. Schnabel, J., & Mueller, S. (2017). Vertical Influence or Horizontal Coordination? The Purpose of Intergovernmental Councils in Switzerland. Regional & Federal Studies, 27(5), 549–572. Sciarini, P., Fischer, M., & Traber, D. (2015). Political Decision-Making in Switzerland: The Consensus Model Under Pressure. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Sciarini, P., & Hug, S. (1999). The Odd Fellow: Parties and Consociationalism in Switzerland. In K.  Luther & K.  Deschouwer (Eds.), Party Elites in Divided Societies: Political Parties in Consociational Democracy (pp. 134–162). London: Routledge.

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Seitz, W. (2014). Geschichte der Politischen Gräben in der Schweiz: Eine Darstellung Anhand der Eidgenössischen Wahl- und Abstimmungsergebnisse von 1848 bis 2012. Zürich/Chur: Rüegger Verlag. Steiner, J. (1974). Amicable Agreement Versus Majority Rule: Conflict Resolution in Switzerland. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Stojanović, N. (2016). Party, Regional and Linguistic Proportionality Under Majoritarian rules: Swiss Federal Council Elections. Swiss Political Science Review, 22(1), 41–58. Stutzer, A. (1999). Demokratieindizes für die Kantone der Schweiz. Working Paper No. 23. Zürich: Institut für Empirische Wirtschaftsforschung, Universität Zürich. Swissvotes. (2019). Integraler Datensatz. Retrieved October 1, 2019, from http://www.swissvotes.ch/page/integralerdatensatz. Trechsel, A. (2007). Direct Democracy and European Integration: A Limited Obstacle? In C.  Church (Ed.), Switzerland and the European Union (pp. 36–51). London: Routledge. Vatter, A. (2002). Kantonale Demokratien im Vergleich. Entstehungsgründe, Interaktionen und Wirkungen politischer Institutionen in den Schweizer Kantonen. Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Vatter, A. (2016). Switzerland on the Road from a Consociational to a Centrifugal Democracy? Swiss Political Science Review, 22(1), 59–74. Vatter, A. (2018a). Das politische System der Schweiz (3rd ed.). BadenBaden: Nomos. Vatter, A. (2018b). Swiss Federalism: The Transformation of a Federal Model. London: Routledge.

CHAPTER 5

Power-Sharing in Belgium: The Disintegrative Model Patricia Popelier

GEMEENSCHAPPEN

Vlaamse Gemeenschap Franse Gemeenschap Duitstalige Gemeenschap

GEWESTEN

Vlamms Gewest Waals Gewest Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest

Map. 5.1  Communities and Regions in Belgium. (Source: belgium.be)

P. Popelier (*) Faculty of Law, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 S. Keil, A. McCulloch (eds.), Power-Sharing in Europe, Federalism and Internal Conflicts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53590-2_5

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1   Introduction In his theory of consociations, Lijphart emphasized how federalism and consociationalism largely overlap in their shared rejection of majoritarian democracy. This is especially the case in plural societies with geographically concentrated segments, each constituting homogeneous component units (Lijphart 1985: 5). Belgium is an example of such a society that is both a consociation and a federal system. However, although federalism and the Belgian consensus democracy stem from the same societal developments, federalism turned out to be a vehicle for the rejection of anti-­ majoritarianism. The result is a system that combines central power-sharing with power-dividing, with anti-consociational sentiments as a driver for decentralist dynamics. Belgium was established in 1830 as a unitary state, but gradually fragmented into a federation, with decentralist dynamics that brought confederalism high on the political agenda. As a result, the Belgian institutional design has become complex, with two types of overlapping sub-states and the Brussels institutions that, in various capacities, operate either as autonomous bodies or as part of a broader entity. According to the Constitution, Belgium consists of three Communities (the Flemish, the French and the German-speaking Communities) with competences related to language, education and culture, and three Regions (the Flemish, the Walloon and the Brussels Region) with territory- and economy-related competences. These entities are based on the delineation in language areas, which determine the boundaries of the Communities and Regions and prescribe the language officials must use to communicate: a Dutch, a French, a German and a bilingual (French and Dutch) language area. In the meantime, the Flemish Community and the Flemish Region have merged, whereas the Walloon Region and the French Community still operate as distinct jurisdictions over a largely overlapping territory. The small German-speaking population has its own Community but is part of the larger Walloon Region, whereas the bilingual Brussels Region is part of both the French and the Flemish Community. In what follows, I will argue that this evolution is the result of anti-­ consociationalist sentiments, as federalism was established to secure linguistic majorities to rule without the intervention of other groups. It is diversity that inspires power-sharing at the central level, but a quest for homogeneity that explains the boundaries of the component units and the basic principles of equality and exclusivity in the organization of the

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federal state structure. Paradoxically, this both reinforces and undermines the consociational regime. On the one hand, the encapsulation of homogeneous groups in territorial units has reinforced sentiments of regional identity, committing citizens to one or the other group, which is vital for the continuation of consociational regimes (Elazar 1985: 28). At the same time, it has taken away the basis for consociationalism, which is the will to cooperate and compromise or, in Duchacek’s (1985: 39) words: “the majority’s acceptance of a common good transcending the particular goods of individuals or groups.”

2   Salient Cleavages in Belgium: A Triple Fault Line Anyone browsing the Belgian constitution immediately notices that language structures both Belgian society and its political institutions. The country is divided into homogeneous Dutch, French and German language areas and a bilingual French-Dutch Brussels area. With only a very small German-speaking population, political institutions are structured around the major Dutch and French language groups. This has facilitated the splitting of most political parties into regional-based parties, with constituencies that are concentrated within one language area. This uni-­ dimensional focus on language, however, is misleading. The language divide conceals coinciding economic and ideological cleavages. While the trichotomy of cleavages, then, is not cross-cutting, the mutual relationships can change over time. For example, initially, the population in the south was French-speaking, wealthy and secular whereas the population in the north was Dutch-speaking (although the elite spoke French in public places), poor and Catholic. Over time, the Dutch-speaking part grew wealthy whereas the French-speaking part experienced an economic decline. Also, the nature of the cleavages varies over time. Nowadays, the ideology fault line is not so much translated into a secular-Catholic divide but revolves rather around left-right axes and, more recently, the identity debate centered, in particular, around migration issues. 2.1  Language When Belgian independence was declared in 1830, efforts were made at building a national identity. As cultural and linguistic homogeneity are

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considered important factors for successful identity-building (Brown 2008: 930), the idea was to turn Belgium into a culturally cohesive francophone state. Article 30 of the Constitution still reads that the use of languages spoken in Belgium is optional but that the law can rule on this matter for acts of the public authorities and for judicial affairs. Language laws imposed French as the official language, used in public and judicial affairs. This was the obvious option: while Dutch dialects were spoken by the Flemish proletariat, French was a language with international prestige that was spoken in the south and across the entire country by all persons in key positions. Moreover, the former King’s attempts to Dutchify the United Kingdom of the Netherlands was one of the triggers for Belgian secession in 1830. The ‘Frenchification’ process was frustrated by forces that supported the preservation of the Dutch language for different reasons. The Catholic Church tried to keep the population from the influence of French revolutionary ideas; the monarchy feared that a francophone nation would more easily fall prey to French imperialism; and the Romantic era with its interest for national character brought the preservation of the Dutch language on the political agenda (Boehme 2013: 165–166; Van Goethem 2012: 24–25), carried by the idea that the interaction of Germanic and Romance traditions would culminate in a unique Belgian culture (Vos 2002: 183–184). Eventually, the Flemish Movement arose out of indignation about the poor social-economic status of Flemings and their subordinate position in public life. It went along with the democratic movement: the introduction of the plural universal voting right in 1893, followed by the singular voting right for men in 1918 and for women in 1948, gave the Flemish majority the political power to implement their demands. Presently, Belgium has three official languages—Dutch, French and German—but the latter language has a subordinate position. The population consists of 11,413,203 residents, divided in language groups on the basis of residence.1 The Dutch language group is the largest Community with 58% of the population. Another 32% of the population lives in the Walloon Region, covering the German and the French-speaking territories, with the German-speaking population amounting to no more than 0.7%. The remaining 10% lives in the Brussels territory, which is 1  Numbers are based on the government’s statistics referring to the situation as of 1 January 2019, see https://www.ibz.rrn.fgov.be/fileadmin/user_upload/fr/pop/statistiques/population-bevolking-20190101.pdf.

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officially bilingual but, while initially Flemish, later turned into a predominantly French-speaking city once it was chosen as the political capital and developed as the country’s financial center (De Winter 1998: 29). Less than 10% of the population in Brussels is Dutch-speaking.2 2.2  Economy In the nineteenth century and up to World War II, Flemings were disadvantaged both as to language and social-economic position. Belgian prosperity was based upon the industry of coalmines and steel factories, which were mainly situated in Walloon territory and the Brussels financial center (Boehme 2013: 161). By contrast, Flanders relied on agriculture, textile fabrics and the harbor of Antwerp. The economic power balance turned after World War II, when the economy in Flanders flourished as a result of the expansion of the Antwerp port and investments in the petrochemical industry and automobile manufacturing, while the Walloons were fixed on keeping the destined-to-­ perish coal and mining industries artificially alive through state subsidies. When the central government refused to go along with this, the Walloons claimed autonomy over economic policy. This, however, did not bring them the prosperity they hoped for. Different preferences of economic policy are one factor that explains this gap, with Walloons relying on interventionist economic policies while Flemings preferring private initiative. Economic geography is another explanatory factor, with Flanders benefitting from population density, accessibility and the Antwerp harbor. Meanwhile, Brussels generates the highest GDP as an important financial center in Western Europe and host to EU and NATO headquarters, but the Flemish Region is the winner when the commuting component is factored in.3 Considering the dyadic nature of Belgian federalism, this means that financial and social security redistribution mechanisms tend to make financial transfers flow one way, with the Flemings on the giving side and the Walloons on the receiving side. This is used by Flemish-nationalist parties to support nationalist claims and to polarize society (Boehme 2013:  See the Brio Language Barometer, https://www.briobrussel.be/node/14763.  https://www.statistiekvlaanderen.be/bruto-binnenlands-product-per-inwoner0#pendelbewegingen_hebben_een_sterke_invloed_op_het_bbp_van_de_gewesten. 2 3

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18–19, 23–25). Distributive mechanisms are generally more easily contested in multinational states (Swenden 2006: 244–245), as people tend to feel more prepared to pay solidarity to people with whom they identify (Mussche 2012). Flemings feel less and less willing to show solidarity with the less prosperous Walloon part. Earlier, the Walloons did not feel inclined to show solidarity with the Flemings when they formed the most prosperous group (Boehme 2013: 186; Van Goethem 2012: 31–32). 2.3  Ideology The ideological divide is linked with the Flemish struggle for cultural identity as well as the economic divide. Initially, the ideological gap between the north and south was based on religion: Flemish peasants in the north were Catholic, whereas the Walloons were mostly secular. Because of the tight grip of the Catholic Church on the schools, this cleavage led to offshoots in educational policy. The school conflict eventually resulted in a School Pact, a compromise that was laid down in the Constitution, securing the co-existence and equality of a public and a private school net. The public-school net is still dominant in the French-­ speaking Community, whereas the private net, with a strong Catholic pillar, is more popular in Flanders, although by now the Catholic Church’s grip on schools and politics has lessened. The increasing trend toward secularization cooled the struggle based on the religious divide (Billiet et al. 2006: 920). Instead, since World War II, the ideological divide took on a sharper shape on the economic left-­ right axis: Walloons tend to vote for left parties while Flemish people vote for the right. As the Constitution imposes language parity in the federal government, this complicates government formation, as will be discussed below. It seems, however, that the left-right divide is a political construct rather than social reality. While the federal elections in 2019 seemed to reinforce the divide, empirical research showed that, in reality, public opinion does not differ so much on both sides of the language border, and the different election results are largely attributable to the supply of political parties on each side of the language border (Walgrave et al. 2019). The religious dimension seems to have reappeared in a new form, but this as well requires some nuance. The left-right axis has a cultural dimension, including identity, safety, migration and environmental matters, which is centered on the turn brought about by globalization. Here as well, a recent study lays bare that both Flemings and Walloons have mainly

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centrist political preferences, but opinions are more divergent when it comes to migration (Walgrave et al. 2019: 7). Also, Flemings give priority to the migration issue, whereas Walloons are more concerned about employment (Walgrave et  al. 2019: 10–11). This aligns with previous research, which showed that the attitude of Walloons and Flemings toward foreigners is very similar, but Flemings feel more threatened in their cultural identity whereas Walloons feel threatened as to their economic situation and social security (Billiet et al. 2006: 923–924). Political parties at the Flemish side have translated this into a stricter migration discourse, whereas on the Walloon side parties have more eagerly picked up the social issue and so far remained immune from an anti-migrant discourse.

3   Handling the Belgian Divide Through Institutional Design: Power-Sharing and Power-Dividing The Belgian solution to the triple divide is based on two pillars: a division of power, and the sharing of power for what power remains at the center. The first is focused on giving autonomy in policymaking in isolation from the other language groups. The latter aims at involving both major language Communities in central policymaking. Together they shape the Belgian model of consensus democracy. Before discussing these pillars, this section gives a historical overview to explain how these power-­dividing and power-sharing instruments evolved. 3.1  Historical Overview The Flemish Movement is rooted in a social movement and initially sought simply to improve the situation of the Flemish plebs. Its demand for recognition of the Dutch language next to the French language, however, became more radical as the Flemings gained political power. In turn, the francophone people felt threatened by the growing Flemish demands and tried to secure the position of their own language. The antagonism between the language groups became even sharper as a result of the world wars. In World War I, the German ‘Flamenpolitik’ that was destined to win the support of the Flemings, radicalized the Flemish Movement, leading to anti-Belgian nationalism and collaboration—a ‘loss of innocence’ that provoked hostile reactions in Wallonia toward the Flemings (Vos

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2002: 189). In turn, the authoritarian and dismissive attitude of the (mainly francophone) military authorities toward the (mainly Flemish) lower ranked soldiers and the use of French as the leading language upset the Flemish part (Dewulf 2012: 26; Wils 2015: 216–237). After World War II, autonomy claims by both Walloons and Flemings were based on economic grounds, as explained above. At the same time, radical right separatism found a breeding ground of resentment4 in response to the treatment of collaborators after World War II, of which a faction of the Flemish nationalist movement, guided by the Flemish Nationalist Union (VNV), formed a part. Meanwhile, the federal construct reinforced the building of a Flemish regional identity and tore both language groups further apart. All of this gave rise to a series of institutional arrangements (for more see Van Goethem 2012: 24–40) and state reforms (for more see Popelier and Lemmens 2015: 15–32). First, the Flemish Movement came to life in the wake of the romantic cultural era and shaped awareness of the subordinate position of the uneducated Flemings. This triggered a series of language laws with regard to administrative and judicial matters in the nineteenth century, building from ‘language facilities’ for Flemings to the equality of Dutch and French in legal acts. This implied a bilingualism for public offices and mandates and therefore met with resistance at the francophone part. In turn, the Flemings, who, with the democratization of the right to vote, started to turn demographic dominance into political weight, rejected bilingualism in Flanders while the Walloon part remained unilingual. In the early 1960s, both parts agreed upon the division of Belgium in four language Regions: the Dutch, the French and the German language Regions and the bilingual Region of Brussels-Capital. Territoriality became the leading principle: in each language Region, the language of the territory is the official language, used by officials and in public acts. At the same time, some border municipalities enjoyed so-called ‘facilities’: the right for residents to use the other language in administrative matters. This was the source of ongoing tensions. Flemings interpret the arrangement as temporary facilities for newcomers to gradually integrate, whereas francophone people consider this to be permanent rights. Initially, the 4  The discourse held that Flemish collaborators were driven by aspirations of Flemish independence rather than Nazism, but this has been unveiled as a myth that disguised true Nazi sympathies, see Sax (2012: 15–18, 165, 201 and 387–397).

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delineation of the language Regions was adapted to changing demographics on the basis of ten-year language counts. As a result, the Brussels bilingual territory tended to expand because many francophone people who worked in Brussels preferred to reside in the Flemish hinterland. To stop this so-called oil-stain effect, the language Regions were fixed and entrenched in the Constitution in 1970. Tensions, however, still rise, where the language regulation does not reflect sociological reality in those border municipalities that have become predominantly francophone. The constitutional entrenchment of the language Region in 1970 kicked off the first of, so far, six state reforms. It also introduced the Dutch, French and German-speaking ‘Cultural Communities’ as fore-­ runners of the current federated entities. At the same time, the concept of ‘Regions’ was introduced, but it was left to a special majority law to give them shape. Also, several instruments to protect the francophone minority at the central level were introduced: language groups in the Parliament, important for the adoption of special majority laws and for the alarm bell procedure (see below); linguistic parity in the central government; and ‘philosophical and ideological’ balances in the boards of public institutions. The second state reform, in 1980, brought the Regions to life as entities with legislative powers in economy and territory-related matters. The Cultural Communities turned into genuine Communities with person-­ related matters (aid to individuals, integration of immigrants, health policy, etc.) added to cultural matters and with their own Parliament and Government. Also, the Court of Arbitration was introduced to secure respect for the allocation of competences. In 1988, the Brussels Region was established. The Flemings had delayed this because they feared that a full-fledged, predominantly francophone Brussels would, along with the Walloon Region, dominate over only one Dutch-speaking Flemish Region. As a compensation, the Brussels Region did not enjoy the same (embryonic) constitutional powers as the other entities, and its legislative acts were subjected to broader, decentralized judicial review than those of the other entities. Also, education and treaty-making powers were transferred to the Communities, along with the power for the Court of Arbitration to review legislative acts against the rights of education and the equality principle. This way, the Catholic school net in the south and the secular school net in the north were protected against preferential treatment of the dominant counterpart. With the fourth state reform, in 1993, the Constitution recognized Belgium as ‘a federal state.’ More competences were transferred to the

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Communities and Regions, their Parliaments were directly elected and the Senate was reformed to include a (limited) number of Community representatives. Since 1993, the Constitution lets the residual competences reside with the Communities and Regions in principle but not in practice. To give effect to this arrangement, another constitutional amendment must include a list of federal competences, and a special majority law must indicate how residual matters are allocated to either Regions or Communities. Until now, no efforts were made to effectuate this. The 2002–2003 state reform did not entail constitutional amendments. The constituent Assembly can only amend those provisions that were indicated by the former Parliament and Government and while the elections brought a political momentum for institutional reform, the list for constitutional amendments did not allow this. Instead, the special majority laws were amended to transfer more competences to the Regions and Communities. Also, the Brussels institutions were modified, including a fixed allocation of parliamentary seats to protect the Flemish minority in Brussels, and the powers of the Court of Arbitration were enlarged. In 2007 the latter Court was given the name ‘Constitutional Court.’ In 2012–2013, after a long political crisis that left the country governed by a caretaker government for one and a half years, the sixth state reform took place. The reform entailed a further transfer of competences, including child allowances, whereas the transfer of aspects of social security until then had been considered taboo; modifications of the finance law; institutional arrangements related to the electoral and judicial constituency of Brussels and its periphery; and federal institutional arrangements, including the transformation of the Senate into a more genuine, but almost powerless, representation of the federated entities. The pattern is that of ongoing decentralizing dynamics with frequent state reforms to unblock central political decision making. 3.2  A Dividing of Power Since 1970, the unitary state of Belgium was turned into a federation with confederal traits. Two types of subnational entities with lawmaking powers were formed. The Communities, with powers in the realm of language, culture, education and person-related matters, promote the Flemish desire for cultural autonomy, whereas the Regions were created in response to the Walloon demand for economic autonomy (Peeters 2007: 33–35).

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Communities and Regions largely overlap as territorial jurisdictions. The Flemish Community and Region share jurisdiction over the Dutch language area, but the Flemish Community’s jurisdiction also covers Dutch-speaking institutions in the territory of Brussels. The French Community and the Walloon Region share jurisdiction over the French language area, but the French Community also covers French-speaking institutions in Brussels, whereas the Walloon Region also covers the German language area. In turn, the bilingual Brussels area forms its own Brussels Region, whereas the German language area coincides with the German-speaking Community. Meanwhile, asymmetrization processes took place, with a merger of institutions of the Flemish Community and Region and a transfer of competences from the French-speaking Community to the Walloon Region and the French-speaking Community Council in Brussels and from the Walloon Region to the German-speaking Community (for more detail, see Popelier 2019: 24–27). The overlap of the Flemish and the French Communities in Brussels, however, did not lead to a system of power-sharing. Each Community is competent with respect to uni-linguistic institutions in Brussels only, which means that no cooperation is needed to exercise their powers. To regulate cultural and person-related matters with regard to persons and bilingual institutions, the Joint Community Commission was brought to life, composed of the Brussels MPs from both language groups. The double majority requirement, which gives each group a veto right,5 turns this Commission into a more confederal institution. With every state reform, more powers are transferred to the subnational entities. Wariness is the driving force: as soon as different preferences and mutual distrust between the language groups paralyze decision making at the federal level, a transfer of powers comes up as the appropriate solution (Coenraets and Mahon 1994: 188; Pas 2004: 160). For example, when the licensing of arms deliveries proved too controversial, owing to a special interest on the French-speaking side because of the presence of an arms factory on Walloon territory, this power was lifted from the federal power on external affairs and transferred to the Regions. As a result, autonomy, equality and exclusivity are the main principles for the distribution of competences. Powers are conferred to the federated entities to unblock federal 5  In exchange for a fixed distribution of seats in the Brussels Parliament, this majority requirement was weakened: if a majority cannot be found in each group, a one-third approval from each group is sufficient and a majority in total.

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decision making and are therefore allocated in such a way as to minimize the need for dialogue and negotiation. Exclusivity, then, is the main principle for the allocation of powers, as the Constitutional Court has repeatedly confirmed: matters lie in the sphere of competences of either the federal authorities, the Communities or the Regions, to the exclusion of the other entities.6 Shared powers are excluded as much as possible, to avoid having to introduce a priority rule: such rule is regarded as implying a hierarchy that contradicts the equality principle that governs the relations between the federal and federated entities (Vandenbroucke 2011). Shared powers are also shunned because of their centralizing effect, promoting a more integrated form of federalism, whereas Belgium is designed as a dual federation where entities function separate from each other and the federal government (Swenden 2006: 49, 50–57). As a result, the Walloon and the Flemish Communities have developed in isolation, with their own news media and sets of preferences (Billiet Maddens and Frognier: 2006: 913–914). This division was reinforced by the electoral success of regionalist parties since the 1960s and the subsequent split of national parties in separate francophone and Flemish parties (Verleden 2009: 146–165). Combined with the delineation of electoral districts alongside linguistic borders, this created fragmenting dynamics, for two reasons. First, parties gain from more radical positions as they are only accountable to the electorate in their own language district. In political debates, they take the Region as the primary point of reference (Swenden and Jans 2006: 889). Secondly, political parties benefit from a transfer of powers to the Regions, where they are in control, while at the federal level they have to share power with ideologically distant parties from across the language border (Swenden and Jans 2006: 880). 3.3  Power-Sharing At the federal level, this system of power division is translated into a confederal model of decision making, characterized, as Duchacek (1985: 46) puts it, by “veto reigns supreme.” This means that joint decision making is the result of negotiations between the two major language groups or the sub-entities with which they (roughly) correspond, which are on an equal footing and have formal or informal veto rights.

6

 Established case law since Const. Court No. 7, 20 December 1985.

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This determines the outlook and functioning of the federal parliament, government and courts. We find the mirror image in the Brussels Region, where consensual measures are built in, this time to protect the Flemish minority in that area. In the federal Parliament, each member of parliament falls under one of two language groups, one Dutch and one French. In the Senate, the senator from the German-speaking Community falls outside the classification into language groups. Language groups are relevant when a special majority is required to enact a law, mostly in institutional matters. In these cases, a majority in each language group and a two-third majority overall is required, which gives each language group a veto right. They are also required to ring the alarm bell: whenever a language group, with a three-­ fourth majority, feels that a bill is likely to seriously harm relations between the language groups, the law-making procedure is suspended, pending the advice of the federal Council of Ministers. So far, the alarm bell has been initiated only twice. The reason is that language parity exists in the federal Council of Ministers, which means that government bills have already been scrutinized from a language Community perspective. It is no coincidence that both times the alarm bell procedure was initiated,7 this concerned a legislative proposal initiated by MPs. The federal government is composed on the basis of linguistic parity: half of the ministers are French-speaking, the other half is Dutch-speaking, with the prime minister not taken into account in the case of an uneven number (Art. 99 Constitution). Given the ideological divide discussed above (Sect. 2.3), especially in terms of electoral outcomes and the regionalization of political parties, this severely complicates government formation. This gets even more complicated when political parties request a double majority, that is, a majority in each language group. While this is not a legal requirement (Velaers 2015: 4–22), parties prefer it to find legitimacy throughout the country and because they make themselves vulnerable if they are not backed by a majority in their own language group. The downside is that it promotes ideologically diverse governments and is increasingly difficult to achieve. Formateurs, then, are increasingly faced with a difficult choice. Either they form a government that has a strong, nation-wide majority but which is fragile due to its ideological diversity, or they form an ideologically more coherent government that is fragile 7  One in 1985 concerning universities, the other in 2010 concerning the split of the one electoral district that, until 2014, crossed language borders.

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because it lacks legitimacy on one side of the language border. In the latter case, moreover, the minority party(s) punch above their weight with half of the number of ministers. For example, the government Michel I (2014–2018) consisted of one francophone party, the liberal Mouvement Réformateur (MR), which represented 32% of the French-speaking language group and 13% of the entire electorate but held half of the ministerial posts, including the post of the prime minister. Government formation has therefore become a difficult enterprise that easily takes several months. It becomes even harder if a state reform is required to appease relations between the language Communities: in that case, the support of a two-­ third majority is needed. This explains why it took a year and a half to form a government after the elections of 2010. Language parity is also the rule in the apex courts. In the Supreme Court, called the Court of Cassation, half of the judges have acquired a law degree in Dutch, half in French. This has been criticized, mainly in Flemish circles, as parity does not reflect the workload (Bouckaert 2003: 51; Rimanque 2003: 26). For example, in the five-year period 2012–2016, the Court of Cassation pronounced 15,212 judgments, 57%  of which were in Dutch.8 However, as the Court’s backlog is manageable, there is no political incentive to break the linguistic balance. The highest administrative court, the Council of State, consists of 44 Councilors, half of whom are Dutch-speaking and half of whom are French-speaking. In turn, the Constitutional Court is composed of 12 judges, half of whom are French-­ speaking and half of whom are Dutch-speaking. The importance of linguistic parity is also reflected in how the Constitutional Court functions. Cases are decided in chambers of 7 judges or in plenary sessions of 10 or 12 judges. There is always a linguistic parity, with the remaining judge in the chamber of seven alternating between the Dutch and the French language group. Two presidents are appointed, one from each language group. In plenary sessions, the tie-breaking vote rotates between the Dutch- and the French-speaking president on a yearly basis. The emphasis on linguistic parity reveals once more that the dyadic nature of the Belgian federation based on language Communities is more important than representation of the territorial sub-state entities. Along with the absence of majority votes or dissenting and concurring opinions, linguistic parity is essential to ensure that the decisions of the Court are accepted on both sides of the language border. Recent empirical research shows that this 8

 Based on the data in Court of Cassation, Annual report 2016 (Brussels 2017: 220).

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institutional design has succeeded in eliminating the impact of language adherence of the judges in the resolution of federalism disputes (Popelier and Bielen 2018). While protective measures are included at the federal level to safeguard the (large) francophone minority, institutional mechanisms are introduced to protect the (small) Flemish minority in the Brussels Region. The Brussels Parliament also consists of two language groups. A special majority in each language group is only required in a small number of matters, but an alarm-bell procedure similar to the one at the federal level is in place. Seats in each language groups are fixed, resulting, with 17 seats out of 89, in an institutionalized overrepresentation of Flemings. According to the Constitutional Court (No 35/2003, 25 March 2003 and No 36/2003, 27 March 2003), this does not violate the constitutional rule of proportional representation, because the core of the right to vote is not infringed and the bilingual nature of the Brussels Region demands special arrangements. In particular, the number of Flemish seats had to be raised in order to allow the representatives to fulfill their multiple mandates, not only as MPs in the Brussels Region, but also as members of the Flemish Community Council and as members of the Joint Community Council.9 In the Brussels Government, quasi-parity is the rule: while the minister-­ president is francophone, the four other ministers must be based on linguistic parity, and three Secretaries of State are added, one of which is Flemish and the other two French-speaking. Special procedures are in place so that ministers are nominated and dismissed by their own language group. This leaves Brussels ministers accountable only to their own language group, which brings the Brussels model close to a confederal system.

4   Major Challenges The foregoing sketches the Belgian state as a heterogeneous, dyadic and politically and constitutionally asymmetric system. Each of these features poses challenges to the stability of the system by undermining the consociational regime. 9  The Flemish Community Council is a decentralized body of the Flemish Community that implements Flemish Community laws. The Joint Community Council is an autonomous body that decides upon certain Community matters with respect to persons and bilingual bodies in Brussels. It consists of both linguistic groups in the Brussels Parliament, but decides with a majority in each linguistic group (weakened to a one-third majority in each group and a majority overall if no double majority is found in the first round).

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4.1   Heterogeneity as a Factor of Instability Homogeneity—and linguistic homogeneity in particular (Erk 2004: 2)— promotes cohesion, or an atmosphere of unity, which in turn encourages a sense of national identity (Elazar 1987: 169; Gardner and Ninet 2011: 498; McGarry and O’Leary 2007: 197–198). Multinational systems, by contrast, are divided societies: group characteristics form the basis for identity formation, political mobilization and structural political conflicts (Choudhry and Hume 2011: 363). If, as a result, the political elite does not share a sense of togetherness, mutual respect, trust and common interest, as seems to be the case in Belgium, the federal system has little chance of survival. Language plays a reinforcing role in this regard: language heterogeneity appears to be one of the sharpest distributing factors (Elazar 1987: 241–242; Watts 2008: 180). In Belgium, the federalization process has institutionalized heterogeneity as a form of compounded homogeneity, to the point where language Communities live side by side in isolation, each with their own systems of political preference formation: their own regional political parties, their own schools and universities and their own news channels. The splitting of the radio and television broadcaster has prevented the creation of a Belgian public space that most democratic theories consider necessary for an optimal functioning of democracy (Sinardet 2011: 311–321). The absence of nation-wide political parties, together with the fact that the constituencies do not cross the language borders, promotes radicalization: the regional political parties are only accountable to their own language Community and are therefore less inclined to reach out to parties or voters on the other side of the language border (Sinardet 2008: 1016). 4.2  Dyadic Federalism Dyadic federalism is a major risk factor for the survival of federal states (Duchacek 1988; Pinder 2007: 8). This is because no changing alliances are possible, and one party is usually larger than the other, which encourages conflict situations. The smaller entity soon feels threatened, and the larger entity is dissatisfied because it must always make concessions to the minority group (Watts 2007: 234). According to the Constitution, Belgium consists of three Communities and three Regions. As a result of the merger on the Flemish side, there are in fact only five federal states, but then the French Community Commission

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and the Joint Community Commission can be counted, each of which has legislative powers for a limited number of Community powers in Brussels. In reality, however, everything revolves around the two major language Communities, which makes Belgium essentially a dyadic federal system. With regionalized francophone and Flemish political parties, and a Flemish and a francophone media that are inclined to zoom in on their own language Community, the political debate gets increasingly polarized. This reinforces the rhetoric of nationalist movements and explains the fundamental distrust between the two major language Communities. Also, it leads to complex state reforms that result from difficult compromises, with Flemings demanding more autonomy because they feel held back by the francophone minority and find themselves always on the giving side, and with francophone parties on the receiving side that feel threatened by Flemish dominance. With only two relevant groups, with more or less fixed demographic and economic power relations, compromises are usually seen in terms of winners and losers, which poses a threat for the legitimacy of the consociational regime. The paradox that follows is that the dyadic federal state structure, as a device for managing conflicts in an already divided society, was necessary for the preservation of the Belgian state, but at the same time perpetuated instability. 4.3  Political Asymmetry Political or de facto asymmetry between federated entities points to differences in size, population level, resources and level of prosperity (Swenden 2006: 63; Watts 2008: 127). While this occurs in almost all federal states, it becomes a problem when the differences become too large and in particular when one Region clearly dominates (Tarlton 1965: 863; Elazar 1987: 170, 244; Watts 2008: 181). When different social fault lines reinforce each other, a process of polarization starts and issues tend to get a high emotional symbolic value, which makes compromise difficult (Watts 2008: 183). In Belgium, such asymmetries occur as differences in perception of identity, in the political landscape and in the form of variations in population size, territory and level of prosperity. Not all asymmetries are problematic. For example, the German-speaking Community is much smaller in terms of size and population, but this does not threaten the stability of the system. More important is the fact that the two major language

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Communities differ in ideology and prosperity, which results in ongoing conflicts and tensions. 4.4  Constitutional Asymmetry Constitutional or de jure asymmetry refers to differences in status, competences and fiscal powers between the federated entities (Palermo 2009). Unlike in symmetrical federal states, where states defend common interests against the federal government, states in asymmetric federations have conflicting interests. In addition, constitutional asymmetry implies inequality, elicits counter demands from disadvantaged subareas, leads to complexity and, at worst, endangers legitimacy and stability (Bauböck 2001; Hombrado 2011; Sahadžić 2020). The Belgian federal structure is essentially asymmetrical. Article 1 of the Constitution pictures Belgium as a federal state "composed of the communities and the regions." These two types of federated entities each have a different set of competences: the Communities have powers in the field of culture, education, personal matters and the use of languages, while the Regions have powers in the areas of economics, energy, environment, spatial planning, housing and local authorities. As mentioned, further developments deepened the asymmetries, with mergers and transfers between Communities and Regions. The result is a complex interplay, with Communities that also exercise regional powers, and Regions that also exercise Community powers. Combined with the overlapping structure of the federated entities and different preferences— with the francophone parties preferring Region-based federalism and the Flemings promoting a Community-based federalism—this makes it difficult to redesign and simplify the state structure.

5   Future Prospects From the previous section, the key question arising is whether the disintegrating dynamics in Belgium will inevitably lead to secession, or whether constitutional engineering can reach a balance point that brings stability. In what follows, this section discusses (1) dissolution, (2) confederalism and (3) reinforced federalism with confederal traits as possible paths to move forward.

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5.1  Dissolution Dyadic federalism leads to instability because it creates mistrust between the language Communities, which makes cooperation difficult and can block the functioning of federal institutions. The question then is whether the dissolution of the Belgian state is a potential exit option. The question becomes all the more urgent as Flanders already shows all the features that, according to international literature (Anderson 2004: 7–10), make secession a realistic option: it has political and institutional capacity, it is economically viable, the Flemish population predominantly lives within one homogeneous area that can be separated as such and the pursuit of independence is regarded as a legitimate party program item and is the subject of public debate. Yet, three factors stand in the way of the immediate dissolution of Belgium: Brussels, budget and public opinion (for the first two, see also Pas 2011: 501). 1. Brussels: Its metropolitan and international functions, the heterogeneous composition of its population with francophone dominance, and its location, surrounded by the Dutch language area, give the bilingual Brussels area a special position. On the French-speaking side, the so-called ‘Plan B’ was developed to construct a ‘corridor’ that, in the event of a split, would attach Brussels to the remaining Wallonian part. On the Flemish side, separatists are divided: some are prepared to let go of Brussels (Vermeiren 2014), while others claim Brussels as their own, even though this implies the re-­ introduction into the new Flemish state of the language problem that has disrupted Belgian society. In addition, demographic and institutional interdependence in Brussels is a complicating factor for dissolution. 2. Budget: The public debt, and the need for a redistribution mechanism to raise the level of prosperity on the French-speaking side, is a second factor that complicates splitting. The national debt far exceeds the Maastricht norm that sets 60% of GDP as a maximum and should be distributed in a way that gives creditors confidence if Flanders aspires to be recognized by other countries. What distinguishes Flemings from other independence movements is that they form the demographic and economic majority. This means that they would bear a responsibility toward the remaining parts, so that the

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financial transfer, so often cited as the reason for a split, would continue to exist (see also Vermeiren 2014). . Public opinion: Support for separatism in public opinion is very low 3 in the Flemish electorate, where it has been structurally around 10% for decades (Swyngedouw and Abts 2011: 13). Moreover, most Flemish people still feel connected to Belgium first and only then to Flanders (Deschouwer and Sinardet 2010: 79–82). Yet, for many voters, it seems perfectly possible to reconcile a preference for the preservation of Belgium with a vote for a separatist party. Although after the elections in 2019 the two separatist parties, Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie (N-VA) and Vlaams Belang, gained 43% of the votes in the Flemish Parliament, the Flemish voters still gave low priority to the topic of state reform (see the survey by Walgrave et al. 2019: 10). In the end, the Belgian federalization process—and the political process in general—has increasingly been a matter for political elites, in which public opinion has played a rather limited role. Presently, two parties promote Flemish independence, but their strategies are very different. The N-VA opts for a long-term strategy through confederalism, which is discussed below. The Vlaams Belang wants the Flemish Parliament to declare independence first, after which negotiations can start. The latter scenario is unlikely without the support of other parties or the population. Even after the 2019 elections, which gave a new boost to Vlaams Belang, both parties are not able to create a majority, with the N-VA holding 35 and Vlaams Belang 23 seats out of 124. 5.2  Confederalism Two political parties, both Flemish, prefer a confederal state structure. For the N-VA, this is a transition phase to independence: in successive state reforms, more and more powers must be transferred to the federated entities until Belgium automatically evaporates. For the Christian-Democratic party (CD&V), confederalism is a goal in itself that does not endanger the existence of Belgium as such. In traditional theory, a confederation is a cooperation between independent states, based on a treaty, where the most important decisions are taken unanimously, decisions usually have no direct effect on the population, and the participating states have a right to secession. Adherents to this theory therefore claim that confederalism presupposes separatism

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(Velaers 2013: 9–15; 22–23). The theory, however, is outdated and detached from political reality (see Popelier 2014: 3–6). By contrast, in a dynamic perspective, confederalism means that the main focus is on the autonomy of the sub-entities, while less attention is paid to the integrity of the whole. Far-reaching confederalism would mean that most matters would be decided by the subnational entities, whereas a limited number of confederal matters, such as defense and cross-border issues would be decided by the quasi-sovereign sub-units on an equal footing (for a scholarly proposal, see Sottiaux 2015). In other words, the choice for federalism is a choice for compounded linguistic majoritarianism, rather than a consociational regime based on power-sharing. The question is how livable such a constellation is. If instruments for cohesion are lacking, this might likely culminate in the dissolution of Belgium. 5.3  Reinforced Federalism with Confederal Traits As mentioned above, the Belgian decision-making system already shows some confederal traits, which is inevitably linked with the country’s dyadic characteristics. However, if one chooses to remain in a federal context, a better balance must be struck between the autonomy of the sub-entities— which has been the focus of state reforms so far—and the coherence of the whole (Popelier 2015: 245). Further study is needed on how cohesion can be built in. So far, proposals for cohesive mechanisms have been launched to transfer powers back to the federal level (De Croo 2017); introduce a nation-wide electoral district (Pavia Group 2007); or consider concurring powers instead of exclusive powers in social matters (Popelier and Cantillon 2013). Most importantly, its implementation requires a political will to stop the disintegrative dynamics of the current state structure. The question is whether political parties are prepared to do this, because (ruling) parties have an interest in stronger federated entities, where they do not have to share their power with the other language group. Until now, only the proposal for a nation-wide electoral district for a limited number of seats has been discussed in Parliament, but found little support (Report, House of Representatives 2013–2014: 53-3446/1 and Senate 2013–2014: 5-2730/1).

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6   Conclusion According to Elazar (1985: 30), consociational regimes tend to be longer lived when they function within federal polities. In Belgium, federalism has indeed provided a structure in which consociationalism persisted by committing citizens to their respective language groups. At the same time, dyadic multinational federalism, based on the trichotomy of autonomy, equality and exclusivity, makes for a very fragile state structure with increasing decentralising dynamics that remove the basis for consociational governance. Current developments illustrate the resulting radicalization of the political space that reinforces these dynamics. To find support for their separatist program, Flemish nationalist parties claim that Flemings and francophone people have irreconcilable preferences. In the shock of the election results in 2019, with an unprecedented rise of extreme parties— the extreme right in Flanders and the extreme left in Wallonia—even the French-speaking press proclaimed the break-up of Belgium into two separate democracies.10 Yet, in reality, it seems that the perpetuating state reforms and the ideological divide between the language Communities are a political construct rather than a popular concern. The conclusion is that, so far, the Belgian model of consensus democracy has managed to keep Belgium viable at the cost of complexity. The system, however, is based upon power division and confederal mechanisms that gradually destroy collaborative and cohesive capacity. In the long run, it seems that more cohesive instruments are essential to keep the Belgian state from dissolving.

References Anderson, L. M. (2004). The Institutional Basis of Secessionist Politics: Federalism and Secession in the United States. Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 34(2), 1–18. Bauböck, E. (2001). United in Misunderstanding? Asymmetry in Multinational Federations. ICE Working Paper Series 2001, No. 26. Billiet, J., Maddens, B., & Frognier, A.  P. (2006). Does Belgium Still Exist? Differences in Political Culture between Flemings and Walloons. West European Politics, 29(5), 912–932. 10  Headlines in La Libre Belgique: ‘La Fracture,’ in L’Echo: ‘La Belgique coupée en deux,’ in La Capitale: ‘La fin de la Belgique,’ in Le Soir: ‘Deux Belgique’.

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Boehme, O. (2013). Een geschiedenis van het economisch nationalism. Antwerp: De Bezige Bij. Bouckaert, B. (2003). Defederalisering van de Belgische justitie? Een rechtseconomische overvlucht. In M.  Taeymans (Ed.), Defederalisering van justitie. Brussels: Larcier. Brown, D. (2008). Nation-Building: From a World of Nations to a World of Nationalism. In G. H. Herb & D. H. Kaplan (Eds.), Nations and Nationalism. A Global Historical Overview (Vol. 4). Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio. Choudhry, S., & Hume, N. (2011). Federalism, Devolution and Secession: From Classical to Post-conflict Federalism. In T.  Ginsburg & R.  Dixon (Eds.), Comparative Constitutional Law. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Coenraets, P., & Mahon, E. (1994). Les transferts de compétences de l’autorité fédérale vers les communautés et les régions. In Les réformes institutionnelles de 1993. Vers un fédéralisme achevé? Brussels: Bruylant. De Croo, A. (2017, December 13). Ik wil dit land opnieuw meer federaal maken, maar dan in de authentieke betekenis van het woord. Knack. De Winter, L. (1998). The Volksunie and the Dilemma between Policy Success and Electoral Survival in Flanders. In L. De Winter & H. Türsan (Eds.), Regionalist Parties in Western Europe. London: Routledge. Deschouwer, K., & Sinardet, D. (2010). Identiteiten, communautaire standpunten en stemgedrag. In K. Deschouwer, P. Delwit, et al. (Eds.), De stemmen van het volk. Een analyse van het kiesgedrag in Vlaanderen en Wallonië op 7 juni 2009. Brussels: VUB Press. Dewulf, J. (2012). The Flemish Movement: On the Intersection of Language and Politics in the Dutch-Speaking Part of Belgium. Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, 13(1), 23–32. Duchacek, I. D. (1985). Consociational Cradle of Federalism. Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 15(2), 35–48. Duchacek, I.  D. (1988). Dyadic Federations and Confederations. Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 18(2), 5–31. Elazar, D. J. (1985). Federalism and Consociational Regimes. Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 15(2), 17–34. Elazar, D.  J. (1987). Exploring Federalism. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press. Erk, J. (2004). Austria: A Federation Without Federalism. Publius: the Journal of Federalism, 34(1), 1–20. Gardner, J.  A., & Ninet, A.  A. (2011). Sustainable Decentralization: Power, Extraconstitutional Influence and Subnational Symmetry in the United States and Spain. American Journal of Comparative Law, 59(2), 491–528. Hombrado, A. (2011). Learning to Catch the Wave? Regional Demands for Constitutional Change in Contexts of Asymmetrical Arrangements. Regional & Federal Studies, 21(4-5), 479–501.

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Lijphart, A. (1985). Non-Majoritarian Democracy: A Comparison of Federal and Consociational Theories. Publius: the Journal of Federalism, 15(2), 3–15. McGarry, J., & O’Leary, B. (2007). Federation and Managing Nations. In M.  Burgess & J.  Pinder (Eds.), Multinational Federations. Abingdon: Routledge. Mussche, N. (2012). Belgium—Challenging the Concept of a National Social Security. A Short History of National Partition. In B. Cantillon, P. Popelier, & N. Mussche (Eds.), Social Federalism: The Creation of a Layered Welfare State. Cambridge: Intersentia. Palermo, F. (2009). Asymmetries in Constitutional Law—An Introduction. In F.  Palermo, C.  Zwilling, & K.  Kössler (Eds.), Asymmetries in Constitutional Law: Recent Developments in Federal and Regional Systems. Europäische Akademie Bozen/Accademia Europea Bolzano. Pas, W. (2004). A Dynamic Federalism Built on Static Principles: The Case of Belgium. In A. Tarr, R. Williams, & J. Marko (Eds.), Federalism, Subnational Constitutions, and Minority Rights. Westport, CT: Praeger. Pas, W. (2011). Federalisme met gemeenschappen én gewesten: een tussenstand van moeilijkheden, mogelijkheden en voorstellen. Tijdschrift voor Bestuurswetenschappen en Publiekrecht, 66(1), 486–502. Pavia Group. (2007). Een federale kieskring voor het federaal Parlement/Une circonscription fédérale pour le Parlement fédéral? Retrieved from www. paviagroup.be. Peeters, P. (2007). Multinational Federations. Reflections on the Belgian federal state. In M. Burgess & J. Pinder (Eds.), Multinational Federations. Abingdon: Routledge. Pinder, J. (2007). Multinational Federations. In M. Burgess & J. Pinder (Eds.), Multinational Federations. Abingdon: Routledge. Popelier, P. (2014). Subnational Multilevel Constitutionalism. Perspectives on Federalism, 6(2), 1–23. Popelier, P. (2015). The Disintegration of Belgium as the Chronicle of a Death Foretold? In E. M. Belser et al. (Eds.), States Falling Apart? Secessionist and Autonomy Movements in Europe. Bern: Stämpfli Verlag. Popelier, P. (2019). Asymmetry and Complexity as a Device for Multinational Conflict Management. A Country Study of Constitutional Asymmetry in Belgium. In P.  Popelier & M.  Sahadžić (Eds.), Constitutional Asymmetry in Multinational Federalism. Managing Multinationalism in Multi-tiered Systems. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Popelier, P., & Bielen, S. (2018). How Courts Decide Federalism Disputes: Legal Merit, Attitudinal Effects, and Strategic Considerations in the Jurisprudence of the Belgian Constitutional Court. Publius: the Journal of Federalism, 49(4), 587–616.

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Popelier, P., & Cantillon, B. (2013). Bipolar Federalism and the Social Welfare State: A Case for Shared Powers. Publius: the Journal of Federalism, 43(4), 626–647. Popelier, P., & Lemmens, K. (2015). The Constitution of Belgium. A Contextual Analysis. Oxford: Hart Publishing. Rimanque, K. (2003). De organisatie van de rechtsbedeling in federale staten: een bevoegdheid van oor de deelstaten? Vergelijkend overzicht en mogelijkheden in België. In M. Taeymans (Ed.), Defederalisering van justitie. Larcier: Brussels. Sahadžić, M. (2020). Asymmetry, Multinationalism and Constitutional Law: Managing Legitimacy and Stability in Federalist States. London: Routledge (forthcoming). Sax, A., (2012). Voor Vlaanderen, Volk en Führer. Antwerp: Manteau Sinardet, D. (2008). Belgian Federalism Put to the Test: The 2007 Belgian Federal Elections and their Aftermath. West European Politics, 31(5), 1016–1032. Sinardet, D. (2011). Multilingual Democracy and Public Sphere. What Belgium and the EU Can Learn from Each Other. In A. Gosseries & Y. Vanderborght (Eds.), Arguing about Justice: Essays for Philippe Van Parijs. Louvain-La-Neuve: Presses Universitaires de Louvain. Sottiaux, S. (2015). De Verenigde Staten van België. Mechelen: Wolters Kluwer. Swenden, W. (2006). Federalism and Regionalism in Western Europe. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Swenden, W., & Jans, M. T. (2006). ‘Will It Stay or Will It Go?’ Federalism and the Sustainability of Belgium. West European Politics, 29(5), 877–894. Swyngedouw, M., & Abts, K. (2011). De kiezers van de N-VA op 13 juni 2010. Structurele posities, attitudes, beleidskwesties en opvattingen. CESO-ISPO. Tarlton, C. D. (1965). Symmetry and Asymmetry as Elements of Federalism: A Theoretical Speculation. The Journal of Politics, 27(4), 861–874. Van Goethem, H. (2012). Belgium—Challenging the Concept of a National Social Security. In B.  Cantillon, P.  Popelier, & N.  Mussche (Eds.), Social Federalism: The Creation of a Layered Welfare State. Cambridge: Intersentia. Vandenbroucke, F. (2011). Two Dilemmas in Institutional Reform: The Pieters Dilemma and the Cantillon Dilemma. In Social Federalism: How is a Multi-level Welfare State Best Organized? Brussels: ReBel. Velaers, J. (2013). Federalisme/confederalisme… en de weg ernaartoe. Brussels: KVAB Press. Velaers, J. (2015). De pariteit in de Ministerraad (artikel 99, tweede lid van de Grondwet): een vereiste met een louter taalkundige, een communautaire, of ook een ‘taalgroep-parlementaire’ betekenis. Tijdschrift voor Bestuurswetenschappen en Publiekrecht, 70(1), 4–22. Verleden, F. (2009). Splitting the Difference: The Radical Approach of the Belgian Parties. In W.  Swenden & B.  Maddens (Eds.), Territorial Party Politics in Western Europe. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

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CHAPTER 6

Power-Sharing and Party Politics in the Western Balkans John Hulsey and Soeren Keil

J. Hulsey (*) Department of Political Science, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, USA e-mail: [email protected] S. Keil School of Law, Policing and Social Sciences, Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 S. Keil, A. McCulloch (eds.), Power-Sharing in Europe, Federalism and Internal Conflicts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53590-2_6

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Map 6.1  Western Balkans. Source: https://d-­maps.com/carte.php?num_car= 4983&lang=en

1   Introduction Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia2 and Kosovo each have internationally brokered power-sharing systems with consociational elements that were put in place following their violent exits from Yugoslavia. These 1

1  Following the general use of term in the academic literature, we will refer to Bosnia and Herzegovina as Bosnia. This always refers to the whole country. 2  For a long period of time, Macedonia had a name dispute with neighboring Greece and was referred to as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. This dispute was only solved in 2018, when the country officially became the Republic of North Macedonia. Following the general use of term in the literature, we refer to North Macedonia and Macedonia interchangeably.

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power-sharing systems have been studied extensively in the academic literature (Bieber 2005, 2006; Bieber and Keil 2009; Keil 2015; Koneska 2014). In addition to the internationally brokered nature of these power-­ sharing agreements, other commonalities include a commitment to bring former warring factions together, to support the transition of previous rebel groups and commanders into political parties and elites and to design institutions following the consociational model of power-sharing, first proposed by Arend Lijphart in 1969 (Lijphart 1969, 1977). Consociationalism focuses on elite cooperation, group autonomy and institutional leverage for minorities through proportional representation and veto rights. It has been promoted as the main tool to pacify countries plagued by internal conflicts and civil wars and has become the international community’s main tool to promote democracy in post-war societies (Lijphart 2005; McGarry and O’Leary 1993; Noel 2005; Sisk 1996; McCulloch 2014). While previous analyses of the power-sharing agreements in the three post-Yugoslav states have focused on the structures of the institutional setup and the different forums for cooperation and autonomy, this chapter takes a different direction by focusing specifically on party dynamics. The advantage of this approach lies in its ability to assess the impact of different power-sharing structures on party and coalition dynamics. In particular, we will highlight how the rigidity of consociational institutions and the level of decentralization influence party and coalition dynamics, which will provide a framework for an assessment of the functionality of corporate and liberal consociational models as applied in the three countries in the Western Balkans. Nearly 25  years after the Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the Bosnian war and more than a decade since Kosovo’s independence from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, it is possible to examine these systems not just in terms of their formal structures that have been put in place, but in terms of the lived-in patterns of party politics and political behavior. In this contribution, our attention centers on party politics, coalitions between parties representing different ethnic groups and the dynamics between parties, coalitions and voter behavior in the three countries. By doing so, we first discuss the evolution and main structures of the power-­ sharing agreements in Bosnia, North Macedonia and Kosovo. In a second step, we evaluate the relevance of party politics for power-sharing systems. We find that, while electoral competition matters in all three countries, it nevertheless poses key challenges. Party competition takes place within, rather than between, ethnic groups, which consequently affects coalition formation and policy outputs. In fact, as our discussion on the party

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systems demonstrates, there are usually no significant differences between parties representing the same ethnic group in terms of policy orientation and ideology. Instead, different parties offer different patronage systems, especially in Bosnia and Kosovo. The final section before the Conclusion looks at wider developments and in particular at the link between party politics, coalition formation and state capture. Here, we point out important similarities and differences between the cases—especially highlighting how the high degree of decentralization in Bosnia has made state capture easier, not only at a central state level but also at a regional and cantonal level.

2   Power-Sharing in Bosnia, North Macedonia and Kosovo—Evolution and Function The power-sharing arrangements in the Western Balkan region emerged in the second half of the 1990s and the early 2000s as a result of a series of violent conflicts between different groups connected to the dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia—and the subsequent establishment of new states. These conflicts resulted in military interventions in all three countries under the leadership of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In Bosnia, the current power-sharing arrangement is part of the Dayton Agreement, signed in Paris in December 1995. This Agreement ended the three-and-a-half-year war between Bosniaks, Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Serbs, with the latter also supported by their kin-states, Croatia and Serbia respectively (Burg and Shoup 2000). The Agreement included in Annex IV a new constitutional framework for Bosnia, which recognizes “Bosniacs, Croats, and Serbs, as constituent peoples (along with Others)” in the Preamble and lays out an institutional framework, in which these three groups are bound (and indeed forced) to work together to reach decisions (Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina 1995). Similar to the developments in Bosnia, Macedonia’s power-sharing was institutionalized more strongly as a result of the EU- and US-negotiated Ohrid Framework Agreement (OFA) in August 2001. The Agreement is described in the Preamble as an “agreed framework for securing the future of Macedonia’s democracy and permitting the development of closer and more integrated relations between the Republic of Macedonia and the Euro-Atlantic community. This Framework will promote the peaceful and harmonious development of civil society while respecting the ethnic

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identity and the interests of all Macedonian citizens” (Ohrid Framework Agreement 2001). The OFA was the result of intense military actions between Albanian rebel groups and Macedonian security forces starting in 2000, which brought the country close to a civil war by 2001 (Daskalovski 2004). While the country implemented informal power-sharing between Macedonian and Albanian parties already since independence in 1991, by the end of the 1990s, many Albanians felt excluded from the state and discriminated by the Macedonian majority. However, the quick EU and NATO intervention, along with internationally mediated peace talks, resulted in the adoption of the OFA and provided for substantial constitutional changes, and a more formal process of power-sharing and inclusion (Daftary 2001). In Kosovo, tensions had been on the rise since 1989, when Serbian President Slobodan Milošević abolished self-rule for the previous autonomous province of Serbia. After the end of the conflicts in Croatia and Bosnia, there were further tensions, as the Dayton Agreement did not include any solution for Kosovo, which disappointed Albanian leaders (Glenny 2012: 634–662). Albanian resistance then changed from peaceful protest to violent opposition of Serb domination, which in turn motivated the Serbian regime under Milošević to engage in a wide-spread military and ethnic cleansing campaign in Kosovo in 1998 and 1999. This shift in conflict patterns among Albanians also influenced the developments of party politics in Kosovo substantially, as discussed below. The conflict ended after the military intervention of NATO and the establishment of an international, UN-led administration in Kosovo. This paved the way for a Constitutional Framework for Provisional Self-Government in 2001 before Kosovo declared its unilateral independence in 2008 and passed a new Constitution, which refers to Kosovo in the Preamble “as a free, democratic and peace-loving country that will be a homeland to all of its citizens” (Constitution of Kosovo 2008). As can be seen from the discussion above, international actors played a key role in ending the conflicts in all three countries, and they also were vital in the design and the subsequent implementation of the different power-sharing arrangements. What is more, as Bieber and Keil (2009) have elaborated, there is evidence that learning has taken place within international actors who designed these power-sharing agreements. Keil (2015: 197) further argues that “[w]hile the conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia differed in their intensity, scope and political motivation, [they share] their nature as ethnic conflicts as well as the high involvement

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of international actors in conflict resolution and post-conflict reconstruction.” As all three power-sharing arrangements followed the consociational model, it is worth looking at (a) elite power-sharing through grand coalitions; (b) proportional representation; (c) veto rights; and (d) autonomy—as these are the main elements of consociationalism (Lijphart 1969, 1977, 2005). The similarities in the origins, designs and international involvement of the three power-sharing agreements also explain their similarities in structural terms. All three countries focus on elite power-sharing and inclusion of major groups in government coalitions. In Bosnia, the government coalition always consists of parties representing Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats, and, indeed, the highest office of the country, the Presidency, consists of one Bosniak, one Serb and one Croat representative, with the Bosniak and Croat representative elected directly in one part of the country (called the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, FBiH), while the Serb representative is elected in the other part (called Republika Srpska, RS) (Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina 1995: Article V). The Presidency, like the Council of Ministers, takes decisions by consensus, therefore ensuring that each of the groups has to be included and cannot be overruled. Bosnia’s strict power-sharing, which requires elite cooperation not only at the central state level but also in the FBiH and to a lesser extent in the RS and the cantons of the FBiH (Keil 2013), has not been implemented as sternly in North Macedonia and in Kosovo. Instead, in North Macedonia, there has been a history of coalitions between parties representing the Macedonian population and those representing the Albanian community since the independence of the country. Interestingly, the commitment to such a form of grand coalition is voluntary and not anchored within the OFA or Macedonia’s Constitution, although cooperation between parties representing different groups is needed for a variety of decisions in areas such as local government, culture, education, language and state symbols (OFA 2001: Annex A, Article 69, Annex B). This form of elite cooperation has been characterized as rather successful in North Macedonia and has resulted in an easing of tensions and an increase of the Albanian population across the government and administrative sectors (Bieber 2015). Likewise, Kosovo’s Constitution does not require the same strict form of elite power-sharing, as is the case in Bosnia. Instead, Article 96 of Kosovo’s Constitution outlines that at least one member of the government must come from the Kosovo Serb community, and one member

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from another minority community in the country. What is more, as outlined in Article 81, decisions referring to the rights of minority communities and local government require the consent of these minority communities’ Members of Parliament. Hence, this provision encourages cooperation between the Albanian majority parties and minority parties as well. These different forms of elite cooperation and ethnic coalitions substantially affect party politics, coalition formation and the potential for political change in the three countries, as is discussed in more detail in the second part of this chapter. In addition to different forms of grand coalitions, there are also differences in the application of the proportionality principle in the three countries. In Bosnia, all three constituent peoples have to be represented in the Presidency and in the House of Peoples (the second chamber of the central state Parliament), which is composed of five Bosniaks, five Serbs and five Croats (Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina 1995: Article IV-1). There are, however, no ethnic criteria for the composition of the Council of Ministers and the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina; instead, membership is based here on territorial criteria (with a split of two-third of ministers from the FBiH and one-third of ministers from the RS, plus six judges from the FBiH and three judges from the RS plus three international judges). Hence, Bosnia has been described as a power-­ sharing system based on multinational federalism, combining elements of territorial and ethnic criteria (Keil 2013: 121–122). In practice, however, veto rights have been used to guarantee that parties representing all three constituent peoples are included in the Council of Ministers. In North Macedonia, proportionality is ensured not only by the proportional electoral system but also through Sects. 4 and 5 of the OFA, which focus on non-discrimination and special parliamentary procedures. In fact, the underrepresentation of Albanians in the civil and security services before 2000 was a major reason for the outbreak of hostilities—it is therefore no surprise that the OFA focuses on proportional representation within the civil service and the police (Koneska 2017). As for Kosovo, the Constitution emphasizes the importance of Serb and other minority representation in Parliament through the provision of reserved seats (Constitution of Kosovo 2008: Article 64-2). In addition, there are also provisions for the fair representation of Serbs and other minorities in the civil service—a key requirement by those international actors that supported Kosovo’s unilateral independence (Skenday 2014).

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Bosnia has implemented the strictest form of veto rights among the three countries. As Bahtić-Kunrath (2011) pointed out in her detailed analysis of veto mechanisms in Bosnia, there are many access points for veto players, in the executive, in Parliament and also at entity level. In other words, literally every institution at the central state level, as well as the entities (in cooperation with the Presidency—the so-called vital interest veto), can use veto rights. Not only that, but the Members of Parliament representing the different constituent peoples have veto powers too, and in some cases even absence can be used as a form of veto, as some decisions require agreement from the Members of Parliament of all three constituent peoples, especially in the House of Peoples (Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina 1995: Article IV-1b). In North Macedonia and Kosovo, there are no direct veto rights for any groups in the power-sharing systems. Instead, all veto rights are indirect, meaning that special majorities are required for laws in certain areas such as those that affect non-majority communities, language laws and laws related to local government (Bieber and Keil 2009; Keil 2015). The OFA (2001: Part 5), for example, argues that 5.1. On the central level, certain Constitutional amendments in accordance with Annex A and the Law on Local Self-Government cannot be approved without a qualified majority of two-thirds of votes, within which there must be a majority of the votes of Representatives claiming to belong to the communities not in the majority in the population of Macedonia. 5.2. Laws that directly affect culture, use of language, education, personal documentation, and use of symbols, as well as laws on local finances, local elections, the city of Skopje, and boundaries of municipalities must receive a majority of votes, within which there must be a majority of the votes of the Representatives claiming to belong to the communities not in the majority in the population of Macedonia.

Likewise, Kosovo’s Constitution highlights in Article 81.1 that 1. The following laws shall require for their adoption, amendment or repeal both the majority of the Assembly deputies present and voting and the majority of the Assembly deputies present and voting holding seats reserved or guaranteed for representatives of Communities that are not in the majority: (1). Laws changing municipal boundaries, establishing or abolishing municipalities, defining the scope of powers of municipalities and their par-

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ticipation in inter-municipal and cross-border relations; (2). Laws implementing the rights of Communities and their members, other than those set forth in the Constitution; (3). Laws on the use of language; (4). Laws on local elections; (5). Laws on protection of cultural heritage; (6). Laws on religious freedom or on agreements with religious communities; (7). Laws on education; (8). Laws on the use of symbols, including Community symbols and on public holidays.

These special majority requirements for legislation that affects different groups specifically have proven to be an efficient and effective tool for group protection. By contrast, Bosnia’s strict and detailed veto rights have often been blamed for the lack of progress in post-war state-building and democratization because obstructive parties (particularly from the RS) have used their veto powers (or the threat of a veto) to block key decisions or force through minimal compromise changes that have had no substantial impact in practice (Keil and Kudlenko 2015). Autonomy provisions have also been implemented differently in the three countries. While Bosnia has implemented a strict multinational federal system based on two entities (the RS and the FBiH, which is further divided into ten cantons), neither North Macedonia nor Kosovo have followed Bosnia’s federal example (Keil 2013: 189–190). Instead, in both countries there is an emphasis on municipalities and their autonomy and decision-making competences, especially in those municipalities mainly inhabited by the non-dominant communities, which benefits particularly Albanian-majority communities in North-Western Macedonia and Serb communities in central Kosovo. While Bosnia’s decentralization has resulted in very limited competences of the central state level (Keil and Woelk 2016; Sahadzic 2019), in North Macedonia and Kosovo, the decentralization of decision-making has also been more limited—and focused on areas that directly affect different ethnic groups, such as language, culture and education. In Macedonia, decentralization and the new design of municipalities to strengthen local self-government of different communities have generally been considered a success story (Koneska 2014: 97–118). Likewise, the provision of autonomy for mainly Serbinhabited municipalities in central and southern Kosovo has been seen as a success story; however, the evidence from North Kosovo, which is de facto still under the control of Serbia, is less positive (Calu 2020). Levels of decentralization affect party competition and party coalitions immensely. Parties, especially those representing specific ethnic groups, often have

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certain strongholds in territories where their ethnic group forms a majority. In mixed territories, such as the FBiH and some cantons in the FBiH, parties competing also have to take into account the need for strict powersharing at a regional level, while this is less of an issue in the RS in Bosnia and in Macedonia and Kosovo. Likewise, dynamics at a regional level can also affect coalition formation at the central state level, as will be demonstrated below when analyzing party and coalition dynamics in Bosnia. While all three countries promoted territorial autonomy as the main form of self-government for ethnic groups (Walsh 2018), North Macedonia and Kosovo also include non-territorial autonomy provisions in their power-sharing arrangements. Both countries have specific parliamentary committees to protect the rights of different groups and communities, and certain rights associated with groups are provided independent of where these groups live, such as the use of language, symbols and, where feasible, education. Bosnia, North Macedonia and Kosovo have all implemented power-­ sharing systems based on consociationalism. However, while Bosnia’s system strongly follows corporate consociational structures, there are more liberal aspects in Kosovo and particularly in Macedonia. The different institutional choices, forms of decentralization and mechanisms to enhance group cooperation also explain the different performances of these systems. What is more, as will be discussed below, these different institutional mechanisms also influence the party and coalition dynamics in the three countries.

3   Political Competition, Party Politics and Power-Sharing What does healthy party politics in a deeply divided country look like? The clearest marker of success is the absence of a return to violence. According to this measure, all three of the countries under consideration are successes, which is consistent with a broader pattern of success (Cederman et al. 2017; Keil 2015). The success of power-sharing in discouraging a return to violence lies in the way it addresses the security concerns of the parties to the conflict by guaranteeing representation in executive decision-­ making (Hartzell and Hoddie 2015). If warring parties are to give up violence as a way of securing their power in favor of democracy, then they must have confidence that the outcome of an election will not result in too

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great a loss of power (Bermeo 2003). However, there is a tension between allaying security concerns and the ability of political competition in a democracy to bring about accountability and constrain corruption (Bielasiak 2005; Grzymała-Busse 2007; Johnston 2013). Indeed, within the context of this overall success story are concerns with the quality of democracy and in particular the connection between political competition and power-sharing. For this reason, we focus on the nature of political competition in each country and its impact on government formation. These characteristics are, in turn, tied to models of representation at the heart of competing visions for both conflict regulation and good governance in the context of power-sharing. The analysis of political competition includes the number, type and ideology of parties in a political system as well as the characteristics of political campaigns and voter behavior. Political competition is most robust when parties seek to sway voter support through attempts to meet voters’ needs and convince voters of the efficacy of their policy programs and leaders. Robust political competition increases responsiveness to voters when voters have multiple parties seeking their support and which offer relevant alternatives to one another. For their part, voters drive competition by shifting their support in response to their perceptions of performance (Healy and Malhotra 2013). Deep ethnic divisions offer a challenge to representation and responsiveness. To the extent that voters believe that their ethnicity is their most salient political identity, it is appropriate that parties be organized in a way that reflects that salience. Identity divisions of any type may also be a barrier to competition, in that it may either lead voters to exclude some parties as potential representatives or lead parties to restrict the scope of their representation to only a subset of the population. Such a narrowing of options is a part of any representative process, but, if a body of voters only has access to one party as its potential representative, then there is little political competition in an electoral sense. So, political competition is enhanced where there are at least two competing parties within the boundaries of any hard identity division. Competition also plays out with regard to the implementation of policy, which occurs through representation in the executive bodies of governments. For parliamentary systems, this means participation in governing coalitions. Alternation in power is the sine qua non of democratic accountability and responsiveness to voters (Przeworski et  al. 2000). However, alternation in power has an awkward relationship with power-sharing,

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which is based most heavily on representation of identity interests. Much of the appeal of power-sharing is that it reduces or eliminates the possibility that any member of a particular set of groups will be excluded from executive power. As a result, in an ethnic power-sharing system, alternation in power should not consist of power alternating between parties representing different ethnic groups but between sets of parties that together represent all relevant groups. This idea is further complicated by the presence of voters who do not identify with any of the ethnic groups, usually by identification with a different non-ethnic or multi-ethnic identity (Agarin et al. 2018).

4   Bosnia and Herzegovina: Parties and Coalitions In Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia, the initial post-conflict period was defined by the dominance of a few, primarily ethnic, parties. These parties were the initial participants in the peace agreements that set up power-­ sharing arrangements (Bieber 2006; Šedo 2010a; Kapidžić 2019). Over time, each party system has both become more competitive and more fragmented, including both new ethnic parties and civic parties. The pattern of increased fragmentation has impacted the formation of coalitions. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, three key political parties dominated immediate post-war politics. Each party is associated with one of the three major ethnic groups in Bosnia as well as the political organizations that fought the war. The Party for Democratic Action (SDA), the Serb Democratic Party (SDS) and the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) are the main parties who represented the three main ethnic groups, respectively the Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats before, during and after the war. Beginning already in the second round of elections after the war in 2000, new parties emerged to challenge the existing ethnic parties. Alternative ethnic parties like Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina (SBiH) and Union of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) employed other visions of nationalism in order to challenge the SDA and SDS as representatives of Bosniak and Serb voters. A revitalized socialist party, the Social-Democratic Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina (SDP), also challenged the dominant parties by offering both a leftist and civic vision in contrast to the identity-based politics of the dominant parties. By 2006, there was robust competition

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within each ethnic bloc, in addition to the alternative offered by the SDP, which found support primarily in Bosniak-dominated areas (Hulsey 2015a). In the past decade, ethnic blocs have taken different paths. Within the Bosniak bloc, there has been continued fragmentation and volatility, as challengers to the SDA emerge, splinter and recede. Throughout, SDA continues to be the strongest Bosniak party and is a participant in almost all coalitions where Bosniaks play a significant role. While HDZ 1990 emerged as a competitor to HDZ in 2006 and 2010, HDZ has since reasserted dominance in Croat-dominated areas. The exception to this dominance is the Croat member of Bosnia’s three-member, state-level presidency. In three of the last four elections, Željko Komšić of SDP and later the Democratic Front (DF) won the Croat seat on the rotating Presidency. Komšić receives little of his support from areas where the HDZ is strong, instead drawing from areas more heavily populated by Bosniaks and with strong support for the SDP. This pattern suggests that his election is driven less by his popularity among Croats and more by his popularity among those who support civic parties. In terms of the exercise of power and the allocation of patronage, the HDZ has tightened its control over its share of the Federation entity. Among Serb parties, SNSD has eclipsed SDS as the dominant party in Republika Srpska, winning the Presidency of Republika Srspka every election since 2006. The SDS continues to be an important player in the RS Assembly, at the municipal level and in state-level coalitions. Since 2013, the civic party space has splintered and fragmented, driven by the split of DF from SDP and the emergence of Naša Stranka. Overall, the party system exhibits competition primarily within ethnic blocs and not across them (Hulsey 2015b; Kapidžić 2017). This pattern, as well as Bosnia’s complex power-sharing system, makes it difficult to talk about political coalitions in a concise way. At the state level, executive power is shared between the directly elected, three-member presidency and the Council of Ministers, which is nominated by the Presidency and approved by the House of Representatives. Furthermore, the entities and cantons are powerful in terms of both policy and patronage. As a result of the coincidence of internal political boundaries and ethnicity, change in electoral success within one ethnic bloc may at most influence coalition participation at the state level in one entity and in a few cantons but not throughout the country.

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5   Kosovo: Parties and Coalitions Like Bosnia, the most important political parties in Kosovo grew out of the organizations that carried out resistance during the war, and the party system is characterized by competition within ethnic blocs and not between ethnic blocs (Stojarova 2010). The two most prominent Albanian parties are the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), which carried out non-violent resistance to anti-Albanian exclusionary policies, and the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), which is associated with the Kosovo Liberation Army that violently fought for Kosovo’s independence from Yugoslavia. The Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK), a smaller party also associated with the leadership of violent resistance, has played an important role in coalition formation as well. During the war, the LDK and the PDK created distinct parallel resistance organizations that were transformed into political and governance organizations after NATO intervention and Kosovo’s separation from Yugoslavia (Beha 2019: 675). Parties representing minorities are guaranteed representation in the Parliament and in governing coalitions, following the principles of grand coalitions and proportional representation, as discussed above. Since minority voters participate both in dedicated minority elections and in the general election, minority voices are overrepresented in governing institutions. After a period where Serbs were represented by several parties, the ten seats allocated for Serbs have been dominated by the Serb List since the parliamentary elections in 2014. While this party participates in power-­ sharing coalitions, it is perceived as a vehicle of the Serbian government to exert power in Kosovo as opposed to representation of the interests of Kosovo’s Serbs (Fort 2018: 514). In the initial elections held under international administration between 2001 and 2004, the LDK was the largest party and led coalition governments including the AAK and minority parties from 2001 to 2004 and the PDK and minority parties from 2004 to 2007. In the final election before independence, the PDK won the plurality of votes and led a coalition including LDK and minority parties (Krasniqi 2019: 58–61). Since Kosovo’s independence, the first two elections in 2010 and 2014 resulted in grand coalitions that included both PDK and LDK as well as other parties. In the last two elections, Kosovo moved away from grand coalitions and moved toward coalitions formed between the PDK or LDK and strengthening alternative parties as well as the parties representing Serbs and minorities. The elections in 2017 resulted in a coalition of the right including PDK and AAK, while

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elections in 2019 saw Vetëvendosje, a recently established party that came out of a social movement and has been mainly in opposition, gain the most seats and form a coalition with LDK and other parties (“Kosovo Final Election Result Confirms Vetëvendosje Victory” 2019). However, the resulting Kurti government was able to last only a few months before collapsing (“Kosovo’s Ousted Government, Secret Deals and War Crimes Charges” 2020), as a result of US pressure externally and pressure from Thaci on other parties that were involved in forming a coalition with Vetëvendosje internally. The collapse of the Kurti government happened at the same time as the Covid-19 crisis in Kosovo, leaving the country in a political crisis during a global pandemic. It is likely that the LDK, potentially with agreement from either PDK or AAK, will return to power, thereby further highlighting that substantial change is unlikely in Kosovo’s current setup.

6   North Macedonia: Parties and Coalitions Since the independence and democratization of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (now North Macedonia), politics have been characterized by power-sharing between Macedonian and Albanian ethnic parties (Šedo 2010b). This pattern was reinforced by the Ohrid Framework Agreement (Bieber and Keil 2009: 345). The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization–Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity (VMRO-DPMNE) has been the dominant Macedonian ethnic party since the end of the conflict. The Democratic Union for Integration (DUI) is the Albanian ethnic party founded by the leader of the Albanian guerrilla force (Ceka 2018). The political scene in Macedonia was dominated by power-sharing coalitions including VMRO-DPMNE and DUI between 2006 and 2016. These coalitions, led by VMRO-DPMNE’s Nikola Gruevski, also included representatives of Macedonia’s other minorities, frequently as part of pre-election coalitions with Gruevski’s party (Andeva 2015: 14–15). These include in the most recent elections (2018) the following parties: the Democratic Party of Turks, the Democratic Party of Serbs in Macedonia, the Union of Roma in Macedonia, the Party of the Vlachs from Macedonia and the Bosniak Democratic Party. The same has been done by Social Democratic Union of Macedonia (SDSM)—in the 2018 elections, it formed a coalition with the Party for the Movement of the Turks in Macedonia, the Party for the Full Emancipation of the Roma of Macedonia, the Serbian Party in Macedonia,

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the Democratic Alliance of Vlachs and the Sandžak List which mainly represents Bosniaks in Macedonia. These pre-electoral coalitions ensure the regular representation of smaller communities in Parliament and their consideration in government. A decade of dominance by the Gruevski coalition and its Albanian partner DUI was undone by a government wiretapping scandal starting in February 2015. Elections in December 2016 resulted in the flight of Gruevski to Hungary and the formation of a new government headed by Zoran Zaev’s Social Democrats (SDSM) in coalition with two new ethnic Albanian parties, the BESA Movement and the Alliance for Albanians. SDSM is a social-democratic party, which initially was mainly supported by ethnic Macedonians. However, in 2018, it was the first main party that openly campaigned for cross-community votes, especially from Albanian voters who were dissatisfied with VMRO-DPMNE and its coalition partner DUI. Interestingly, VMRO-DPMNE still won a plurality of seats but was denied a majority because of its abandonment by the Albanian parties and particularly its long-time coalition partner, DUI (Ceka 2018: 153). Zaev and his government have made dramatic progress in resolving Macedonia’s name dispute with Greece and backing off on interethnic divisiveness (Ceka 2018: 155). The ethnic-Albanian parties in coalition with SDSM have been a source of instability as the BESA Movement, the Alliance for Albanians and the DUI have cycled through the coalition. Heading into the next elections, SDSM has formed a pre-election coalition with BESA, leaving out its current coalition partner, DUI (“New Alliance Worries North Macedonia’s Junior Ruling Party” 2020). It remains to be seen whether political change in Macedonia indicates a new period of vibrant political competition after the tightening of the Gruevski years or if one party has been merely replaced by another. However, alternation in power among parties in both ethnic groups is certainly clearer in Macedonia than in Bosnia and Kosovo.

7   Patterns in Political Competition In this section, we consider the patterns of political competition and coalition formation across the three countries and tie those patterns to differing features of the power-sharing systems. In each country, there is significant competition between parties representing the same ethnic group; however, the intensity of competition varies across groupings of ethnic parties. In other words, within the

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sub-systems of party politics defined by ethnic group, party competition is uneven. Indeed in some sub-systems (such as Serbs in Kosovo), the same parties receive large numbers of votes and participate in cabinets, while other sub-systems have a lot of prominent parties competing and some alternation in governing cabinets (such as Bosniaks in Bosnia or Albanians in Kosovo). In general, the larger the proportion of the ethnic group in the country, the greater the competition within that party sub-system. In Bosnia, there is more competition among Bosniak parties than among Serb- or Croat-oriented parties. The difference in competition is starker in Kosovo, where there is competition and alternation in office among the Albanian-oriented parties while the Serb-oriented political space continues to be dominated by one party. This pattern is not as apparent in Macedonia. While significant competition has emerged there in the last five years among the Macedonian-oriented parties, the Albanian-oriented political space has seen alternation in governing coalitions before that. Macedonia, therefore, is an outlier with regard to the quality of political competition among both dominant parties and those representing the minority ethnicity. Increasing competition within ethnically defined blocs of parties has not translated in any of the three countries into significant competition across ethnic lines, at least to the level where the same parties gain a large percentage of their support from more than one ethnic group. Despite appeals based on ideologies that are not based on ethnonationalism and members from multiple ethnic groups, civic (or multi-ethnic) parties have not been able to build broader or sustainable support (Piacentini 2019; Murtagh 2020; Hulsey and Keil 2019). The segmentation of the party system is rooted in the preference for ethnic representation in the power-­ sharing systems of each country, as well as the links of established ethnic parties to the fruits of state capture (Piacentini 2019; “Kurti: Govt Was Overthrown ‘Because We Were Ending State Capture’” 2020). Civic parties have also been strongest among the groups with the highest proportion of the population, which suggests that those sub-party systems sustain more issue dimensions, which may include alternative civic ideologies. This has interesting consequences for the dynamics of power-sharing, depending on the nature of consociational institutions. In Macedonia, the SDSM has turned to become more civic in recent years, which has enabled a more reconciliatory approach in governing coalitions with Albanian and other minority parties. In Bosnia, where consociational institutions are more rigid, coalition participation of parties such as SDP and DF has

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resulted in their “socialization” within the system—so they became key supporters of policies that would favor Bosniaks exclusively, as these are their main voter basis. This in turn has cost them support in subsequent elections, as can be seen when looking at the losses of SDP in the 2014 elections and at DF in the 2018 election. Alternation in power is clearest in Macedonia, as there has been alternation in government not only among the parties within ethnic blocs, but also in the partner combinations across ethnic lines. Kosovo has seen some recent alternation in government among Albanian parties, but the lack of alternative Serb parties means that the Serb List has remained consistently in government. Yet, the orchestrated collapse of the government in Kosovo in early 2020 casts doubt on whether alternation among Albanian parties is, in fact, taking place. Meanwhile, in Bosnia, while there has been alternation in power within ethnic blocs, the trend is more toward consolidation within ethnic groups. The only possible exception in Bosnia is among Bosniaks, where opposition parties have recently been able to establish canton governments that exclude SDA. However, the process of formation of state- and entity-level coalitions replaced opposition coalitions with SDA-centered coalitions (“Parties Agree to Oust Local Government in Sarajevo” 2019). Due to SDA’s strength at the central state level, it was able to make the Democratic Front’s departure from—and therefore destruction of—the “anti-SDA” coalition in Sarajevo canton a condition of DF’s participation in the entity- and state-level coalitions. In both Kosovo and Bosnia, coalitions that were formed to exclude the most established parties, which are also most closely associated with state capture, were toppled after a short time in office. Power-sharing played a role in both failures as the excluded parties (SDA in Bosnia and PDK in Kosovo) held enough power in other state institutions and at a regional and municipal level to force a change. In other words, in complex power-­ sharing systems, such as the ones in the Balkans, coalition dynamics at regional and central level, as well as in different institutions within the center, affect each other. The SDA remains Bosnia-wide an influential party and was able, despite its weaker position in canton Sarajevo, to prevent the establishment of an alternative coalition that would have excluded it from important sources of patronage. It did so by pressuring other parties (in this case the DF) in the negotiations at the central level and conditioned participation of the DF in central government on the removal of its support for the government in canton Sarajevo.

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The significant outlier is North Macedonia, where the elites associated with state capture (i.e., those associated with the previous Gruevski government) have been pushed aside, at least for a time. But why has this happened in Macedonia but not in Kosovo and Bosnia? It must first be acknowledged that the wiretapping scandal that initiated change in Macedonia was an exceptional event, in that abuses of power had electoral consequences, and the political changes that occurred as a result were far from inevitable and may not last. However, there are three differences in Macedonia that made clear alternation in power more likely. First, there is more competition across the political spectrum, within ethnic parties and based on ideology as well, in Macedonia than in either of the other two countries. As a result, alternation in power can take place in all groups, and coalitions can represent a clear break from the incumbents. Second, Macedonia is the most centralized of the three countries, which means that alternation in power in the state-level cabinet does not leave incumbents in important situations that can destabilize the new government (such as powerful regional coalitions or key actors in other positions such as the President’s office in Kosovo), such as was done by SDA in Bosnia or by Thaci in Kosovo. Finally, the power-sharing mechanisms are more flexible in Macedonia than in Bosnia, owing in part to the lower intensity of the conflict in Macedonia. The low-intensity conflict, as discussed above, focused mainly on the representation of Albanians in the civil service and wider state institutions and did not include debates on veto rights or territorial autonomy as such. Hence, the power-sharing arrangements had to address different conflict patterns and resulted in a more flexible and less strict system. In other words, and linked to the wider discussion on power-­ sharing in the Introduction to this volume, while Bosnia follows most closely a corporatist version of consociationalism, with little to no space for shifting loyalties and alternative party and coalition option, Kosovo too has many features of such a corporatist model of power-sharing. Serbs are clearly named in the Constitution as a minority that needs to be protected, as this was a specific requirement by the international community when Kosovo became independent. North Macedonia, in contrast, follows much more the pattern of liberal consociationalism. Neither the Constitution nor the OFA refer to specific and fixed group, instead using terminology such as “non-majority population” in order to refer to different groups within the state. This more liberal approach to consociationalism, coupled with a lack of strict veto rights and high levels of decentralization, has ensured that the system has remained flexible enough

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to ensure change within different ethnic communities is possible. This is an important finding, as it may highlight that liberal consociationalism might not only be better for non-ethnic groups and identities to find accommodation in the system, but it might also increase competition within ethnic groups and thereby offer a balance between the need for inclusion and power-sharing among groups on the one side and party competition and voter choice on the other side.

8   Conclusion Political events in Bosnia, Kosovo and North Macedonia illustrate well the tension between power-sharing and political competition. While power-­ sharing measures have successfully prevented a return to war, they have also strongly shaped political competition in ways that discourage accountability through alternation in power. However, some power-sharing rules appear to place greater barriers to change than others. As this discussion has demonstrated, the combination of strict corporatist power-sharing features in Bosnia with a high degree of decentralization has resulted in a lack of substantial change in government coalitions. While new parties have arisen, and we observe a relative degree of open competition within each of Bosnia’s three party sub-systems, the coalition governments continue to look more or less the same. This is because the decentralized nature of the state makes it impossible to form state coalitions without major actors in the entities and the cantons. Likewise, cantonal and entity changes have been undone in order to suit major actors at the state level, as could be observed in early 2020, when the coalition government in Sarajevo that excluded SDA for the first time was toppled, in part because one of the main parties withdrew from the coalitions in order to join the state government coalition. In other words, party dynamics within Bosnia’s power-­ sharing system play out on multiple levels. First, they play out at the level of each ethnic party system and competition within these systems. They then play out between different ethnic parties, when coalitions have to be formed at FBiH level and in numerous cantons, as well as at state level, where cooperation between different ethnic parties is legally required. This makes substantial change difficult, as state capture happens mainly at entity or cantonal level, thereby ensuring the longevity of certain parties at cantonal and regional levels and its influence on coalition dynamics at central level.

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This dynamic between coalition partners and strict power-sharing rules also plays out in Kosovo. The Serb List, for example, represents the Serbs of Kosovo in Kosovo’s Parliament and government, while at the same time controlling those areas of North Kosovo, which are outside of the control of the Kosovar institutions. The Serb List remains the only viable representation for the Serbs in Kosovo and has achieved such a dominant status that it can play this double role—both as a key factor in Kosovo’s government coalition on one side and as Belgrade’s key ally and voice in Kosovo on the other side. Change among Albanian parties has been more prominent, without leading to substantial policy divergence. Instead, access to power remains very much a tool to control certain aspects of the state, thereby ensuring a way into state resources, including financial benefits, jobs and state contracts (Hulsey 2018; Keil 2018). In North Macedonia, we have seen, since 2016, growing change among Macedonian-oriented parties, as well as more often change between the Albanian parties in power. The more liberal and less strict power-sharing provisions within Macedonia’s consociational framework, as well as the comparatively low degree of decentralization, explain why competition among parties is not only higher but also why proper changes of government coalitions are possible. In this sense, it can be argued that power-­ sharing institutions in Macedonia offer an important lesson for other post-conflict countries contemplating the adoption of consociational power-sharing. While group inclusion and cooperation are often key factors in the transition to peace after violent conflict, power-sharing institutions need to be carefully designed in order to ensure that a level of democratic party competition within and between groups is possible and can result in changes of coalition governments, including within each segment and group of the consociation. Here, while Switzerland may not be the best example for post-conflict societies, Northern Ireland and Macedonia can offer better insights on how power-sharing can still enable democratic change within post-conflict consociational democracies.

References Agarin, T., McCulloch, A., & Murtagh, C. (2018). Others in Divided Societies: A Research Agenda. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 24(3), 299–310. Andeva, M. (2015). Minorities in Coalition-Building: The Case of the Republic of Macedonia. Journal on Ethnopolitics & Minority Issues in Europe, 14(2), 7–26. Bahtić-Kunrath, B. (2011). Of Veto Players and Entity Voting: Institutional Gridlock in the Bosnian Reform Process. Nationalities Papers, 39(6), 899–923.

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CHAPTER 7

Toward Inclusive Power-Sharing in Northern Ireland: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back Cera Murtagh

C. Murtagh (*) Department of Political Science, Villanova University, Villanova, PA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 S. Keil, A. McCulloch (eds.), Power-Sharing in Europe, Federalism and Internal Conflicts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53590-2_7

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Map 7.1  Northern Ireland. (Source: https://d-­maps.com/carte.php?num_car= 15988&lang=en)

1   Introduction1 Few issues have better encapsulated the problem of inclusion in Northern Ireland’s power-sharing system than marriage equality. From 2015 to 2020, Northern Ireland stood as the only part of the United Kingdom (UK) and Ireland where marriage between same-sex couples was illegal, an 1  The author would like to  sincerely thank the  editors for  their very helpful comments on an earlier draft of this chapter, as well as Kayla Smith for her assistance in editing and formatting the piece. The author is extremely grateful to the interview participants who contributed so  generously of  their time and  insight to  this research. The  author also gratefully acknowledges that the interviews cited in this chapter were carried out as part of the Exclusion amid Inclusion: Power-Sharing and Non-Dominant Minorities project at Queen’s University Belfast, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.

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anomaly that arguably owed to the use of a consociational device. Devised to protect community rights, the ‘petition of concern’ had been wielded as a veto by the main unionist party, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), to block such legislation, feeding into a protracted dispute between it and its nationalist power-sharing partner, Sinn Féin. The matter was not resolved until October 2019 when, during an almost-three-­year suspension of the power-sharing institutions, legislation was passed directly by the UK Parliament. The debacle illustrates a core tension at the heart of powersharing: in seeking to resolve conflict in society by including the main groups to that conflict, it indirectly subordinates, obscures, and excludes other groups, actors, and issues from the political agenda. This phenomenon has been conceptualized as power-sharing’s ‘exclusion amid inclusion dilemma’ (Agarin et al. 2018: 300; Agarin and McCulloch 2020: 2). What exactly is at stake in this inclusion dilemma? From a democratic perspective, the importance of broader inclusion, equality, and social justice—relating, for example, to gender, race, class, or environment—is seemingly self-evident. Yet, broader inclusion is also central to peace and stability in a deeply divided society. Power-sharing systems are patently not designed with cross-cutting matters nor players in mind. Nevertheless, I argue in this chapter that power-sharing institutions that seek to accommodate inclusion beyond the main groups to the conflict can help insulate those institutions against polarization, assist transition toward more issue-­ based politics, and thereby support longer-term durability of the system. The evolution of power-sharing in Northern Ireland serves as a critical case for consociation’s inclusion dilemma. Heralded as a model of conflict resolution, bringing unionists and nationalists into government together in 1998 after a conflict that spanned some 30 years (McGarry and O’Leary 2009), Northern Ireland has nevertheless suffered a number of crises, including two prolonged power-sharing suspensions, lasting some five years (2002–07) and three years (2017–20). Designed to accommodate nationalists and unionists, ‘others’ beyond these two main ethno-national blocs were patently marginalized in the institutions (Evans and Tonge 2001). Yet, the liberal design of the system has allowed some space for their mobilization and, over the years, expansion of civic parties and agendas. This space has been creatively claimed, such as when the civic Alliance Party assumed the ethno-nationally contested Justice Ministry in 2010 outside normal power-sharing rules. Indeed, sometimes this has occurred in spite of the institutions, such as the successful mobilization for legalization of same-sex marriage and abortion during the 2017–20

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power-sharing suspension. Ironically, while crises have brought setbacks, in some cases they have granted critical openings in which progress for broader equality, human rights, and inclusion could be achieved. The picture that emerges is one of staggered progress, vulnerable to regression, yet advancing incrementally. This chapter assesses consociational power-sharing in Northern Ireland from the perspective of inclusion. The chapter charts the evolution of the institutions since their establishment in 1998 up to their re-establishment in 2020. It examines the implications of these developments for broader inclusion of ‘other’ identities, actors, and issues and, thus, transition toward a more civic, issue-based politics. It concludes that progress has been far from unidirectional, coming at times in spite of, rather than because of, the institutional design and often as a product of crisis. Nevertheless, advances toward inclusion have been made from which lessons can be learned.

2   Power-Sharing, Inclusion, and the ‘Exclusion Amid Inclusion’ Dilemma As outlined expansively in this volume, consociational power-sharing is a model of governance for deeply divided and conflict-prone societies premised on including the main protagonists in the conflict in government via their elite representatives. It was conceived by Lijphart as comprising four conditions: grand coalition government comprising leaders of all significant groups in society; mutual vetoes to protect vital group interests; proportional representation of groups in government, civil service and public funds; and group autonomy for each, be it territorial or non-­ territorial (1977: 25). Since the Cold War, consociation has increasingly become a tool of external intervention (Keil 2013), prescribed, rather than emerging organically (McCulloch 2020: 6), for places as diverse as Northern Ireland, Burundi, Lebanon, Iraq, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo. Designed to shift conflict from the physical to the political terrain, it incentivizes peace by offering parties not only access to power (shared rule) but also group protection (self-rule). It is also intended to address insecurities in the wake of armed conflict and build trust between warring parties over time (McGarry and O’Leary 2009). One of the most important theoretical refinements of the model has been the distinction between corporate and liberal consociation—between systems that

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pre-­determine the groups in society to share power, constitutionally (corporate), and those in which said groups are self-determined through elections (liberal) (McGarry and O’Leary 2007, 2009; McCulloch 2014). McCulloch classifies Northern Ireland’s consociational system as hybrid: largely liberal but with corporate elements, as outlined below (2014: 506). Critics charge consociation with a variety of offenses. Some scholars claim it entrenches the power of ethno-nationalist elites, offering little incentive for them to reach beyond their core and every reward to maintain that ethnic base, thereby institutionalizing division (Taylor 2009). This school of thought sees power-sharing as institutionalizing ‘ethnic outbidding’: the dynamic of party competition which inevitably emerges in a divided society as parties compete for votes solely within their own ethnic bloc and thus move further and further to the extremes in a bid to outdo their intra-ethnic rivals (Horowitz 1985: 347). A related criticism is consociation’s proneness to dysfunction and crisis amidst the intransigence of ethnic power-sharing partners (Wilford 2009: 193). Indeed, Horowitz highlights the difficulty of power-sharing’s very adoption, pointing to a  limited number of empirical cases of successfully implemented consociation in evidence and the proneness of such arrangements to breakdown in the initial stages. According to the scholar, of 78 countries that experienced ethnic conflict between 1980 and 2010, only approximately 20 managed to conclude some form of inter-ethnic power-­ sharing (2014: 7). He attributes the rareness of its adoption to a number of factors, including asymmetric preferences of ethnic majorities and minorities and risk aversion (2014: 7–8). Horowitz further highlights problems modifying or transitioning out of the power-sharing system, given the in-built incentives for ethnic parties to maintain it, particularly those in the minority (2014: 13). Many of these issues have been observed by critics of consociation in Northern Ireland, not least the entrenchment of ethnic parties and institutionalization of ethnic party competition (Farry 2009: 168), its deleterious effect on societal integration (Aitken 2010: 247), and dysfunction, as evinced by a lack of legislative progress during functioning periods (Wilford 2009: 193) and extended periods of suspension (Wilson 2009: 229). Others, however, dispute the idea that ethnic outbidding is an inevitable outcome in ethnically divided societies (Zuber 2012), and in power-­ sharing systems in particular (Mitchell et al. 2009: 401). Zuber challenges the assumption of the ethnic outbidding thesis, that ethnic parties operate in a perfectly ethnically segmented electoral market, and the assumption

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that power-sharing only incentivizes this type of party competition (2012: 934). The reality is more often complex and asymmetrical: some ethnic parties also compete with non-ethnic or civic parties and compete on ethnically cross-cutting dimensions, which can create incentives for other ethnic parties to moderate (Zuber 2012: 932; 934). She refers to ‘nested competition,’ whereby party competition in intra-ethnic arenas is nested within an inter-ethnic arena (Zuber 2012: 933). In the case of Northern Ireland, Mitchell, Evans, and O’Leary advance the ‘ethnic tribune thesis’ to explain the overtaking under power-sharing of the so-called ‘moderate’ parties—the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and nationalist Social and Democratic Labour Party (SDLP)—by ‘hardliners’ the DUP and Sinn Féin by 2003 (2009). Rather than indicating rising extremism among the electorate, this trend has been driven by voters favoring peace and stability under power-sharing while at the same time seeking the strongest advocate of their group to represent them in a coalition with parties of the ‘other side.’ Serving in power-sharing government can, therefore, incentivize these parties to adopt more moderate, pragmatic positions over time (Mitchell et al. 2009: 417). Meanwhile, in line with Zuber’s thesis (2012), Coakley has demonstrated that the Northern Ireland party system features not just ‘ethnic outbidder’ parties, but also civic parties in the shape of ‘ethnic underbidders’ that seek to play a bridge-building role and ‘nonethnic counterbidders’ that try to mobilize on an alternative cross-ethnic issue dimension (2008: 785–786). Indeed, the number of such civic parties, their relevance, and their share of the vote have notably expanded in Northern Ireland since 1998, as discussed below (Murtagh 2020). Another fundamental problem associated with consociation is its tendency to exclude those beyond the main groups to the conflict. Encompassing a vast diversity of individuals and groups, this problem has defied neat categorization and, indeed, a distinct research agenda concerning ‘others’ or ‘non-dominant groups’ in power-sharing has only recently emerged. The scope of inquiry includes, but is by no means limited to, women, gender minorities, sexual minorities, racial and ethnic minorities and linguistic minorities not included in power-sharing pacts, and those who simply do not identify with the main ethnic groups or with ethnicity at all. Referring to the problem as the ‘exclusion amid inclusion’ dilemma, Agarin, McCulloch, and Murtagh distinguish three types of ‘other’: ‘ethnic others’ who identify with an ethnic identity other than that accommodated in the settlement; ‘ethnic-rejecting others,’ who reject ethnic labels but seek political participation on the basis of another socially

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relevant identity such as gender or sexuality; and ‘issue-oriented others,’ who mobilize on the basis of alternative issues such as social equality, human rights, or the environment (2018: 303–304). Stojanović finds ‘others,’ broadly conceived, are marginalized to varying extents in six consociational regimes that feature corporate elements, including Bosnia and Herzegovina (2018). The European Court of Human Rights has ruled against that state on four occasions, the first in 2009 and most recent in 2016, for discrimination in its state Presidency and upper house elections, which only allow for participation of Serb, Bosniak, or Croat candidates, with candidates in the former category required to reside in one of the state’s two federal entities, the Republika Srpska, and those in the latter two categories required to reside in its other entity, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Theorization of ‘others’ in power-sharing has borrowed from feminist and post-colonial theory. ‘Othering’ is invoked, whereby those other than the dominant subject are rendered “different and less than the groups doing the labelling” (Runyan and Peterson 2018: 26). Intersectional approaches are also useful. Groups already marginalized in society—such as ethnic minorities and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexcual, Transgender and Queer people (LGBTQ+)—experience compounded discrimination by virtue of their additional non-conformity to the politically salient ethnic categories (Crenshaw 1989). Indeed, consociation’s ethnic lens (Nagle 2016) could be compared to Crenshaw’s “single-issue framework for discrimination” (1989: 152), whereby a person’s multiple identities are not recognized when the prism is singular. Consociation thus provides little to no avenue for expression of multiple and intersecting identities. In this sense, Byrne and McCulloch express the difficulty of gender mainstreaming power-­ sharing—adding gender to ethnic representation requirements—in that it necessitates an essentialist approach (2017: 263). Gender critiques have also highlighted the elite-centric nature of power-sharing and its insulation from bottom-up mobilization (Mackay and Murtagh 2019). Furthermore, in accommodating ethno-nationalism, power-sharing arguably enshrines an ideology that often bears patriarchal elements and lies in tension with feminism (Yuval Davis 1997: 21–23; 66). Nevertheless, consociation has been defended by advocates and pragmatists as the most just and realistic means to transition democratically from conflict to peace. McGarry and O’Leary (2009) also argue that some of these charges can be answered by liberal consociation. Constructive critics argue that power-sharing institutions can be engineered to better

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represent other groups such as women (McCulloch 2020) and that more liberal, flexible forms can better accommodate ‘others’ (Stojanović 2018). The practice of inclusive power-sharing remains somewhat elusive however. The next section examines how these issues have played out in the case of Northern Ireland.

3   Power-Sharing in Northern Ireland The 1998 Belfast or ‘Good Friday Agreement’ (GFA) followed some three decades of violent conflict that claimed the lives of more than 3500 people, injured tens of thousands, and scarred the lives of many more (cain.ulster.ac.uk). The pact followed negotiations between political leaders in Northern Ireland, shepherded by the British and Irish governments with the external support of the United States. The solutions embedded in the GFA were complex and multi-layered. The Agreement constituted a product of learning from previous attempts, going back to the short-­ lived Sunningdale power-sharing agreement of 1973 that excluded hardliners (Dixon 2001: 129). In this sense it was characterized above all by inclusion of nationalists and unionists, encompassing not only the moderates but also the so-called extremes of each bloc. Its hallmark was ‘parity of esteem’ between these two political traditions: unionism, a political identity associated with Protestantism and Britishness which has sought continued union with the UK, and nationalism, a political identity associated with Catholicism and Irishness that has sought reunification of Ireland. This translated as inclusion of those communities in the political system, provisions for security of their identities, and recognition of their divergent constitutional aspirations. The Agreement was furthermore marked by intergovernmentalism. Confederal in nature, it prescribed key roles in governance for both the British and Irish governments (O’Leary 2019: 247). The Agreement bore three strands: Strand One pertained to power-­ sharing between unionists and nationalists within Northern Ireland; Strand Two to north-south relations, between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic; Strand Three to east-west relations, between Britain and Ireland (McEvoy 2015: 64). As well as a newly devolved Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive to govern the region internally, new institutions were established to facilitate north-south cooperation (primarily the North-South Ministerial Council), and east-west relations (the British-­ Irish Council and the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference)

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(O’Leary 2018: 225). In this way, Northern Ireland’s consociation has been described as “complex” (Wolff 2009) and “power-sharing plus” (O’Leary 2018: 224). As for the seemingly intractable question of sovereignty, the Agreement embraced the ‘principle of consent.’ It affirmed that Northern Ireland would remain part of the UK unless and until the majority of people living in the region wished for a change in that status. It included a provision for the UK Secretary of State to call a referendum on Irish reunification (a ‘border poll’) if they judged that these conditions had come to pass, with such a change requiring a referendum on both sides of the Irish border. Furthermore, the Agreement provided for the right of citizens to British and Irish citizenship, unaffected by any future change to its constitutional status (The Belfast Agreement 1998). In turn, the Republic of Ireland amended its constitution to remove two articles that made territorial claims to Northern Ireland. With regard to broader human rights and equality, the Agreement included important provisions, not least for an Equality Commission and Human Rights Commission, the latter tasked with consulting on a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland—an instrument that has been extensively debated but has yet to be adopted (NIHRC.org). Among other human rights, the Agreement established “the right to equal opportunity in all social and economic activity, regardless of class, creed, disability, gender or ethnicity” and “the right of women to full and equal political participation” and pledged to support the “advancement of women in public life” (The Belfast Agreement 1998). The Agreement also dealt with the contested issues of decommissioning, security, policing and justice, and political prisoners. The core of power-sharing was delivered through the new Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive, designed on a clear consociational logic (Horowitz 2001). The Executive comprised a ‘cross-community’ coalition made up of ministers appointed proportionally through d’Hondt, based on party strengths in the Assembly. It was led by a First and Deputy First Minister from different communities, who, despite their titles, bore equal authority. Proportional representation also governed the composition of the 108-seat Assembly through the Single Transferrable Vote (reduced to 90 from the 2017 election). Communal autonomy, the weakest of the four consociational conditions (Coakley 2009), manifested in culture and education, primarily in the proportional funding for Protestant and Catholic schools (Fontana 2017). Finally, the mutual veto manifested

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through voting procedures that required majority support not only among all Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) but also among nationalist members and among unionist members. Certain key votes, including financial votes and election of the Speaker, would require ‘parallel consent’—concurrent majorities among designated unionists and nationalists—or ‘weighted majority’—the support of at least 60% of members, including minimum 40% among nationalists and 40% among unionists. These cross-community consent mechanisms could also be triggered by a ‘petition of concern,’ signed by at least 30 MLAs (Standing Orders of Northern Ireland Assembly). Such rules required MLAs on entering the Assembly to designate as ‘nationalist,’ ‘unionist,’ or ‘other.’ Although ‘others’ may sign a petition of concern, in the ‘cross-community vote’ that follows, their vote evidently does not count on an equal basis to nationalists and unionists (Evans and Tonge 2001: 115). In this sense, McCulloch observes Northern Ireland’s largely liberal power-sharing system to bear some corporate elements (2014: 506). Finally, Strand One made the innovative provision for a “consultative Civic Forum” alongside the Assembly comprising “representatives of business, trade union and voluntary sectors” among others (The Belfast Agreement, Annex B: 47). The Civic Forum proved short-lived, however, defunct since 2002, as detailed below.

4   Institutional Evolution The initial period of power-sharing led by the moderates of each bloc—the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP)—proved tumultuous. The institutions were dogged by mistrust between the parties, primarily over security issues and most notably progress in decommissioning paramilitary weapons and IRA disbandment. The institutions suffered four suspensions in the first nine years, the longest stretching five years from 2002–07 (O’Leary 2019: 239). The two more extreme parties—the DUP and Sinn Féin—overtook their moderate rivals as the largest party of each bloc in the 2003 Assembly election, as many lost hope for power-sharing (O’Leary 2019: 240). Pessimistic projections were confounded, however, as a new agreement was reached between the main parties and the British and Irish governments in 2006 that restored the institutions to functioning. The St Andrews Agreement (SAA) succeeded in bringing the DUP (which opposed the GFA) and Sinn Féin into government, making minor changes to the GFA. First, with decommissioning completed in 2005, the DUP agreed to enter into power-sharing

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with Sinn Féin, a party with historic links to the Irish Republican Army (IRA), while the latter pledged to support the reformed police force and criminal justice system (O’Leary 2019: 248). Second, the SAA also changed the rules for election of First and Deputy First Ministers whereby they would no longer be elected through a ‘cross-community vote’ but nominated by the largest party in the largest and second largest Assembly bloc (unionist, nationalist, or other) (McEvoy 2015). This meant that neither party was obliged to vote for the other but neither could they veto the other’s nominee (O’Leary 2019: 251). While this change theoretically opened the position to ‘others,’ should this bloc become one of the two largest (McGarry and O’Leary 2009), it also arguably removed a requirement for cooperation between the two sides, making the system more consociational, less centripetal (O’Leary 2019: 251). Furthermore, veto procedures were extended to the Executive whereby three ministers could trigger a cross-community vote (O’Leary 2019: 251). After the DUP and Sinn Féin again prevailed in the 2007 elections, power-sharing resumed with the unlikely partners at the helm; indeed, it endured for a decade. This second phase brought some significant progress. The Hillsborough Agreement of 2010 saw justice powers transferred to the Executive. Owing to the contentious nature of the justice ministry,2 the Alliance Party was awarded the post through a cross-community vote outside of the normal d’Hondt procedures. This period also witnessed considerable volatility and crisis, however, as unresolved issues of identity and conflict reared their heads, including Orange Order parading, national flags, and dealing with the legacies of the Troubles. Tensions between nationalist and unionist parties progressively shifted from the realm of security to that of culture. Major shifts in the external context also posed challenges, not least the 2008 recession and leadership changes in London and Dublin (a Conservative-led government taking power in 2010 and a Fine Gael-led coalition in 2011). The combined effect saw a decline in engagement from the guarantors of the GFA (O’Leary 2019: 232). After the 2011 Assembly election again established the DUP and Sinn Féin as the lead parties, the institutions came close to collapse on a number of occasions. In 2012, violent protests over the flying of Britain’s Union Flag over public buildings witnessed the most serious challenge to 2  Given the historically contentious nature of policing and justice in Northern Ireland and the contested legitimacy of the state within the Catholic community, nationalist and unionist parties agreed that neither bloc would hold the position when it was devolved in 2010.

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the peace process for a decade (Nolan 2013). Loyalist protest followed the decision of Belfast City Council to cease flying the flag every day of the year, in line with councils elsewhere in the UK. The dispute saw the civic Alliance Party, which used its casting vote to support the compromise position of flying the flag on designated days only, castigated by the Democratic Unionist Party and subsequently targeted in the violence that erupted (McDonald 2012). Meanwhile, against a backdrop of austerity, welfare reform emerged as a major sticking point between the Executive parties and the UK government, with the nationalist parties and the Greens opposing implementation of the changes in Northern Ireland. The DUP used the petition of concern (PoC) to oppose 46 proposed amendments to the welfare reform bill while Sinn Féin, SDLP, and the Greens wielded the veto to block the changes at the final legislative stage (McCulloch 2018: 746). Revised reforms were finally implemented in 2015 following an agreement between the parties, as detailed below, with legislation subsequently approved by the UK Parliament (Smyth 2016). The PoC was also wielded on five occasions during the 2011–16 term to block the legalization of same-sex marriage. While on the first four of these occasions the PoC was not required as the vote failed to gain majority support, in November 2015, a Sinn Féin-SDLP motion won the support of a simple majority but was defeated only due to the DUP-triggered veto (McDonald 2015). The use of the veto thus became increasingly controversial during this period, triggered a number of times on issues not overtly relating to community protection and, in some cases, on matters of broader equality and inclusion. The duties of the British and Irish governments in sustaining power-­ sharing proved far from complete, however, and two subsequent agreements were necessitated to resolve crises. A further round of talks in 2014 on contentious symbolic issues—such as flags and parading—as well as legacies of the Troubles and financial problems led to the signing of the Stormont House Agreement by the British and Irish governments and most of the Executive parties (Stormont House Agreement 2014). This Agreement included reforms to the power-sharing institutions, most notably provisions for an official opposition for those parties that declined to take their Executive seats. It also introduced the requirement for Executive parties to agree a program for government following elections. Just a few months later, however, the institutions were plunged into further crisis, following allegations of continued links between Sinn Féin and the IRA.  Further negotiations culminated in another agreement in 2015

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entitled A Fresh Start. The deal delivered a financial package of £500m for Northern Ireland in return for a pledge by parties to implement welfare reform, among other measures. It also made provisions for a seat reduction in the Assembly from 108 to 90 (A Fresh Start 2015).

5   Existential Crisis? 2016 marked a critical year for Northern Ireland. Internally, an election returned the DUP and Sinn Féin to lead the Executive, this time alone, with other parties declining to take up the ministerial seats to which they were entitled under the d’Hondt rules. Externally, the geopolitical environment was radically reconfigured. In June, the UK voted to leave the European Union (EU), with withdrawal supported by a narrow majority across the UK (52%) but by only a minority in Northern Ireland (44%). After a mooted campaign in which the DUP alone backed Leave, the result came as a shock to the system, raising the specter of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic (set to become the only land frontier between the UK and the EU), and, with it, existential questions about the future of the GFA. Having withstood the aforementioned crises and endured ten years, the power-sharing institutions collapsed in January 2017. Sinn Féin withdrew from the Executive alleging a litany of offenses by its unionist partner, most prominently its handling of a crisis relating to the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI)—a botched renewable energy scheme, which at the time was estimated to have cost the taxpayer £400m in lost revenue, in which DUP First Minister Arlene Foster was heavily implicated (McDonald 2017). In his resignation letter, Sinn Féin Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, cited other unresolved issues, including the DUP’s failure to uphold the GFA’s equality principles, not only with respect to nationalists but also women, the LGBT+ community, ethnic minorities, and Irish speakers. These references were nods to the DUP’s marriage equality veto and refusal to countenance legislation to protect the Irish language. McGuinness, who was critically ill at this point, also indicted the British government for its failure to honor previous agreements addressing conflict legacies and its imposition of austerity (McGuinness 2017). Following McGuinness’s death in March 2017, Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill assumed the role of Deputy First Minister. A highly polarized election in March 2017 failed to break the deadlock. In a reduced 90-seat Assembly, the gap between the two parties tightened;

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the DUP won 28 seats and Sinn Féin 27. Moreover, the number of nationalist members in the Assembly for the first time surpassed unionists (O’Leary 2018: 230). Against an increasingly febrile environment and the backdrop of Brexit, several rounds of talks failed to restore power-sharing. Agreement came close in February 2018 but fell at the final hurdle over an Irish language Act, when the DUP withdrew its support for fear it could not sell this element to its base. The debate over the Irish language—more closely associated with nationalist heritage—became particularly rancorous, as a proxy for wider contestations over culture and identity. With some unionist politicians claiming the language had been ‘weaponized’ by nationalists (Moriarty 2018), the proposed legislation touched on unionist insecurities over the diminution of their culture, identity, and, indeed, Northern Ireland’s long-term place in the Union. The crisis was underpinned by internal and external conditions. Internally, relations between the power-sharing partners had been under strain for some time. While the initial phase was dominated by peace and security, from 2007–17, the focus shifted to issues of communal identity and culture such as parading, flags, and—more recently—language. After the GFA’s more broad-based, inclusive process, the SAA and subsequent agreements also saw a narrowing of the agenda and actors, with the focus shifting toward securing sufficient consensus between the DUP and Sinn Féin. Rouse observes, “in each successive negotiation since 1998, equality and human rights elements have been eroded with consistency and power issues aggrandized” (2016: 240). As the focus shifted to crisis management and maintaining power-sharing between the two main players, broader inclusion and equality agendas, such as gender, slipped down the agenda. Yet, power-sharing had faced other crises in this period and managed to stagger forward; what had changed this time were the external conditions. Most dramatically, the UK’s decision to leave the EU severely destabilized the arrangement, threatening to undermine the GFA. While the EU did not play a highly explicit role in the GFA, common British-Irish membership enabled many provisions. As O’Leary writes, “in 1998 all Northern Irish futures had presupposed a European roof” (2018: 229). The UK’s plans to exit the Customs Union and Single Market (a so-called ‘hard Brexit’) but simultaneously preserve the GFA’s east-west and north-south provisions raised a seemingly intractable dilemma. It endeavored to reach an agreement with the EU that would allow it to quit customs, trade, and regulatory alignment but avoid a customs border either between Northern

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Ireland and the Irish Republic (on the island of Ireland) or between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK (‘down the Irish Sea’). Brexit thus threatened to upend the confederal principle of the Agreement, invoking a binary choice between continued alignment with Britain and with the Irish Republic, effectively pitting north-south and east-west against one another (Hayward 2018: 246). O’Leary refers to a “clash of mandates” between the Agreement and the Brexit vote (2018: 229). Furthermore, the prospects of a hard border where customs checks would be administered raised fundamental risks for Northern Ireland’s peace and security, as well as its economy. Brexit further served to reignite the question of Northern Ireland’s constitutional future, with Sinn Féin reinvigorating its campaign for a ‘border poll.’ The 2016 referendum kicked questions, seemingly parked by the GFA, wide open, heightening insecurity and polarizing politics. To complicate matters further, following the 2017 UK General Election in which Theresa May’s Conservative government lost its majority, a ‘confidence and supply’ agreement was reached between the Conservatives and the DUP. The latter’s ten MPs would support the government on certain key votes in return for a package of approximately £1bn in new funding for Northern Ireland for projects including infrastructure and health services (Tonge 2017: 415). The deal evidently compromised the UK government’s legitimacy as neutral broker and guarantor of the GFA. It also shifted the DUP’s sights away from Stormont and vexed May’s quest for agreement with the EU, inhibiting her attempts to secure a deal that would treat Northern Ireland differently to the rest of the UK. The space between the parties thus widened as their incentive structures shifted and power-sharing in Belfast appeared obscured by bigger battles. Amidst stasis at Stormont, movement on LGBTQ+ and gender rights eventually emerged from elsewhere. The issues of marriage equality and abortion—ironically propelled center stage of UK politics by the DUP-­ Conservative deal and given a further push by successful referenda in the Republic of Ireland on marriage equality in 2015 and abortion in 2018— were finally advanced through legislative initiatives at Westminster. After an imposed deadline for restoration of devolved power-sharing lapsed, legislation was finally passed in October 2019 to decriminalize abortion and legalize same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland (Page 2019). This effective bypassing of the Stormont institutions bears negative

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implications for the capacity of power-sharing to deliver on these broader rights, as explored below. Following Boris Johnson’s accession to UK Prime Minister, a revised withdrawal agreement was reached between the UK and Northern Ireland with the EU in October 2019 including a new protocol on Ireland, whereby Northern Ireland would remain within a single UK customs territory but subject to the EU customs regime (Patel 2019). This change would ultimately negate the need for a ‘hard border’ on the island, but amounted to a betrayal for unionists: the much-feared ‘border down the Irish Sea’ (Reland 2019). The party withdrew its support from Johnson’s government, but this proved inconsequential after a UK General Election in December 2019 delivered his government a hefty majority. Trade negotiations between the UK and the EU are ongoing at the time of writing, with the deadline of December 2020.

6   Power-Sharing Part III The logjam in Northern Ireland was finally broken in January 2020 with the signing of a new agreement between the parties and the British and Irish governments entitled New Decade, New Approach (NDNA). The breakthrough followed sustained public pressure amidst ongoing crises in public services, particularly healthcare. This message was delivered bluntly in the 2019 General Election in which the DUP lost two seats and saw a 5.4% vote-share decline while Sinn Féin returned the same number of seats but suffered a 6.7% drop. Meanwhile, the Alliance increased its vote by 8.8% and gained a seat (bbc.co.uk). UK Secretary of State Julian Smith moved to focus minds by threatening fresh Assembly elections if agreement was not reached—an eventuality the two main parties wished to avoid in the context of their diminished vote and the rise of Alliance. The Assembly thus returned with the five main parties participating in the Executive: the DUP, Sinn Féin, the UUP, SDLP, and Alliance. The Agreement entailed a number of commitments to address disputes and insulate against future crises. It made it more difficult for one party to collapse the institutions, allowing more time after a First or Deputy First Minister resigns before an election must be called (up to 18 weeks). To improve cohesiveness, the deal established a Party Leaders’ Forum in the Assembly to meet on a monthly basis. In the wake of the RHI scandal, it provided for measures to increase Executive accountability, including tightening the code of conduct for ministers and their special advisers. It

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also provided for increased support for an official opposition. Responding to criticisms of elite-centrism and public frustration at the three-year suspension, the deal committed to greater civic engagement, including an annual Citizens’ Assembly to consider key policy challenges (2020). NDNA also introduced restricting and qualifying changes to the petition of concern (PoC). Parties agreed that its use “should be reduced, and returned to its intended purpose,” committing to tabling or supporting PoCs “only in the most exceptional circumstances and as a last resort.” Most notably, the petition can no longer be triggered by a single party. Additional hurdles include a 14-day ‘cooling off’ period after the petition is triggered. To allow for debate, it can only be invoked after the second stage of a bill. Speakers and Deputy and First Ministers are ineligible from signing it, nor can it be used on issues of misconduct. Furthermore, to increase transparency, a written justification is required (NDNA 2020). On the thorny issue of Irish language, the deal reached a compromise by framing it within a broader rights framework encompassing Ulster Scots language and British identity, plus other identities and cultures. It provided for integrated legislation comprising three bills: creating an Office of Identity and Cultural Expression; making provisions for Irish language; and making provisions for Ulster Scots and the Ulster British tradition. The legislation, to be introduced within three months, would include a Commissioner for each language. Notably, with respect to ‘Rights, Language and Identity,’ the deal also recognized ‘others,’ “acknowledging and accommodating those within our community who define themselves as ‘other’ and those who form our ethnic and newcomer communities.” Furthermore, it provided for the establishment of an ad hoc Assembly committee to consider a Bill of Rights, not delivered after the GFA (NDNA  2020). The deal also included provisions for a long-­ awaited Sexual Orientation Strategy and committed the UK government to legislation dealing with the legacies of the Troubles, including the establishment of a Historical Investigations Unit (Haughey 2020: 4). Initial indications of stability have been mixed. An ambitious program for government, ranging from healthcare to infrastructure, has not been backed by adequate funding, eliciting conflict between the Executive and the UK government (Haughey 2020: 5). Furthermore, the dismissal of Julian Smith from his position as Secretary of State in February 2020 was met with disappointment across the political spectrum. However, the potential for destabilization from a public inquiry into the RHI scandal failed to materialize when its report in March 2020 did not find

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corruption or malicious activity (BBC 2020). At the time of writing, the new deal has yet to be tested. Yet, following a period in which its future was in doubt, agreement was reached and power-sharing restored.

7   Toward Inclusive Power-Sharing? Northern Ireland’s power-sharing evolution since 1998 has been neither smooth nor linear. Yet, amidst the tumult, there have been advances. In relation to peace and stability, the decommissioning of weapons in 2005 was a considerable feat, as was the transfer of policing and justice powers from Westminster in 2010 and successful subsequent execution of that ministry by the non-aligned Alliance Party and an independent unionist MLA.  But how have the institutions fared with regard to democratic inclusion? To what extent have they accommodated issues and actors outside the conflict divide and thus supported transition beyond that cleavage? This section analyzes this question drawing upon data from 22 semi-structured interviews with members of the Northern Ireland Assembly, representing both ethnic and civic parties, as well as representatives of civil society between February and June 2018.3 Power-sharing came into being as part of a comprehensive peace settlement in Northern Ireland for the express and critical purpose of accommodating unionism and nationalism. ‘Others’ constituted a secondary concern, a fact that manifested in institutional structures that directly and indirectly bolstered these two blocs and marginalized other actors and concerns. This inequality is keenly felt by representatives of civic sectors, including gender and sexuality rights. Indeed, some reflect that more progress was made on their campaigns during periods of power-sharing suspension—underlined by legislation for abortion and marriage equality from London in 2019. One sector representative noted that the period of  Eleven interviews were conducted with party representatives: three DUP, two UUP, two SDLP, two Alliance, and two Green Party. Another 11 interviews were conducted with representatives of civil society organizations representing human rights, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive rights, and the Irish language. The chapter also draws secondarily on 32 interviews conducted with all of the main ethnic and civic political parties, plus representatives of civil society, in Northern Ireland in April 2012, April–May 2013, and November 2015. 3

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direct rule from 2002–07 saw a number of advances in LGBTQ+ rights, including equal age of consent, employment protections, civil partnerships, and a gender recognition act—in contrast to the period of devolved power-sharing from 2007–17 where minimal progress was achieved. He cited the Executive’s failure, despite commitments over two consecutive terms, to publish a sexual orientation strategy, attributing this to an electoral agreement between DUP and Sinn Féin (Interview A 2018). As outlined, NDNA makes a renewed commitment to such a strategy. Furthermore, one abortion rights activist reported a “big push” for legalization in 2008, prior to the transfer of criminal justice powers to Northern Ireland, and another during the recent period of suspension (Interview B 2018). Another representative of the equality sector observed a public funding de-prioritization of civic issues in comparison to community-­ related issues (Interview C 2018). What are the institutional structures that underlie this inequality? The most blatant is the Assembly’s ‘designation rule’ whereby MLAs must declare themselves ‘nationalist,’ ‘unionist,’ or ‘other’—and the related voting procedures in which, on certain decisions, the votes of ‘others’ count for less (Schwartz 2011: 351). This inequality is acutely felt by non-­ aligned ‘civic’ parties, who deem the procedures unfair and undemocratic (Murtagh 2020). Previous research by the author found that representatives of the Alliance and Greens felt that the rule disempowered them symbolically and in real terms—a reality visible to voters, it was argued (Murtagh 2020). Both parties call for the removal of the ‘sectarian designation system’ (APNI 2016, 2017) and its replacement with designation-­ free weighted majority voting. Another obvious expression of this marginalization lies in the veto procedures. The ‘petition of concern’ (PoC)—intended for protection of communal rights, but applied in a permissive way, not restricted to specific issues (McCulloch 2018: 736)—has been deeply problematic. As noted, when triggered by the DUP in 2015, it effectively blocked the passage of same-sex marriage legislation—a ‘misuse’ or ‘abuse’ in the eyes of Alliance, Green, and UUP representatives interviewed (Interview D 2018; Interview E 2018; Interview F 2018). In this sense, representatives of the LGBTQ+ sector expressed frustration with the prohibitive effect of a system designed to protect communal interests for the progression of broader human rights and equality. As one stated:

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The purpose of that transitional form of democracy is to slow things down. It’s to make change happen on a very slow, incremental basis. Which is fine, if your overarching objective is to end violence and to attempt to bring two large communities together.… However, if you’re working on issues which have been ignored throughout the length of the conflict, that system of government only further frustrates your attempts to achieve any kind of change. (Interview A 2018)

A number of more subtle effects of the PoC can also be observed. One Alliance MLA pointed to a stymying effect on political dialogue that might otherwise lead to consensus over time, not least on contentious ‘moral’ issues: There’s no incentive in the Assembly’s structure for people to cooperate. People are handed a veto so that they can stop things they don’t like.

On the case of equal marriage, she said: We’ve never had the conversation… with the DUP about what protections you would need for churches before you would be able to live with this… because they can just say ‘no’ and then the conversation stops and there’s no incentive to move it on. So, the conversation doesn’t happen internally in the party, doesn’t happen externally, doesn’t happen with their stakeholders, or their voters. It just doesn’t happen. And I think that that is our biggest loss. (Interview D 2018)

Likewise, she observed the prohibitive effect of the PoC on abortion. Regarding proposals brought forward by former Alliance Justice Minister David Ford in 2016 to legalize abortion in cases of fatal fetal abnormality, she attributed the lack of debate between parties and ultimate rejection of said amendments to their awareness of the veto. It is worth noting that, on the other side of the debate, the PoC was used in 2013 and in 2015 by Sinn Féin, the Green Party, and Alliance to block the DUP amendments that would have further tightened Northern Ireland’s highly restrictive abortion laws, the latter proposing that any woman who terminated a pregnancy in a hospital or clinic outside of the National Health Service be subject to a prison sentence (BBC News 2015). In the wake of the 2015 vote, civic party representative Eamonn McCann voiced a similar argument to that of the Alliance representative above:

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Any move towards either liberalization or further restriction will be stymied by a petition of concern from one side or the other. Stormont cannot handle the abortion issue. It was never designed to. The same goes for equal marriage. (McCann 2015)

Furthermore, the PoC represents an injustice for ‘others’ who may sign a petition but whose votes do not count equally in the cross-community votes it triggers. As one civic party representative said: “We find it hugely frustrating that on issues which are core to us around human rights, equality and, particularly, integration in a shared society… our votes count for less. It’s a perversion of democracy really that we count for less on the issues that matter most to our voters” (Interview D 2018). As outlined, reform of these rules was one of the key elements of the NDNA. While not going as far as some might have hoped, the long over-­ due changes are significant—not least for increasing accountability to the public and requiring debate before the veto can be triggered. Indeed, they align with McCulloch’s prescription for power-sharing vetoes: permissive rather than restrictive rules, but with tighter thresholds and justification requirements (2018: 752). The way in which these rules are used in practice remains to be seen. The rules for elections of Deputy and First Ministers—nominated by the largest parties in the largest and second largest Assembly designations respectively—have also been argued to support continued dominance of nationalist and unionist parties and further marginalize others. Despite these positions being co-equal, representatives of the civic sector have argued that this rule places excessive emphasis in elections on who will emerge as the largest party and thus assume the First Minister role (Interview A 2018; Interview E 2018). This arguably bolsters the DUP and Sinn Féin, accentuating the ‘ethnic tribune’ effect outlined above (Mitchell et al. 2009). Indeed, O’Leary advocates changing the titles of the co-premiers to Joint First Ministers to reflect the reality of their powers and soften any future loss to the DUP (2018: 235). The Assembly has, furthermore, faced criticism for its relative insulation from civil society, not least by gender activists (Pierson 2018; Interview A 2018; Interview B 2018; Interview C 2018). The Civic Forum, secured in the GFA through the initiative of the civic party Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition, was conceived as a remedy to the elite-centrism of consociation to give voice to the civil society sector, which in Northern Ireland is observed to be less segmented than formal

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politics. It proved transient, however, collapsing with the institutions in 2002 and never reinstated (Mackay and Murtagh 2019). Some advocates have called for its re-establishment (Pierson and Thomson 2018). The provision for an annual Citizens’ Assembly in NDNA speaks to these calls but with lesser scope and power than the Civic Forum. Yet, in spite of periods of destabilization and polarization, the institutions have afforded some space for actors and issues beyond nationalism and unionism—and that space has expanded since 1998. In the party system, a distinct third bloc has emerged as civic parties increase in size and number. Civic parties that designate as ‘other’—currently Alliance, Green Party, and People Before Profit—now make up 11 of the 90-seat Assembly, compared to the eight they held in the 108-seat Assembly in 1998. The combined support for such parties in first preferences has risen from 8.2% in 1998 to 13.2% in 2017 (ark.ac.uk (a) & (b)). Alliance recorded particularly impressive results in the 2019 local, European, and UK General elections. The party saw a 65% rise in its local representation, polled second place in the European polls to win its first European Parliament seat, and, finally, increased its vote by 8.8% to win a seat at Westminster (BBC News 2019). Furthermore, the power and relevance of this bloc in the power-sharing system has increased. In 2010, the Alliance entered the Executive to take up the contested Justice ministry. In 2011, it gained an additional ministry through the regular d’Hondt procedures, having won sufficient seats in the Assembly election. Indeed, unlikely as it may seem at present, following the SAA rule change, the Deputy and First Ministers positions are open to ‘others,’ should they emerge as the first or second largest bloc (McCrudden et al. 2013: 235). As noted, the Northern Ireland party system is far from perfectly ethnically segmented (Zuber 2012) and, looking ahead, ethnic parties are likely to face even further competition from civic parties, with the potential for moderating effects. Beyond formal politics, this shift away from nationalist and unionist traditions is more pronounced in public opinion. An annual survey has recorded sustained increases in respondents identifying as neither nationalist nor unionist, from 33% in 1998 to 50% in 2018 (ark.co.uk (c) & (d); Hayward and McManus 2018). For long, this proportion represented something of a conundrum in the face of minimal support for ‘other’ parties, but recent elections have seen that disparity diminish. Research by McCulloch and this author found provisional evidence of nationalist and unionist parties paying more attention to ‘others’ and reaching out to these groups—even if most notably at the rhetorical level. Indeed, at a

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time of constitutional uncertainty, this bloc is likely to be pivotal to determining Northern Ireland’s future sovereignty arrangements, be it remaining within the UK or reunifying with Ireland (Nolan 2018)—a consideration raised in our interviews (Murtagh and McCulloch 2019).

8   Conclusion The power-sharing system in Northern Ireland has traveled a considerable journey since its inception in 1998. Despite being written off on more than one occasion, it has withstood a number of crises. Moreover, while the system’s flaws are well established, at the time of writing the necessity of some form of joint governance between nationalism and unionism remains a reality of Northern Ireland politics. In this light, this chapter has charted the barriers to representation of broader rights—both descriptively and substantively—in the power-sharing institutions. It has demonstrated how structures designed to protect communal rights have disadvantaged and disempowered other actors beyond nationalism and unionism and muted the expression of other issues, such as reproductive and sexual orientation rights. An indictment of the system is that much of the movement on these causes has originated beyond Stormont during its suspension. Nevertheless, this chapter has also underlined the incremental progress achieved since the GFA with respect to broader equality and inclusion. Political change has lagged societal change, but significant shifts in public attitudes are slowly being reflected in the institutions. The number, size, and relevance of civic parties have expanded significantly to the extent that they now constitute a distinct third bloc alongside nationalism and unionism—a reconfiguration of the party system. The power-sharing system has shown some capacity to accommodate this shift, with civic parties now represented in the Executive and holding the potential to someday take up the Deputy or First Minister position should their support continue to grow. Institutional rules have also evolved over the years in this direction (if often as a product of crisis), not least recent reforms to the veto. The resurrection of power-sharing in January 2020 creates a more optimistic backdrop for this assessment. Nevertheless, in an uncertain internal and external political environment, the current stability is vulnerable. Externally, the impact of Brexit has only begun to be felt in Northern Ireland and the outcome of crucial trade negotiations remains to be seen. Future changes of government in the Irish Republic, given the rise of Sinn

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Féin in its 2020 election, may radically alter British-Irish, as well as nationalist-unionist, relations. Calls for a border poll may grow louder, with the obvious polarizing fall-out. Internally, demographic shifts will likely see the Protestant-Unionist-Loyalist community lose its majority status. Those of a Catholic background are now a practical demographic majority in four out of six counties, the two largest cities and in primary schools (O’Leary 2018: 238). This shift, already manifesting electorally, will result in three minority blocs if, as looks likely, the civic bloc continues to expand. Whatever shape the future takes, in the foreseeable term the need for some form of power-sharing with input from the British and Irish governments will remain. And the way in which power-sharing responds to these shifts—and its capacity to accommodate increasing demand for broader inclusion—will be critical to its sustainability.

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Byrne, S. & McCulloch, A. (2017). Gendering power-sharing. In McCulloch, Allison and McGarry, John (eds.), Power-Sharing: Empirical and Normative Challenges. London: Routledge. Coakley, J. (2008). Ethnic Competition and the Logic of Party System Transformation. European Journal of Political Research, 47, 766–793. Coakley, J. (2009). Implementing Consociation in Northern Ireland. In R. Taylor (Ed.), Consociational Theory: McGarry and O’Leary and the Northern Ireland Conflict. London: Routledge. Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, pp. 139–168. Dixon, P. (2001). Northern Ireland: Politics of War and Peace. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Evans, J.  A., & Tonge, J. (2001). Northern Ireland’s Third Tradition(s): The Alliance Party Surveyed. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion & Parties, 11(1), 104–118. Farry, S. (2009). Consociationalism and the Creation of a Shared Future for Northern Ireland. In R.  Taylor (Ed.), Consociational Theory: McGarry and O’Leary and the Northern Ireland Conflict. London: Routledge. Fontana, G. (2017). Education Policy and Power-sharing in Post-conflict Societies: Lebanon, Northern Ireland, and Macedonia. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Haughey, S. (2020). Back to Stormont: The New Decade, New Approach Agreement and What it Means for Northern Ireland. The Political Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-­923X.12818 Hayward, K. (2018). The Pivotal Position of the Irish Border in the UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union. Space and Polity, 22(2), 238–254. Hayward, K., & McManus, C. (2018). Neither/Nor: The Rejection of Unionist and Nationalist Identities in Post-Agreement Northern Ireland. Capital and Class. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309816818818312. Horowitz, D.  L. (1985). Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press. Horowitz, D. L. (2001). The Northern Ireland Agreement: Clear, Consociational and Risky. In J. McGarry (Ed.), Northern Ireland and the Divided World: The Northern Ireland Conflict and the Good Friday Agreement in Comparative Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Horowitz, D. L. (2014). Ethnic Power Sharing: Three Big Problems. Journal of Democracy, 25(2), 5–20. Keil, S. (2013). Multinational Federalism in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Surrey: Ashgate. Lijphart, A. (1977). Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration. New Haven: Yale University Press.

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Mackay, F., & Murtagh, C. (2019). New Institutions, New Gender Rules? A Feminist Institutionalist Lens on Women and Power-Sharing. feminists@law, 9(1). https://doi.org/10.22024/UniKent/03/fal.745 McCann, E. (2015, June 4). Assembly ‘Safeguard’ Blocks Decisions on Abortion. The Irish Times. Retrieved June 20, 2019, from https://www.irishtimes.com/ opinion/eamonn-­m ccann-­a ssembly-­s afeguard-­b locks-­d ecisions-­o n-­ abortion-­1.2236269 McCrudden, C., McGarry, J., O’Leary, B., & Schwartz, A. (2013). Memorandum for the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive Review Committee: Review of D’Hondt, Community Designation and Provisions for Opposition. Belfast” Northern Ireland Assembly. McCulloch, A. (2014). Consociational Settlements in Deeply Divided Societies: The Liberal-Corporate Distinction. Democratization, 21(3), 501–518. McCulloch, A. (2018). The Use and Abuse of Veto Rights in Power-Sharing Systems: Northern Ireland’s Petition of Concern in Comparative Perspective. Government and Opposition, 53(4), 735–756. McCulloch, A. (2020). Power-Sharing: A Gender Intervention. International Political Science Review, 41(1), 44–57. McDonald, H. (2012, December 7). Riots Erupt in Belfast Hours after Hillary Clinton Condemns Violence. The Guardian. Retrieved December 8, 2012, from http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/07/hillary-­clinton-­ threats-­mp-­belfast McDonald, H. (2015, November 2). Northern Ireland Assembly Votes to Legalize Same Sex Marriage. The Guardian. Retrieved November 4, 2016, from https://www.theguardian.com/uk-­news/2015/nov/02/northern-­ireland-­ assembly-­votes-­to-­legalise-­same-­sex-­marriage McDonald, H. (2017, January 10). Martin McGuinness Resigns as Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland. The Guardian. Retrieved March 4, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/09/martin-­mcguinness-­ to-­resign-­as-­northern-­ireland-­deputy-­first-­minister McEvoy, J. (2015). Power-Sharing Executives: Governing in Bosnia, Macedonia and Northern Ireland. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. McGarry, J., & O’Leary, B. (2007). Iraq’s Constitution of 2005: Liberal Consociation as Political Prescription. International Journal of Constitutional Law, 5(4), 670–698. McGarry, J., & O’Leary, B. (2009). Power Shared after the Deaths of Thousands. In R.  Taylor (Ed.), Consociational Theory: McGarry and O’Leary and the Northern Ireland Conflict. London: Routledge. McGuinness, M. (2018). Letter of Resignation, Duplicated by Mark Devenport. Twitter. Retrieved March 4, 2020, from https://twitter.com/markdevenport/ status/818469829036441600/photo/1

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Mitchell, P., Evans, G., & O’Leary, B. (2009). Extremist Outbidding in Ethnic Party Systems is not Inevitable: Tribunes in Northern Ireland. Political Studies, 57, pp. 397–421. Moriarty, G. (2018, February 14). Why do Some Unionists Fear the Irish Language? The Irish Times. Retrieved May 4, 2020, from https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-­news/why-­do-­some-­unionists-­fear-­the-­irish-­ language-­1.3391306 Murtagh, C. (2020). The Plight of Civic Parties in Divided Societies. International Political Science Review, 41(1), 73–88. Murtagh, C., & McCulloch, A. (2019). Beyond the Core: The Inclusion of ‘Others’ in Maturing Power-Sharing Systems. Paper Presented at the Political Studies Association Annual International Conference 2019, Cardiff. Nagle, J. (2016). What are the Consequences of Consociationalism for Sexual Minorities?: An Analysis of Liberal and Corporate Consociationalism and Sexual Minorities in Northern Ireland and Lebanon. Political Studies, 64(4), 854–871. New Decade, New Approach. (2020, January). Northern Ireland Office. Nolan, P. (2013). Northern Ireland Peace Monitoring Report: Number Two. Belfast: Community Relations Council. Nolan P. (2018, June 19). United Ireland May be in the Gift of ‘Others.’ Irish Times. Retrieved June 30, 2018, from https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/ united-­ireland-­may-­be-­in-­the-­gift-­of-­others-­1.3535062 O’Leary, B. (2018). The Twilight of the United Kingdom and Tiocfaidh ár lá: Twenty Years after the Good Friday Agreement. Ethnopolitics, 17(3), 223–242. O’Leary, B. (2019). A Treatise on Northern Ireland, Volume III. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Page, C. (2019). Northern Ireland Abortion and Same-sex Marriage Laws Change. BBC News. Retrieved March 4, 2020, from https://www.bbc.com/ news/uk-­northern-­ireland-­50128860 Patel, O. (2019, December 11). Boris Johnson’s Brexit Policy Explained. The Conversation. Retrieved March 5, 2020, from https://theconversation.com/ boris-­johnsons-­brexit-­policy-­explained-­128490 Pierson, C. (2018). One Step Forwards, Two Steps Back: Women’s Rights 20 Years after the Good Friday Agreement. Parliamentary Affairs, 71(2), 461–481. Pierson, C., & Thomson, J. (2018). Allies or Opponents? Power-Sharing, Civil Society, and Gender. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 24(1), 100–115. Reland, J. (2019). Does the New Withdrawal Agreement Create a Border in the Irish Sea? Full Fact. Retrieved March 4, 2020, from https://fullfact.org/ europe/withdrawal-­agreement-­border-­irish-­sea/ Rouse, M. (2016). ‘In Need of a Fresh Start’: Gender Equality in post-GFA Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly, 67(2), 233–240.

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Runyan, A.  S., & Peterson, V.  S. (2018). Global Gender Issues in the New Millennium (4th ed.). New York: Westview Press. Schwartz, A. (2011). How Unfair is Cross-Community Consent? Voting Power in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly, 61(4), 349–362. Smyth, C. (2016). Stormont’s Petition of Concern used 115 Times in Five Years. The Detail, September 29. Retrieved May 4, 2020, from https://www.thedetail.tv/articles/stormont-­s-­petition-­of-­concern-­used-­115-­times-­in-­five-­years Standing Orders of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Retrieved April 1, 2020, from http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/assembly-­b usiness/standing-­o rders/ standing-­orders/ Stojanović, N. (2018). Political Marginalization of Others in Consociational Regimes. Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft, 12(2), 341–364. Taylor, R. (2009). The Injustice of a Consociational Solution to the Northern Ireland Problem. In R.  Taylor (Ed.), Consociational Theory: McGarry and O’Leary and the Northern Ireland Conflict. London: Routledge. The Belfast Agreement. (1998, April 10). Northern Ireland Office. The St Andrews Agreement. (2006, October, 11–13). Northern Ireland Office. The Stormont House Agreement. (2014, December 23). Northern Ireland Office. Tonge, J. (2017). Supplying Confidence or Trouble? The Deal Between the Democratic Unionist Party and the Conservative Party. The Political Quarterly, 88(3), 412–416. Wilford, R. (2009). Consociational Government: Inside the Northern Ireland Executive. In R.  Taylor (Ed.), Consociational Theory: McGarry and O’Leary and the Northern Ireland Conflict. London: Routledge. Wilson, R. (2009). From Consociationalism to Interculturalism. In R.  Taylor (Ed.), Consociational Theory: McGarry and O’Leary and the Northern Ireland Conflict. London: Routledge. Wolff, S. (2009). Peace by Design? Towards ‘Complex Power-Sharing. In R. Taylor (Ed.), Consociational Theory: McGarry and O’Leary and the Northern Ireland Conflict. London: Routledge. Yuval Davis, N. (1997). Gender and Nation. London: Sage. Zuber, C. I. (2012). Ethnic Party Competition Beyond the Segmented Market. Nationalities Papers, 40(6), 927–944.

Websites https://www.ark.ac.uk/elections/fa98.htm (a) http://www.ark.ac.uk/elections/fa17.htm (b) https://www.ark.ac.uk/nilt/1998/Political_Attitudes/UNINATID.html (c) https://www.ark.ac.uk/nilt/2018/Political_Attitudes/UNINATID.html (d) https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/ni/security.htm https://www.nihrc.org/publication/category/Bill-­of-­Rights

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Interviews Interview A: LGBT Rights Representative, interviewed by Cera Murtagh, 21 March 2018, Belfast Interview B: Abortion Rights Activist, interviewed by Timofey Agarin & Cera Murtagh, 12 June 2018, Belfast Interview C: Community Relations Sector Representative, interviewed by Cera Murtagh, 24 April 2018 Interview D: Alliance Party of Northern Ireland (APNI) MLA, interviewed by Cera Murtagh, 4 May 2018, Belfast Interview E: Green Party MLA, interviewed by Allison McCulloch & Cera Murtagh, 21 February 2018, Belfast Interview F: UUP MLA, interviewed by Cera Murtagh, 12 April 2018, Portadown

CHAPTER 8

South Tyrol’s Model of Conflict Resolution: Territorial Autonomy and Power-Sharing Elisabeth Alber

Map 8.1  South Tyrol. (Source: https://d-­maps.com/carte.php?num_car= 262086&lang=en) E. Alber (*) Institute for Comparative Federalism—EURAC, Bolzano, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 S. Keil, A. McCulloch (eds.), Power-Sharing in Europe, Federalism and Internal Conflicts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53590-2_8

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1   Basic Facts, Actors and Dimensions of a European Success Story: Initial Remarks The year 2019 marked the 100th anniversary of the annexation of South Tyrol to Italy (1919), a border territory of 7,398 km2 in the Alps with, as of 31 December 2018 (ASTAT 2019), 531,178 inhabitants. On 23 November 2019, at the high-level meeting with the Presidents of Italy and Austria, South Tyrol’s governor, Arno Kompatscher, underlined how, on the one hand, territorial autonomy and power-sharing helped to peacefully solve a minority-related conflict and, on the other hand, how territorial autonomy and power-sharing, understood as a good governance instrument has turned South Tyrol from a poor into a prosperous area. Eurostat data (2019) shows how well-off South Tyrol is in economic terms compared to other European subnational units: it has the highest regional gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in Italy and one of the best performing labor markets in Europe. South Tyrol is, from a geographical viewpoint, the name of the trilingual northernmost Italian autonomous province of Bolzano/Bozen. It borders Austria and Switzerland and, together with the autonomous province of Trento, it forms the autonomous region Trentino-Alto Adige/ Südtirol (one out of five special regions in Italy, hereinafter Trentino-­ South Tyrol). The two autonomous provinces have different political systems but are tied together by a basic law, the Second Autonomy Statute (hereinafter Second ASt). The Second ASt essentially lays down three sets of provisions: one for predominantly Italian-speaking Trentino, another one for trilingual South Tyrol and a minor set of provisions applying to the autonomous region as a whole (i.e., to the territories of South Tyrol and Trentino taken together). Socio-politically, South Tyrol’s autonomy is grounded on the separation and forced cooperation of its two main language groups, Germanand Italian-speakers (69.41% and 26.06%, respectively), while special rules apply to the third language group, the Ladin-speakers (4.53%) (data from the last census in 2011; ASTAT 2012). A complex network of norms, guarantees and legal remedies enshrined in the Second ASt of 1972 regulates the relations between the three officially recognized language groups and all persons affiliated to one of these language groups. In other words, the numerical strength of German-, Italian- and Ladin-speakers is the foundation upon which South Tyrol’s model of conflict resolution rests.

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The power-sharing system laid down in the Second ASt epitomizes what, from a comparative viewpoint, has been identified as the emerging practice of “complex power-sharing” (Wolff 2008: 330). In line with consociational theory, the Second ASt provides a system of horizontal power-­ sharing combining elements of cultural and territorial self-government, thus allowing groups to preserve their socio-linguistic identities while fostering intergroup (elites’) dialogue and cooperation. The four elements are: the participation of all relevant language groups at the governmental level and at different subordinated sub-systems; group rights in the fields of culture and education; proportional representation of each language group in the public sphere; and veto power for each language group to defend their  vital group interests in case of necessity (Pallaver 2008: 303–304). As Marko argues (2008: 380), South Tyrol’s model of conflict resolution is grounded on a mix of institutionalized segregationist and integrationist elements that establish a complex power-sharing system responding to the area’s “historical-ethnic dimension, with the function of defensive minority protection and the effect of co-existence by means of segregation, and the linguistic-territorial dimension, with the function of autonomy for its territory and the possible effect of integration through cooperation at regional and euro-regional level.” As elsewhere, the complex power-sharing system needs to be implemented. South Tyrol’s design of the process of implementation has been defined as the “legal masterpiece” of the Second ASt (Palermo 2008: 143): it consists of a complex mix of procedural rules and substantial guarantees that represent one of the possible “tools for export” of South Tyrol’s autonomy. Essentially, the process of implementation of the Second ASt involves all institutional actors (i.e., central and provincial authorities) and language groups. The procedure to amend the Second ASt also provides a strong safeguard for minority-related issues. Basically, the State cannot alter South Tyrol’s autonomy against its own will. South Tyrol, for its part, cannot initiate an amendment procedure of the Second ASt without the consent of the autonomous province of Trento as the right to do so is vested with the regional parliament (i.e., the provincial parliaments of Bolzano/Bozen and Trento sitting together). This chapter offers a contextual, evidence-based analysis of South Tyrol’s model of conflict resolution. It analyzes three dimensions of power-sharing and their interdependencies: first, vertical power-sharing between the central authorities and the autonomous province of Bolzano/ Bozen (i.e., South Tyrol’s territorial autonomy within Italy); second,

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horizontal power-sharing between language groups in South Tyrol (in politics and the public sphere as a whole); and third, horizontal powersharing (between language groups and territories) in the larger context of the special region Trentino-South Tyrol. It does so by pointing to key developments of South Tyrol’s history, by explaining essential features of South Tyrol’s autonomy and power-sharing system in place today and by assessing the case of South Tyrol in the context of Italian regionalism. It ends by summarizing the findings and offering some lessons learned. Even though several aspects of South Tyrol’s autonomy have been rather extensively researched by social scientists,1 contextual, evidence-­ based studies combining disciplines are rare. This chapter fills this gap and advances the scholarship in conflict resolution and complex power-sharing in two ways: first, it expands the existing research on South Tyrol’s model of conflict resolution by demonstrating interdependencies between dimensions and actors, and, second, it identifies possible lessons for divided and multi-ethnic democratizing societies on the potentials and also the pitfalls and the limits of complex power-sharing.

2   Origins of and Negotiations Over a Disputed Territory: The Period Up to 1947 Historically, South Tyrol is a land of transit (Lantschner 2008). This is reflected in the heterogeneity of its population groups. Already in the early Middle Ages, different groups settled in South Tyrol: Celts, Goths, Franks, Bavarians, Lombards and Rhaeto-Romans. In 1363, Tyrol became part of the Habsburg Empire and was so until the end of the First World War (except for its annexation to Bavaria at the beginning of the eighteenth century). After the First World War, the territory south of the Brenner Pass was granted to Italy despite Woodrow Wilson’s 14-point program that suggested for a realignment of Italy’s borders along “clearly recognizable lines of nationality” (point 9) (Grote 2012: 20). With the Peace Treaty of Saint-Germain signed on 10 September 1919, the annexation of South Tyrol to Italy was accepted. On 10 October 1920, South Tyrol was—without a referendum and against the wishes of its majority German-­ speaking population—formally ceded to Italy. Initially, Italy’s post-war governments showed a certain sensitivity toward the German-speakers. This changed with the advent of the fascist 1

 See Parolari and Zwilling (2018) for a selected bibliography of publications on the case.

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regime (Grote 2012: 35–52). From 1922–1943, South Tyrol was subjected to an official program of Italianization that involved the attempted cultural deconstruction of the Austro-German identity. Despite the repressive measures, the German language and Tyrolean culture were never successfully undermined, and South Tyroleans never lost their appetite for self-determination, not even with the relocation program in 1939. The program, named Option, aimed at changing the demographic structure of South Tyrol in favor of Italian-speakers only (with Italians moving to South Tyrol from other parts of Italy and German-speakers relocating to the German Reich). By the end of 1939, 86% of approximately 250,000 South Tyroleans had opted to leave their home, but only 75,000 (37%) relocated in the period from 1939–1943, and of these a third returned home after the end of the Second World War (Grote 2012: 67). The Option was a failure. However, it considerably affected the collective identity of South Tyroleans. It divided the society and families into those willing to stay and to engage with the cause for self-government and those willing to leave. In 1943, fascist rule ended in Italy. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the Paris Peace Treaty (1947) confirmed South Tyrol as part of Italy because of geopolitical reasons. However, the Gruber-De Gasperi Agreement 1946, Annex IV of the Paris Peace Treaty,2 provided the international anchoring of minority rights by ensuring the German-speakers special provisions guaranteeing the “complete equality of rights with the Italian-speaking inhabitants” and the safeguarding of “the ethnic character and the cultural and economic development of the German-speaking element.” The Agreement had three effects that would characterize the politics of South Tyrol in the years up to the Second ASt (1972) (Grote 2012: 87–88). First, it justified the retention of the Brenner border. Second, it internationalized the South Tyrolean conflict and specified Austria as a kin-state (i.e., protecting power). Third, it called upon Italy to adopt special measures that set German on par with Italian in the public sphere and that allowed for cultural autonomy (i.e., group rights) in South Tyrol. However, the Agreement did not identify the exact geographical area to be covered by the special provisions. Alcide De Gasperi, Prime Minister and Minister of 2  The smallest (and oldest) language group present in South Tyrol, the Ladin, is technically not covered by the Agreement. The interests of the Ladin-speakers have been traditionally put forward by the German-speakers and by their most representative party, the South Tyrolean People’s Party (SVP).

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Foreign Affairs of Italy at the time, thus declared that any negotiated autonomy would relate to the regional territory consisting of South Tyrol and Trentino.

3   Constituent Moments of, Negotiations for and Basics as to the Autonomy: The Period Up to 1972 In 1948, the Italian parliament, by constitutional law, issued an autonomy statute ensuring far-reaching autonomy at the regional level. With the First Autonomy Statute (hereinafter First ASt),3 competences were transferred from the State to the special region Trentino-South Tyrol. By doing so, Italy considered the international obligations enshrined in the Gruber-De Gasperi Agreement to be fulfilled. However, the balance of power remained the way it had been before 1946. At the regional level, Italian-speakers were the majority and the interests of South Tyrol’s German-speakers (at the time 28.5%) were easily outvoted in the regional parliament. This led to a sustained period of civil and political resistance and to negotiation rounds at various governmental levels (Alber 2017). In the 1960s, a solution was found with the help of both the Austrian government that urged the UN to take a position on the easing of the South Tyrolean conflict and the work of special commissions established by the Italian State. Two UN resolutions4 urged Austria and Italy “to resume negotiations with a view of finding a solution for all differences relating to the implementation of the Paris agreement” and to search “for further efforts by the two parties concerned.” To this end, in 1961, a special commission was set up. The Commission of 19 was composed of 11 Italian-speakers, seven German-speakers and one Ladin-speaker. Notwithstanding the dominant position of Italian-speakers, the Commission of 19 successfully worked from 1961 to 1964. It elaborated a bundle of 137 legislative measures (i.e., the Package) that was to re-­ define South Tyrol’s position both within Italy and the special region. Aside from the Italian and Austrian parliaments, the final acceptance of the Package was voted for only by the delegates of the South Tyrolean People’s Party (SVP), the German-speaking ethnic catch-all party founded  Adopted with constitutional law no. 5 of 26 February 1948.  UN resolutions no. 1497 (XV) and no. 1661 (XVI), respectively issued in 1960 and in 1961. 3 4

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in 1945 and leader in South Tyrol’s politics up to today (Pallaver 2006). Neither the regional nor the provincial parliament had a say. Moreover, there was no direct consultation via referendum. The Package was accepted by a slim majority of 52.8% at the SVP Congress on 23 November 1969. The supporters of the Package argued that internal self-determination would be the only feasible way forward, while the opponents of the Package argued that the Package had to be rejected because its acceptance would mean definitely renouncing the goal of reunification with Austria. The diverging opinions on the fate of South Tyrol induced some South Tyroleans to re-organize themselves into liberal-patriotic alliances claiming the right to organize a referendum on the fate of South Tyrol at the provincial level, with the possibility to ultimately reunify with northern and eastern Tyrol in Austria (Alber 2015: 277). Today, the program of the governing party SVP still refers to the “inalienable right to self-determination” as a legitimate last resort while its politics is firmly based on internal self-determination (SVP 2016: 4).

4   The Second ASt: Contents, Effects and Scope The Package reformed the First ASt of 1948 by transferring the competences from the regional to the provincial level. This is an exception within Italy’s asymmetric regional State, as a province in all other parts of Italy is of a lower order of government than a region. The Italian Constitution (hereinafter ItConst) in art. 116 provides special forms and conditions of autonomy for the regions of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Sardinia, Sicily, Trentino-South Tyrol and Aosta Valley, but, unlike in the other four special regions, in Trentino-South Tyrol, most competences are vested with the two autonomous provinces Bolzano/Bozen and Trento and not with the special region. The entry into force of the Second ASt on 20 January 19725 had three effects that would characterize the politics of Trentino and South Tyrol in the years to come. First, the region of Trentino-South Tyrol from then on retained only few competences that over the years have been further devolved to, and differently exercised by, the two autonomous provinces. Second, Trentino and South Tyrol, even if formally under the same ‘regional roof’ (i.e., governed by the same autonomy statute), developed different political systems. In South Tyrol, a consociational democracy 5

 The Second ASt was adopted by constitutional law no. 1 of 10 November 1971.

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model based on ethnic separation and proportional representation is in place (Pallaver 2008) while Trentino is characterized by a majoritarian system with the direct election of the president (Klotz and Pallaver 2018: 42–44). Third, having competences at provincial level ultimately enabled South Tyrol to implement the provisions establishing the ethnic quota system (i.e., equitable distribution of civil service posts and resources between the major language groups) and guaranteeing the use of the German language in the public sphere (i.e., bilingualism in the administration and judiciary and the right to mother tongue education). With the Second ASt, South Tyrol became a ‘nested consociation’ with consociational structures existing in the broader context of the special region (Wolff 2008: 345). Provincial elections in the two autonomous provinces of Trento and Bolzano/Bozen are held jointly on the same day, and the two provincial parliaments (35 members in Trento and 35  in Bolzano/Bozen) together form the regional parliament of the special region Trentino-South Tyrol. The president of the regional parliament is elected by the two provincial parliaments sitting together. For the first half of the five-year legislature, the president is elected from among the Italian-­ speakers, for the second one among the German-speakers. Most importantly, any amendment to the Second ASt can only be initiated by the regional parliament pursuant to the proposals of the parliaments of Bolzano/Bozen and Trento. Moreover, if projects for amendments to the Second ASt are initiated by the central authorities, the regional and provincial parliaments must be consulted. Their opinion is not legally binding but of major political relevance. This provides a strong safeguard for minority-related autonomy arrangements on the one hand. On the other hand, such a strong safeguard can become a golden cage and make any attempt to update the statute of a special region very difficult (Palermo 2008: 38). This is confirmed by the fact that none of the statutes of special regions have recently been significantly amended. The only exception is the one of Trentino-South Tyrol, with the entry into force of the Second ASt. However, from a formal viewpoint, no new statute had been adopted, as, out of the 137 measures of the Package, over 80 referred to amendments to the First ASt of 1948. Today, the autonomous province of Bolzano/Bozen is vested with nearly all competences except the army, the police and a few minor issues. Exclusive powers are freely exercised in conformity with the ItConst, while provincial, secondary legislation has to also respect ordinary Italian laws. The scope of autonomy in South Tyrol (and Trentino) is quite

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outstanding not only if compared to other (minority-related) territorial autonomies in Italy (Palermo and Parolari 2018), but also if compared with the northern neighbor of South Tyrol, the Land Tyrol. The Land Tyrol is a constituent unit of federal Austria, and, together with South Tyrol and Trentino, it forms the cross-border entity European Region Tyrol-South Tyrol-Trentino (Engl and Zwilling 2008) that was successfully institutionalized as a European Grouping for Territorial Cooperation (EGTC) under EU law in 2011 (Engl 2013).

5   Vertical Power-Sharing: Implementing and Widening the Scope of Autonomy A joint commission, the Commission of Six, was critical for the implementation of the Second ASt from 1972 to 1992. The Package (i.e., the bundle of measures that led to the Second ASt) foresaw that the Commission of Six would cease to exist once the Second ASt was implemented and by 1992, the year in which the conflict was formally closed by the handover to the UN Secretary General of the ‘deed of discharge’ by the Austrian government. This was, however, not the case. On the contrary, the Commission of Six has evolved from a tool for the implementation of the Second ASt into an ordinary instrument of government that builds trust and solves conflicts between language groups/political parties within South Tyrol and beyond. Depending on the national political climate, the Commission of Six (i.e., members representing the State and the autonomous province of Bolzano/Bozen) has continued to draft the so-called enactment decrees (i.e., to regulate additional competence-transfers from Rome to South Tyrol) with varying degrees of success in different legislatures. The scope of South Tyrol’s autonomy today thus goes well beyond the enumerated competences in the Second ASt (those closely linked to the implementation of the minority-related horizontal power-sharing system at the provincial level).6 5.1  Enactment Decrees Enactment decrees are bylaws to the Second ASt that are adopted by the government after consulting the Commission of Six and that prevail over laws of the national parliament also in the interpretative line consistently 6  For a full account of the scope of South Tyrol’s territorial autonomy see Obwexer and Happacher (2015).

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followed by the constitutional court (Palermo 2008: 152). The governmental power to pass legislation superior to parliamentary legislation and to bypass the national parliament is, in this case, not considered to be a violation of the division of powers and of the rule of law for two reasons: first, enactment decrees are negotiated on an equal footing between the parties until an agreement of the wording is found (the central government does not have the power to amend a draft elaborated by the Commission of Six). Second, enactment decrees aim at implementing constitutional principles (i.e., territorial autonomy and decentralization of powers). The provincial parliament, instead, legislates within the framework of powers granted to it (i.e., by means of the enumeration of competences in the Second ASt, its implementing legislation and competences additionally transferred with other sources of law). Regular, even though not mandatory, exchanges occur (e.g., in the form of hearings) between the Commission of Six and the provincial parliament (also because of the nature of the composition of the Commission of Six). 5.2  Composition of the Commission of Six The Commission of Six is newly appointed at each change of government in Rome.7 The appointment procedures to the Commission of Six guarantee the parity of representation between the territories and groups. They also acknowledge the ethnically composite character of both the State and the autonomous province of Bolzano/Bozen. One out of three representatives from the State (appointed by the national government) must be from the German-speakers, and one out of three representatives from South Tyrol must belong to the Italian-speakers (with two representatives appointed by the provincial parliament and one representative appointed by the members of the provincial parliaments when sitting together as the regional parliament). The principle of double parity (i.e. linguistic parity between representatives from the Italian and German language groups, and parity between the territories of the State and South Tyrol) has most recently been 7  It has to be noted that formally the Commission of Six is part of the Commission of Twelve, which deals with competence-transfers from the central to the regional level. Thus, the political landscape in the autonomous province of Trento and the relations between the political elites in Trentino and South Tyrol are of relevance for the functioning of the Commission of Six and ultimately vertical power-sharing between Rome and South Tyrol.

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watered down, to the benefit of including a representative from the Ladin language group. In 2014, the state for the first time appointed a Ladin-­ speaker, and this resulted in a de facto representation of the Ladin language group in the Commission of Six. A few years later, in 2017, the Second ASt was amended on this very point by constitutional law no. 1/2017: one of the members representing the State must belong to a German- or Ladin-speaker. Thus, the appointment of a Ladin-speaker is now also provided de jure. As a rule, the majority of the representatives of either the German or the Italian language group in the provincial parliament has always been able to renounce the right to nominate their own member in favor of a Ladin-speaker, too. Two further issues are noteworthy regarding the Commission’s composition. First, the members appointed by the State are often persons (native) resident (to) in South Tyrol. This is the ultimate proof that the Commission of Six successfully transformed itself from an ad hoc body tasked with the implementation of the Second ASt into a trust-building instrument of government. Second, even though all members of the Commission of Six formally do have the same weight, most of them hold political posts at provincial and national level that are of very different weight. This can be viewed critically for the overall functioning of the Commission of Six. However, one can also argue that this is the key to the success of the Commission of Six because its members benefit from multiple semi-formal communication channels while discussing and deciding upon delicate issues. 5.3  Working Method The Commission of Six works behind closed doors. Yet, as explained, most of its members benefit from multiple semi-formal communication channels because they hold important posts. The work of the Commission of Six is thus backed up directly and indirectly by all parties involved: directly because of the complex appointment procedures and indirectly because of the professional affiliation of its members. Consequently, the following argument put forward in the literature still holds true: the principle of democratic legitimacy is limited by the principle of parity and the principle of transparency is limited by the principle of efficiency (Palermo 2008: 148). In other words, working behind closed doors allows the members to openly discuss delicate issues over the distribution of competences and thus to be the procedural linchpin in conflict resolution. All

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members of the Commission of Six and all (political) parties its members represent are forced to enter into dialogue when negotiating the wording and interpretative margin of each enactment decree. Only once a draft text of an enactment decree is agreed upon unanimously (this is a practice, not a written rule!), it is submitted to the respective ministry of the national government and ultimately enacted as presidential decree.

6   Horizontal Power-Sharing: Political Parties and the Joint Exercise of Power Separation with forced cooperation is the rule in South Tyrol’s party system. At the provincial level, political parties are divided along socio-­ linguistic lines, while, at the national electoral level, provincial German-speaking and national Italian parties seek arrangements and compromises to better represent their interests. South Tyrol’s politics has always been characterized by the contrast between center or center-left parties and center or center-right parties, with the former being pro-­ autonomy and the latter being anti- or semi-autonomy (Scantamburlo and Pallaver 2014: 500). Pro-autonomy parties are parties that, according to the typology of De Winter and Türsan (1998), fight for the autonomy of their respective regions, while anti- or semi-autonomy parties overtly reject autonomy. In South Tyrol, semi-autonomy parties are all those parties that are affirmative of autonomy but prefer the latter just as a starting point for ultimate secession (for Italian parties, in turn, this means a reinforced claim for the return of the Italian State). It should also be noted that the anti- and semi-autonomy parties are all part of the German-­ speaking segment today, whereas such parties were also found in the Italian-speaking segment in the past. 6.1  Political Logic of Ethnic Divisions South Tyrol’s party-political ethnic separation has far-reaching consequences with the political logic of ethnic division affecting territorial autonomy as a means of minority protection and as an instrument of good governance. Elections to the provincial and the national parliament are still largely characterized by an ethnic cleavage, even though South Tyrol’s autonomy as a whole is changing from a dissociative model of conflict resolution to an associative one (i.e., societal segments try to undermine

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the principle of separation between language groups from below and break down ethnic cleavages regardless of the institutional frame) (Pallaver 2014). Separate ethnic voting arenas and segmented political competition are in place. In provincial elections, German-speaking parties—unlike the Italian-speaking parties they are all province-based only—compete among themselves and not with Italian parties (Pallaver 2018: 46–50). As Scantamburlo (2016) shows, until 2013, less than 2% of the Germanspeaking voters and less than 10% of the Italian-speaking ones left their respective electoral arenas. The division of the political arenas into linguistically defined sub-arenas traces back to the Austrian monarchy. At the end of the nineteenth century, parties organized themselves according to nationality. This method was also applied after the annexation of South Tyrol in 1919 and after 1945. For a long time, the SVP, the dominant ethnic catch-all party representing the German- and Ladin-speakers, had an ethnic monopoly. Only in 1964, the German-speaking liberal-conservative Tyrol Homeland Party got into the provincial parliament. A few years later, two German-speaking social democratic parties followed, and, especially in the 1990s, more national liberal parties entered the provincial parliament. Italian-speaking parties have been trying to replicate the SVP ethnic catch-all model but have not succeeded in doing so. The only party with an interethnic basis is the one of the Greens. It has entered the provincial parliament in 1978 and is the political party with the longest tradition in the South Tyrolean parliament after the SVP. 6.2  Joint Exercise of Power, Guarantees and Veto System When it comes to the exercise of governmental power, art. 50  of the Second ASt establishes the requirement of guaranteed access to power for all language groups. It institutionalizes power-sharing according to a consociational form of government, but it leaves room for the parties involved to maneuver regarding the formation of a coalition. Accordingly, the composition of the provincial government of Bolzano/Bozen must reflect the numerical strength of the linguistic groups as represented in the provincial parliament. The provincial parliament consists of 35 members elected every five years by the population using a proportional system. It elects the governor

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of South Tyrol and the members of the executive from among its members by absolute majority and through different and secret votes. The members of the provincial government can also be co-opted from outside, but in this case a two-thirds majority is needed for their election along with the proposal of one or more parliament groups and the consent of every language group supporting the government coalition. Moreover, independent of the proportionality principle, a representative of the Ladins can be elected as a member of the executive too. The coalition requirement of art. 50 of the Second ASt is complemented by rules concerning both the equitable distribution of the offices of the three vice-governors in the provincial government between the language groups and the equitable distribution of the offices of the president and vice-presidents of the provincial parliament (and its rotation).8 Moreover, the Second ASt grants language groups a mechanism to defend their vital interests in the provincial parliament. The majority of members belonging to a language group may trigger an ‘alarm-bell procedure’ if they consider a draft law prejudicial to the quality of rights between citizens belonging to different language groups or to the ethnic or cultural characteristics of the groups themselves (art. 56 of the Second ASt). This procedure is not equivalent to an absolute veto right but can ultimately end in front of the constitutional court (Carlà and Constantin 2019: 166–167). 6.3  The Role of the SVP and the Party Spectrum The indisputable stability of the SVP as an ethnic catch-all party (Pallaver 2011), together with the continuous fragmentation in the Italian-speaking party landscape, has two effects that characterize South Tyrol’s politics. First, the SVP has always been the leader in negotiations on the composition of the provincial government as it, since 1948, has provided for the governor without interruption. Second, the number of Italian-speaking

8  According to art. 48 of the Second ASt, for the first half of a legislature, the president of the provincial parliament is elected from among the members of the German language group, and for the second half from among those of the Italian language group, with the vice-presidents always elected from among the members belonging to linguistic groups different from that of the president. Moreover, with the agreement of the majority of the members of the German or Italian language group, a member of the Ladin language group can also be elected president for the respective period.

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members in the provincial parliament has progressively decreased, and thus also their influence. The SVP played and still plays an uncontested key role also because, up to the provincial elections of 2013, no other German-speaking party has ever reached more than 15% of the voters’ support. Only in 2013, two German-speaking semi-autonomy parties have gained significant support (together making up 9 out of 35 members of the provincial parliament in the 2013–2018 legislature). The success of the semi-autonomy German-­ speaking parties was, however, not that much attributable to a switching of identities including secessionism, but rather to the trend of dissatisfaction with politics in general (e.g., decrease in voter turnout) and the SVP as an ethnic catch-all party in particular. Back in 2013, the SVP, for the first time since the Second World War, lost its absolute majority and the Italian-speaking Democratic Party (Partito Democratico, PD) entered the provincial government, not only to fulfill the required joint exercise of power, but for the purpose of procuring a political majority in the provincial parliament (Scantamburlo and Pallaver 2014). Prior to 2013, the Italian-speaking coalition partner was never decisive for reaching a majority but only to ensure additional channels for voicing South Tyrolean interests beyond the provincial level at the national one. The last provincial elections in 2018 again led to a change in the party spectrum. Support for the German-speaking semi-autonomy parties has been more than halved, and a ‘flash’ party, the civic list ‘Team Köllensperger (now Team K),’ calling for factual politics based on the associative model of conflict resolution, has become the second strongest party in the provincial parliament (6 out of 35 members). The SVP totaled its worst result ever with 41.9% (15 seats compared to the 17 seats in 2013) (Atz and Pallaver 2019) and the formation of a coalition became ever more difficult because of three reasons. First, the SVP was unable to re-consider the center-left Italian-speaking PD as the sole coalition partner. In the Italian-­ speaking election arena, the extreme right-wing party the Lega had outstripped all the other parties (11.1%; four seats) and the PD totaled only 3.8% of the voters’ consent (one seat). Second, in neighboring Trentino, the Lega took over the leadership with a landslide victory, and, third, in late 2018, the Lega was also governing at the national level (in coalition with the Five Star Movement). Ultimately, the SVP entered a coalition with the Lega, arguing that such a coalition would represent the maximum involvement of the Italian-speaking electorate and because of

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strategic reasons. Entering a coalition with the PD and the Greens would have meant disregarding the will of the Italian-speaking voters and making concessions regarding the trend from a dissociative model of conflict resolution to an associative one (e.g., by watering down the ethnic separation in schooling). The decision to form a coalition with the Lega marks a turning point in South Tyrol’s political history. For the first time, an Italian-right wing party entered the provincial government, while the SVP’s ability to represent the German-speakers continued to decrease. As neatly argued by Vampa and Scantamburlo (2020: 17), “South Tyrol has moved from being a highly dominant, moderately volatile and concentrated party system, characterized by consensual-style executive politics into a more competitive, highly volatile and fragmented party system, where minimal winning coalitions have become the norm.” 6.4  Political System of Maximum Involvement of Language Groups Next to the party spectrum, the system of maximum involvement of all language groups in decision-making according to the numerical strength of the language groups present in the population has undergone changes over the last 25 years. As shown, in South Tyrol, the formation of coalitions is based on both ethnic and political segregation. The ethnic dimension is mandatory according to the Second ASt, while the political dimension depends on the respective ideological and political proximity of the coalition parties. The considerations that follow are about the real representation of the Italian language group (i.e., the share of the Italian coalition party or parties according to the Italian-speaking electorate), not the required proportional representation of all language groups in the provincial government. The latter was always strictly observed.9 From 1948 to 1993, the period corresponding to the First Italian Republic, the Italian coalition partners of the SVP represented between a minimum of 38.9% and a maximum of 53.7% of the Italian population in 9  For details on the composition of power-sharing executives in South Tyrol see Panzano (2018: 156–160).

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the provincial government, while from 1993 to 2018 the representation of the Italian coalition partners has always remained below 30% (Pallaver 2019: 171–172). From the 1990s onward, most of the Italian parties in the South Tyrolean Parliament were anti- or semi-autonomy parties and thus opted out of a coalition with the SVP not because of ethnic incompatibility but because of ideological incompatibility. As a result, the SVP entered coalitions with Italian parties which, while fulfilling the requirement of proportional representation in the provincial government, represented only a minority of the Italian-speaking electorate. The majority of Italian-speakers felt excluded from decision-making, a circumstance that led to the disagio degli italiani (uneasiness of Italians). With the 2018 provincial elections, there was a change in the trend. From the perspective of consociationalism and the system of maximum involvement of all language groups in the provincial government, the election result of the Lega brought the Italian-speaking population ‘back into the system.’ This is due to the fact that the Lega, in South Tyrol, presented itself as a pro-­ autonomy party. In the current legislative period (2018–2023), the Italian population is represented by 44.6% (a value above 40% was last reached in the legislature 1989–1993!).

7   Horizontal Power-Sharing: Linguistic Rights and the Rules of Co-habitation South Tyrol’s divided governance system is based on a declaration of belonging or affiliation to one of the language groups. Such a declaration is instrumental for the ethnic quota system that applies to everyday life and the whole public sphere, and that establishes a detailed regime of individual and collective linguistic rights (Alber and Palermo 2012). 7.1  Linguistic Rights At the outset, it should be noted that, except for the Ladins, the different language groups are territorially distributed in an uneven manner. As a rule, German-speakers mainly populate rural areas while all major cities contain substantial numbers of Italian-speakers (with Italian-speakers constituting the majority in the provincial capital city Bolzano/Bozen and in the southern parts of South Tyrol neighboring Trentino). Regardless of

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the distribution of the speakers belonging to the two major language groups, every person throughout South Tyrol can use Italian or German in relations with offices of the public administration and with the judiciary, as well as with private companies with concessions to provide public utility services (art. 100 of the Second ASt). This means that the use of the two major official languages is based on the personal principle. The use of Ladin, instead, follows the territorial principle. The whole administration—bilingual in the whole territory of South Tyrol, and trilingual in the two Ladin valleys—has an obligation to use the language of the applicant and to reply in the language in which documents have been started. When documents or actions are started by the offices of public administration or civil servants themselves, the correspondence or action must be carried out in the language presumed to be the mother tongue, and written documents directed to the public must be bilingual. For issues concerning the Ladin-speakers outside the Ladin valleys, Ladin is also used. All in all, bi(tri)lingualism has proved to work well. This is because South Tyrol not only paid attention to the effective use of the minority language while establishing a bi(tri)lingual system in administration and courts but also to its correct use (i.e., the development of terminology and training of personnel). A terminology commission and special education programs in and beyond South Tyrol played, and still play, a key role (Alber and Palermo 2012: 297–304). Moreover, all the stipulations on the use of language are enforced through strict legal remedies, which in the case of an alleged violation of (group) rights are available to individuals and groups as a means to circumvent conflict and which by their very existence build trust between language groups. These guarantees include, inter alia, the right to challenge the rules on the composition of the ordinary and administrative judiciary (art. 89 and 91 of the Second ASt) and the decisions of non-admission to schools on the grounds of insufficient language skills. When it comes to schooling (Alber 2012; Alber and Trettel 2018), the German and Italian language groups run their own programs from nursery to secondary schools. They provide mother tongue education and the obligatory teaching of the second language (this is the official name of Italian in German schools and of German in Italian schools). A trilingual teaching model is in place in the Ladin schools—with Italian and German as teaching languages as well as Ladin as a vehicular language. In this case, the right to mother tongue education is precluded. In higher education, a

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multilingual model is in force at the Free University of Bolzano/Bozen (with some exceptions at the Faculty of Education that runs a three-track system to train persons to be employed in South Tyrol’s education sector). 7.2  Ethnic Quota System Historically, the repressive measures during the fascist regime of 1922–1943 led to a concentration of language groups along certain economic activities. As a result, posts in public administration to a great extent were held by Italian-speakers in the aftermath of the Second World War, while in agriculture the German-speakers dominated. The ethnic quota system (art. 89  of the Second ASt), foreseen already in the Gruber-De Gasperi Agreement of 1946, aimed at steadily reducing this asymmetry and was first applied in 1981. In South Tyrol, posts in public administration must be assigned according to ethnic proportions that are calculated on the basis of the most recent census (or, until 1988, according to the ethnic composition of the provincial parliament). The ethnic quota system applies to all State and semi-State bodies operating in South Tyrol and to the provincial and municipal administrations. At the municipal level, the quota is based on the strength of the linguistic groups in that specific municipality. The ethnic quota system also applies to privatized institutions such as railroads and the postal service. Interestingly, enactment decree no. 752 of 26 July 1976 sets forth the details of the quota system as well as a time limit of 30 years as to its use. However, the system is still in place today, regardless of the fact that the representation of language groups in their respective proportions in the civil service has been achieved (throughout the 1980s with regard to posts in local and provincial administration and in the early 1990s with regard to posts in public State administration) (Gudauner 2013). Since the late 1990s, the ethnic quota system has been handled more flexibly, not least out of necessity. This means that in cases where it is not possible to find a qualified candidate, a candidate of the other language group can occupy the post. In some specific and highly specialized occupational profiles, the meritocratic principle may also prevail. In more recent times, some segments of South Tyrol’s society have begun to question the persisting application of the ethnic quota system. Proposals as to temporarily suspend it for branches where the representation of language

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groups in their respective proportions is balanced have been put forward (even though rather timidly and rarely officially discussed). 7.3  Linguistic Declaration The linguistic declaration or affiliation is the basis not only for the ethnic quota system, but also for the overall functioning of South Tyrol’s power-­ sharing system. At the time of the census, any person aged 18 or over who is resident in South Tyrol, based on free choice, is invited to make a formal declaration of his or her language group (or language group affiliation).10 The linguistic declaration enables persons (1) to stand for public office, (2) to be entitled to file an application to receive subsidies and, most importantly, (3) to be employed as a civil servant (out of 49,406 public employees, 41,949 are employees of the provincial administration! [see Provincial Statistics Institute 2019]). In practical terms, in the field of the public administration, this means that candidates compete for the posts reserved for their respective group only and not for the totality of the posts. Those who do not make the declaration cannot apply for public posts, offices, public housing and various social contributions (Lantschner and Poggeschi 2008). The declaration (personalized copy) is revealed only if necessary, while the anonymized copy indicating the municipality serves multiple purposes. Most importantly, it ascertains the numerical strength of the linguistic groups, which then forms the legal foundation of public life (including the allocation of financial means according to the strength of the language groups). Every person is entitled to either withdraw or change his or her linguistic declaration at any moment. However, the validity of an amended declaration is delayed. This is to uphold the principle of minority protection. All data as to the linguistic declarations is processed jointly by the National Institute for Statistics (ISTAT) and the Provincial Statistics Institute (ASTAT). ASTAT ascertains the numerical strength of the three language groups in each municipality of South Tyrol (116 as of 31 December 2019).

 The declaration may also be made by persons aged between 14 and 18 years.

10

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7.4  Bi(tri)lingualism Exams To effectively run a bi- and trilingual public sphere, civil servants have to be in possession of either the bi- or trilingualism certificate. The exams are organized at the provincial level and set the standard for the required level of proficiency in the two or three languages in relation to the specific professional profile. Once passed, the exam is valid for a lifetime (a point that is criticized). It is worth noticing that this system has been questioned by the European Court of Justice. The court in 2000 held that the EC Treaty precludes an employer from requiring persons applying for employment to provide evidence of their linguistic knowledge exclusively by means of one particular certificate issued only in one territorial unit of a member state.11 In 2010, South Tyrol adopted an enactment decree that indicates all other accepted evidence of proficiency (i.e., the certificates issued by the Goethe Institut and the Istituto Dante Alighieri).

8   Assessment of South Tyrol’s Autonomy in the Context of Italian Regionalism To fully understand the relevance of South Tyrol’s model of conflict resolution, one has to embed it in the context of Italian regionalism and to confront it with the scope of autonomy of other special regions. Back in 1948, the Constituent Assembly had to face a complex situation in terms of regional diversities. In brief, due to the presence of linguistic minorities, secessionist fears and geographical particularities, supporters of a federal State at the time had to come to terms with supporters of a unitary State. This ultimately led to the establishment of an asymmetric regional state with five out of 20 regions enjoying more autonomy (Pallaver and Brunazzo: 2017). While the special regions of Trentino-South Tyrol, Aosta Valley, Friuli-­ Venezia Giulia,12 Sardinia and Sicily were already established in 1948, the ordinary regions were only established in the 1970s, with further significant changes to their scope of autonomy occurring through ordinary legislation in the late 1990s and through a series of constitutional laws in 2001. Most importantly, up to 2001, ordinary regions could only legislate 11  Angonese v. Cassa di Risparmio di Bolzano SpA, Judgment of 6 June 2000, C-281/98, EU:C:2000:296. 12  Friuli-Venezia Giulia was established only in 1963 because of the international regime on the area of Trieste until 1954.

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in a number of subjects enumerated in the ItConst and only within the framework outlined by a national law. Conversely, special regions (and thus also the autonomous province of Bolzano/Bozen) were vested with a broad scope of autonomy with their respective legislative and often exclusive competences laid down in their autonomy statutes (that, unlike the statutes of ordinary regions,13 are a constitutional law14). The 2001 constitutional reform eliminated this difference by turning the distribution of legislative powers upside down (i.e., legislative-exclusive competences of the State, as well as subject-matters of shared legislation, are now listed in the ItConst in art. 117 with regions holding residual powers). Though at first sight simple, the threefold division of the 2001 constitutional reform masks extensive ambiguity and adds complexity regarding the distribution of legislative competences. This has given rise to a considerable volume of litigation before the constitutional court, and ultimately the constitutional court has been largely re-writing the division of legislative competences to the detriment of the regions (Palermo and Valdesalici 2019: 298–299). As a rule, after the 2001 constitutional reform, the statutes of special regions have not undergone a total revision but they have only been updated on an ad hoc basis.15 The revision of the statutes of ordinary regions, instead, resulted in scarce innovation and little differentiation, even though their capacity to solve collective problems has been very 13  They are adopted and amended by a regional law approved by the regional parliament with an absolute majority of its members with two subsequent deliberations at an interval of not less than two months and a possible regional referendum (art. 123 of the ItConst). This gives them a higher status in the hierarchy of norms compared to other regional legislation. 14  The statutes of special regions are adopted by the national parliament according to the special procedure laid down in the statute of each special region (with the exception of the financial provisions that may be amended by an ordinary State law after an agreement between the State and the special region/two autonomous provinces). According to art. 138 of the ItConst, constitutional laws shall be adopted by each chamber after two successive debates at intervals of not less than three months, and they shall be approved by an absolute majority of the members of each chamber at the second vote. Unlike other constitutional laws, amendments to the statutes of the special regions shall not be in any event subject to a national referendum (for South Tyrol see art. 103 of the Second ASt). Providing one would jeopardize the rationale of the principles of speciality and bilateralism between special regions and the State, and in case of South Tyrol the whole machinery of minority protection. 15  Article 10 of constitutional law no. 3/2001 provided for the application of the reform to the special regions and the autonomous provinces Trento and Bolzano/Bozen, insofar as this results in a higher degree of autonomy. This results in difficult questions of interpretation.

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different in terms of the quality of administrative performance and policy output. This is because the whole federalizing process in Italy has never been straightforward (Baldini and Baldi 2014). Except for Trentino-South Tyrol and the Aosta Valley (Sandri 2012), regions have been lacking strong and stable political elites. In the case of South Tyrol, the indisputable stability of the SVP, on the one hand, helped to create stable bilateral relations with the central authorities and, on the other hand, facilitated the effective implementation of South Tyrol’s autonomy. Unlike other special regions and even more so unlike ordinary ones, South Tyrol and Trentino have always taken full advantage of the principle of bilateralism (i.e., dialogue on equal footing), which is the rule in intergovernmental relations between the State and the special regions (and which is an additional tool that the special regions have next to the weak multilateral ‘Standing Conference of the State, the regions and the autonomous provinces’ the ordinary regions have to exclusively rely on in intergovernmental relations). Against these developments, the special region Trentino-South Tyrol is, compared to other special regions, in a strong position and also at the forefront when it comes to drafting enactment decrees. As of early 2018, 189 enactment decrees with most bylaws dealing with the mechanisms of co-habitation of language groups in South Tyrol have been adopted. This corresponds to almost five times those of Sicily and Sardinia (41 and 42) and almost three times those of the Aosta Valley (62) (Palermo and Valdesalici 2019: 287). This shows how much the relevance of joint commissions (formally established as consultative commissions only!) differs from one special region to another for the development of subnational governance solutions.

9   Factors of Success and the Way Forward: Closing Remarks South Tyrol’s model of conflict resolution shows how asymmetry in constitutional design can contribute not only to settle a conflict but also to enable a territory in the development of institutional structures and policies that suit local needs and that ultimately lead to prosperity because of provincially developed agency within and across (diverging) group interests. However, constitutional design alone does not suffice to settle a conflict in the long term. In other words, the very existence of group rights

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alone easily leads to further conflicts if not balanced against sophisticated guarantees and legal remedies for individuals and groups, on the one side, and procedural rules as to forced cooperation between (the elites) of groups and across governmental levels, on the other side. As this chapter shows, South Tyrol is one of the most regulated examples of co-existence between different language groups with a power-­ sharing system that unfolds horizontally at the provincial and regional levels and vertically in relation to the state. The institutional arrangements that have been established do not have precedent in other Italian constituent units, making South Tyrol a “quasi-federal reality” within Italy (Woelk 2013: 126). The adoption of the Second ASt helped to settle South Tyrol’s conflict in comparatively short time and in a peaceful manner. Its implementation by means of the Commission of Six helped to create trust between South Tyrol and Rome, and, in South Tyrol, between its language groups. Consequently, South Tyrol’s autonomy today is moving toward further integration. It can do so because of the very existence of the complex network of norms, guarantees and legal remedies, as to the system in relation to the State, on the one hand, and as to the system in relation to the vital interests of its constituent language groups, on the other hand. It does so, for the time being, without formally amending its model of conflict resolution that continues to rest on the principle of dissociative conflict resolution (i.e., the separation of language groups) and the principle of consociational democracy (i.e., cooperation between the elites of language groups). However, as the latest elections to the provincial parliament have shown, South Tyrol’s politics has to come to terms with ever more parts of the society calling for more integration between language groups. Amending the Second ASt formally should thus be taken into account, not least to update it. In sum, three keys of success can be identified when studying South Tyrol’s model of conflict resolution. First, trust within and beyond local stakeholders and societal segments. Trust begins with a political leadership having a clear vision, but it has to be built beyond political leadership to develop positive ripple effects that contribute to definitely settle conflicts by establishing clear rules as to sharing powers and handling intergovernmental or intergroup conflicts. Access to power and group rights have to be procedurally guaranteed so that no group feels threatened, regardless of its numerical strength/political weight.

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Second, time. Creating mutual trust takes time. Even in the presence of favorable conditions, as in the case of South Tyrol, it took much more time than expected to implement the detailed autonomy and power-­ sharing arrangements. Time is also needed to profit from existing capacity and to develop capability. So does the effective use of a minority language in administration, education and the courts not only depend on the status of the language, the competences the authorities are vested with, and the financial resources, but also on more specific problems that constitute practical obstacles to its full use. It takes time to develop technical terminology and to train personnel to make a multilingual public sphere fully functional. Also, for a multilingual public sphere to work effectively, experts need not only to consider the laws governing co-habitation, but they also need to understand the culture that produces them (for guaranteeing the highest possible standards in service provision). Adaptability is the third key to success (i.e., the institutional and procedural ability of a system for adaptive evolution). As the case of South Tyrol shows, territorial autonomy and complex power-sharing cannot be conceived as fixed static solutions. They need to adapt constantly to changing circumstances and new societal realities. In other words, the procedural guarantees as to the implementation and amendment of South Tyrol’s territorial autonomy on the one side, and South Tyrol’s power-sharing system on the other side, are examples of what an adaptable system can look like—with all of its potentials, pitfalls and limits.

References Alber, E. (2012). South Tyrol’s Education System: Plurilingual Answers for Monolinguistic Spheres?. L’Europe en Formation 1(363): 399–415. Retrieved March 4, 2020, from https://www.cairn.info/revue-­l-­europe-­en-­ formation-­2012-­1-­page-­399.htm#. Alber, E. (2015). Qualified Autonomy vs. Secessionist Discourses in Europe: The Case of South Tyrol. In E.  M. Belser et  al. (Eds.), States Falling Apart?— Secessionist and Autonomy Movements in Europe (pp.  267–296). Bern: Stämpfli Verlag. Alber, E. (2017). South Tyrol’s Negotiated Autonomy. Journal of Ethnic Studies, 78, 41–48. Alber, E., & Palermo, F. (2012). Creating, Studying and Experimenting with Bilingual Law in South Tyrol: Lost in Interpretation? In X.  Arzoz (Ed.), Bilingual Higher Education in the Legal Context (pp.  287–309). Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff.

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Alber, E., & Trettel, M. (2018). The Italian Education System: Constitutional Design, Organization and Policy Making. In K.  K. Wong et  al. (Eds.), Federalism and Education (pp. 131–161). Charlotte, NC: IAP Publishing. ASTAT. (2012). Astatinfo Nwr. 38, 06/2012, Landesinstitut für Statistik. Retrieved March 4, 2020, from https://astat.provinz.bz.it/de/volkszaehlung-­ wohnungszaehlung-­2011.asp. ASTAT. (2019). Astatinfo Nr. 62, 09/2019, Landesinstitut für Statistik. Retrieved March 4, 2020, from https://astat.provinz.bz.it/de/aktuelles-­publikationen-­ info.asp?news_action=4&news_article_id=630458. Atz, H., & Pallaver, G. (2019). Der Reiz des Neuen. Unzufriedenheit bestraft die Regierungsparteien gleich wie die etablierte Opposition. In A.  Engl et  al. (Eds.), Politika 2019—Südtiroler Jahrbuch für Politik (pp.  115–153). Bozen: Raetia. Baldini, G., & Baldi, B. (2014). Decentralization in Italy and the Troubles of Federalization. Regional and Federal Studies, 24(1), 87–108. Carlà, A., & Constantin, S. (2019). Territorial and Cultural Self-Governance in Italy: Strengths and Challenges of South Tyrol’s Autonomy. In O. Akbulut & E. Aktoprak (Eds.), Minority Self-Government in Europe and the Middle East (pp. 154–182). Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff. De Winter, L., & Türsan, H. (Eds.). (1998). Regionalist Parties in Western Europe. London: Routledge. Engl, A. (2013). The European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC): Origin, Content and Member State Implementation. In A. Engl & C. Zwilling (Eds.), More? New Potential for the European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation—EGTC (Vol. 63, pp. 9–37). Bozen: Eurac Research Book. Engl, A., & Zwilling, C. (2008). Cross-Border Cooperation Between Historical Legacies and New Horizons. In J. Woelk et al. (Eds.), Tolerance Through Law: Self Governance and Group Rights in South Tyrol (pp.  161–176). Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff. Eurostat. (2019, February 26). Regional GDP Per Capita Ranged from 31% to 626% of the EU Average in 2017. Retrieved March 4, 2020, from https:// ec.europa.eu/eurostat/en/web/products-­press-­releases/-­/1-­26022019-­AP. First Autonomy Statute. 1948. Retrieved March 4, 2020, from https://www. l a n d t a g -­b z . o rg / d e / d a t e n b a n k e n -­s a m m l u n g e n / a u t o n o m i e s t a t u t . asp#anc1953. Grote, G. (2012). The South Tyrol Question, 1866–2010: From National Rage to Regional State. Bern: Peter Lang. Gruber-Degasperi Agreement. (1946). Retrieved March 4, 2020, from http:// www.regione.taa.it/codice/accordo_d.aspx. Gudauner, K. (2013). Zu Unrecht verteufelt—Eine Zwischenbilanz zum Proporz als Garantieinstrument. In G. Pallaver (Ed.), Politika 13—Jahrbuch für Politik (pp. 181–220). Bozen: Raetia.

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Klotz, G., & Pallaver, G. (2018). Partiti e sistemi elettorali nelle Regioni a Statuto speciale: un confronto. In F. Palermo & S. Parolari (Eds.), Le variabili della specialità. Evidenze e riscontri tra soluzioni istituzionali e politiche settoriali (pp. 33–70). Napoli: ESI. Lantschner, E. (2008). History of South Tyrol Conflict and its Settlement. In J.  Woelk et  al. (Eds.), Tolerance Through Law: Self Governance and Group Rights in South Tyrol (pp. 3–15). Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff. Lantschner, E., & Poggeschi, G. (2008). Quota System, Census and Declaration of Affiliation to a Linguistic Group. In J. Woelk et al. (Eds.), Tolerance Through Law: Self Governance and Group Rights in South Tyrol (pp. 219–223). Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff. Marko, J. (2008). Is There a South Tyrolean ‘Model’ of Conflict Resolution to be Exported? In J.  Woelk et  al. (Eds.), Tolerance Through Law: Self Governance and Group Rights in South Tyrol (pp. 371–388). Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff. Obwexer, W., & Happacher, E. (2015). Entwicklungen und Veränderungen der Südtiroler Autonomie seit der Streitbeilegungserklärung 1992. Rechtsgutachten. Retrieved March 4, 2020, from http://www.provinz.bz.it/news/de/news. asp?news_action=4&news_article_id=589813. Palermo, F. (2008). Implementation and Amendment of the Autonomy Statute. In J. Woelk et al. (Eds.), Tolerance Through Law: Self Governance and Group Rights in South Tyrol (pp. 143–159). Leiden, Boston: Martinus Nijhoff. Palermo, F., & Parolari, S. (Eds.). (2018). Le variabili della specialità. Evidenze e riscontri tra soluzioni istituzionali e politiche settoriali (pp.  161–198). Napoli: ESI. Palermo, F., & Valdesalici, A. (2019). Irreversibly Different: A Country Study of Constitutional Asymmetry in Italy. In P.  Popelier & M.  Sahadžić (Eds.), Constitutional Asymmetry in Multinational Federalism: Managing Multinationalism in Multi-tiered Systems (pp.  287–315). Basel: Springer International Publishing. Pallaver, G. (2006). The Südtiroler Volkspartei: From Irredentism to Autonomy. In L. de Winter et  al. (Eds.), Autonomist Parties in Europe: Identity, Politics and the Revival of the Territorial Cleavage (pp.  161–188). Barcelona: Aleu Institut de Ciències Polítiques i Socials. Pallaver, G. (2008). South Tyrol’s Consociational Democracy: Between Political Claim and Social Reality. In J. Woelk et al. (Eds.), Tolerance Through Law: Self Governance and Group Rights in South Tyrol (pp.  303–324). Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff. Pallaver, G. (2011). The Südtiroler Volkspartei. In A. Elias & F. Tronconi (Eds.), From Protest to Power: Autonomist Parties and the Challenges of Representation (pp. 171–193). Wien: Braumüller.

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Pallaver, G. (2014). South Tyrol’s Changing Political System: From Dissociative on the Road to Associative Conflict Resolution. Nationalities Papers, 42(3), 376–398. Pallaver, G. (2018). Südtirols Parteien: Analysen, Trends und Perspektiven. Bozen: Raetia. Pallaver, G. (2019). Kontinuität und Wandel. In A.  Engl et  al. (Eds.), Politika 2019—Südtiroler Jahrbuch für Politik (pp. 154–182). Bozen: Raetia. Pallaver, G., & Brunazzo, M. (2017). Italy: The Pendulum of ‘Federal’ Regionalism. In F.  Karlhofer & G.  Pallaver (Eds.), Federal Power-Sharing in Europe (pp. 149–180). Baden-Baden: Nomos. Panzano, G. (2018). Power-Sharing Executives in Northern Ireland and South Tyrol: Theories, Structures, Practices and Political Stability. Rivista di Dirtti Comparati, 2, 136–183. Retrieved March 4, 2020, from https://www.diritticomparati.it/rivista/power-­sharing-­executives-­northern-­ireland-­south-­tyrol-­ theories-­structures-­practices-­political-­stability/. Parolari, S., & Zwilling, C. (2018). A Bibliography on the Autonomy of South Tyrol. Bozen: EURAC Research. Retrieved March 4, 2020, from http://www. eurac.edu/de/research/Publications/Pages/publicationdetails.aspx?pubId= 0103751&pubType=E. Provincial Statistics Institute. (2019). South Tyrol in Figures  2019. Retrieved March 4, 2020, from https://astat.provinz.bz.it/de/suedtirol-­in-­zahlen.asp. Sandri, G. (2012). Ethno-linguistic Identity and Party Politics in the Aosta Valley. Ethnopolitics, 11(3), 287–317. Scantamburlo, M. (2016). Selbstbestimmung und Parteien in Südtirol: Territoriale und Europäische Parteistrategien zwischen Autonomie und Sezession. European Diversity and Autonomy Papers 3. Retrieved March 4, 2020, from https://bia. unibz.it/handle/10863/7383?locale-­attribute=de. Scantamburlo, M., & Pallaver, G. (2014). The 2013 South Tyrolean Election: The End of SVP Hegemony. Regional and Federal Studies, 24(4), 493–503. Second Autonomy Statute. (1972). Retrieved March 4, 2020, from http://www. provinz.bz.it/politik-­r echt-­a ussenbeziehungen/autonomie/autonomiestatut.asp. SVP. (2016, May 7). Grundsatzprogramm, genehmigt durch die 62. ordentliche Landesversammlung. Retrieved March 4, 2020, from https://www.svp.eu/ de/programm-­931.html. UN Resolution No. 1497 (XV) of 31 October. (1960). The Status of the German-­ Speaking Element in the Province of Bolzano (Bozen); Implementation of Paris Agreement of 5 September 1946. Retrieved March 4, 2020, from http:// www.un.org/documents/ga/res/15/ares15.htm.

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UN Resolution No. 1661 (XVI) of 28 November. (1961). The Status of the German-Speaking Element in the Province of Bolzano (Bozen). Retrieved March 4, 2020, from http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/16/ ares16.htm. Vampa, D., & Scantamburlo, M. (2020). The ‘Alpine Region’ and Political Change: Lessons from Bavaria and South Tyrol (1946–2018). Regional and Federal Studies. Retrieved March 4, 2020, from https://www.tandfonline. com/doi/full/10.1080/13597566.2020.1722946. Woelk, J. (2013). South Tyrol Is (Not) Italy: A Special Case in a (De)federalizing System. L’Europe en Formation, 3(369), 126–137. Retrieved March 4, 2020, from https://www.cairn.info/revue-­l-­europe-­en-­formation-­2013-­3-­ page-­126.htm. Wolff, S. (2008). Complex Power Sharing as Conflict Resolution: South Tyrol in Comparative Perspective. In J. Woelk, F. Palermo, & J. Marko (Eds.), Tolerance Through Law: Self Governance and Group Rights in South Tyrol (pp. 329–370). Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff.

CHAPTER 9

A Consociational Compromise? Constitutional Evolution in Spain and Catalonia Paul Anderson

Map 9.1  Spain. lang=en)

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1   Introduction Over the past few years, Spain has come under unprecedented stress— economically, politically and territorially. Since 2010, the Catalan independence movement has garnered significant traction, seriously calling into question Spain’s constitutional status quo. Notwithstanding this sustained period of political turmoil—including an independence referendum in October 2017; the removal and reinstatement of the Catalan government (in October 2017 and May 2018, respectively); the arrest and incarceration of several pro-independence parliamentarians and civil society leaders, as well as a regional election in Catalonia (December 2017); a change of government in Madrid (June 2018); and a left-leaning coalition government between PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party) and United We Can (Unidas Podemos) following the 2019 general election—the territorial impasse remains unresolved. Hitherto, no palatable institutional resolution has been found to fulfill or even temporarily ameliorate the demands of either independence supporters or opponents. The vehement constitutional clash between the Spanish and Catalan governments has precipitated a marked fracturing of Catalan society between pro- and anti-independence supporters. Claims of a polarized society hold some merit, particularly when measured along the constitutional-­independence axis, but such assertions mask the broad consensus among the Catalan electorate vis-à-vis support for holding an independence referendum and opposition to the imprisonment of pro-independence representatives (CEO 2019).1 There remains, however, a protracted stalemate that requires some form of institutional innovation to assuage concerns of both independence supporters and opponents and ultimately break the political deadlock. 1  In a recent survey, 49.3% of Catalans supported independent statehood, while 41.2% were against. In response to the question, “a referendum should be held in Catalonia because Catalans should decide the sort of relationship they want between Catalonia and Spain,” 70.8% agreed. In the same survey, 75.2% of respondents considered the imprisonment of pro-independence representatives ‘unjust’ while only 16.4% supported this course of action (CEO 2019).

P. Anderson (*) School of Law, Policing and Social Sciences, Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury, UK e-mail: [email protected]

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Power-sharing mechanisms are oft-promoted as leading forms of conflict management, particularly in disputes “focused on antagonistic self-­ determination claims” (O’Leary 2008: 47; see also McGarry 2019; McGarry and O’Leary 2010). Institutional tinkering is no panacea for all problems in plural societies, but the ability of power-sharing arrangements to temper majoritarian democracy, promote consensus, foster accommodative behavior and ultimately institutionalize political stability renders it a political formula adept at managing centrifugal tensions in plurinational contexts (Keil and Anderson 2018; McGarry and O’Leary 2009). In Spain, a commitment to political decentralization was developed as part of the country’s democratic transition in the late 1970s, but despite the pacted nature of the democratic transition, undergirded by elite cooperation and broad consensus, a model of majoritarian democracy took root. The majoritarian turn—which has also witnessed successive attempts at territorial centralization—has elicited vociferous criticism over the years and jars with the pro-autonomy and plurinational interpretation of the state widely held in Autonomous Communities (ACs) like the Basque Country and Catalonia (Brown Swan and Cetrà 2020). In any event, growing restlessness has translated into increasing support for enhanced autonomy, co-sovereignty and ultimately independence. The first and second sections of this chapter focus on the historical and political elements of the Spanish territorial system. They shed light on the consociational tinge of the Spanish transition to democracy and subsequent transmutation of the system from one of consensual agreement to majoritarianism. The next sections discuss the protracted constitutional clash between the Spanish and Catalan governments, before examining whether the implementation of a power-sharing regime is a workable alternative to the constitutional status quo. The main argument is that elements of federal and consociational thinking are considered necessary to guide and support relations between Spain and Catalonia as well as within Catalonia itself, but these have yet to gain much traction among Spanish and Catalan political elites.

2   The Consensual Transition The historical evolution of Spain’s territorial model has oscillated between periods of centralization and decentralization. The current system of decentralization is arguably rooted in the Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939) which sought to recognize the state’s ethnoterritorial

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distinctiveness through the sanctioning of Statutes of Autonomy for Catalonia, the Basque Country and Galicia (Payne 1993). Such institutional recognition, however, was short lived. The advent of Civil War in 1936, the victory of General Francisco Franco in 1939 and a subsequent 39-year dictatorship precipitated a prolonged period of cultural and political repression, specifically targeting regional political institutions, laws, languages and symbols in the Basque Country and Catalonia (Conversi 1997). The Franco dictatorship witnessed the re-imposition of centralist control from Madrid underwritten by a fierce defense and promotion of Spanish nationalism. The democratic transition that followed the death of Franco in 1975 sought explicitly to garner the support of Basque and Catalan nationalists through the promotion of a more accommodating stance toward claims for self-government. Unsurprisingly, the transition was fraught with complications, not least the delicate act of balancing the appetite of pro-­ decentralization forces with the autonomy-cautious military and representatives of the Franco regime. Given that discussions in the transition were concerned with power-distribution as opposed to power-­sharing, no concrete power-sharing model emerged during or after the transition. The peaceful transition, however, had an indisputable consociational tinge, framed and influenced by a consensual and cooperative approach to negotiations (Huneeus 1985; Capo Giol et al. 1990). The Spanish transition has been variably hailed as a “pacted transition” (Linz and Stepan 1996: 87), “an elite settlement” (Gunther 1992: 38) and “transition by agreement” (Colomer 1991), given that it was characterized by a politics of consensus that sought to foster an inclusive decision-­ making process with all major political actors. A conscious decision by most political actors, albeit spearheaded by Adolfo Suárez after his appointment as Prime Minister (PM) in 1976, collaboration and cooperation to facilitate democracy were prized over inter-party competition and confrontation. For most political actors, particularly the pro-democracy opposition, negotiations in the spirit of compromise were a necessary task to eschew any return to conflict and dictatorship. The establishment of a parliamentary democracy took precedence over partisan competition. PM Suárez’ Union of the Democratic Centre (UCD) party was instrumental in this process, not least given its internal consociational make-up (Huneeus 1981). The UCD itself was a coalition of numerous smaller parties but equally translated its intra-party consensual approach to state-­ wide politics in the early stages of the transition, including Suárez’

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enthusiasm for engaging with all political actors, particularly regional representatives from the Basque Country and Catalonia and reform-­oriented members of the Franco regime. As Hopkin (2005: 14) attests, Suárez “generally favored a more consensual style of democracy based on continuous negotiation as an antidote to the disastrous consequences of a confrontational style of politics in the 1930s.” Following the enactment of the 1976 Law of Political Reform, democratic elections were organized for the following year. UCD emerged as the largest party, albeit 11 seats short of an absolute majority. Having been charged by the electorate to lead the transition, including the drafting of a new constitution, the new UCD administration’s approach sought to avoid excessive political fragmentation or polarization and instead build broad-based consensus, both inside and outside parliament. As a minority government, UCD relied on the support of other parties to successfully deliver the transition and took a distinctly consociational approach to parliamentary politics. The government rejected the notion of a grand coalition (Clark 1985: 86), but several non-UCD ministers were appointed to the cabinet in an attempt to foster consensus for constitutional negotiations (Rodríguez-Teruel 2011), while parliamentary votes were often approved with “supermajorities integrating virtually all parliamentary groups” (Hopkin 2005: 9). The Suárez government did not conform to any textbook definition of a consociational regime, but there was a clear consociational influence in how the government perceived and advanced its model of transition. The consensual approach to the transition was also instrumental in the development of positions vis-à-vis Spain’s territorial model. The dismantling of the Franco regime went hand in hand with discussions with Spain’s regions—namely the Basque Country and Catalonia—on a commitment to decentralize power, fulfilling some of the claims of the historic territories while further developing the democratization process. As a result, pre-­ autonomy decrees were issued for the Basque Country and Catalonia in 1977, re-establishing the regional governments that had been abolished and exiled by the Franco victory at the end of the Civil War. In the case of Catalonia, President-in-exile Josep Taradellas returned to head the re-­ established Catalan government in a move that was widely interpreted as a necessary compromise to gain the trust of the Catalan political elites and society in the transition process, as well as hugely symbolic in terms of recognition of Catalonia as a historic entity and the Spanish elites’ commitment to decentralization (Magone 2008: 235). Notwithstanding negotiations on the territorial model, both Basque and Catalan elites,

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influenced by the experiences of the Franco dictatorship, sought to secure significant regional autonomy in the shape of executive and legislative power as opposed to the establishment of consensual decision-making institutions with the central state (Clark 1985). There was little appetite for institutionalizing a long-term consensual approach; the priority was to achieve regional autonomy. The climate of consensus around the territorial model was also translated into the wider constitution-drafting process, which included a broadly representative committee and sub-committee. What resulted regarding the territorial model, however, was an ambiguous solution that exemplified the competing interpretations of the Spanish state but one that rejected the overweening centralist approach of the Franco regime and supported the institutionalization of self-government for Spain’s sub-­ state entities. In only a short space of time, the decentralized model became a territorial structure with wide support throughout Spain and aided the recognition of the constitution as a product of consensus not imposition (Viver 2012: 220). The success of consensus politics would prove to be a short-term feature in the evolution of Spanish democracy.

3   The Evolution of the Territorial Model On 23 February 1981, Colonel Antonio Tejero in an attempt to derail democracy, and specifically the ongoing decentralization process, sought to overthrow the Spanish government in a coup d’état. Although failed, the attempted putsch precipitated serious discussion on the evolution of the Spanish territorial model, evidenced in the Autonomic Pact and Organic Law for the Harmonization of the Autonomic Process (LOAPA) in August 1982. Introduced under the UCD government, headed by Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo following Suárez’ resignation at the beginning of 1981, and supported by the PSOE, LOAPA sought to impede the devolution of further powers to Spain’s ACs through a symmetrization process that would ultimately bring all ACs in line with the more extensive autonomy provisions granted to ACs like Andalucía, Catalonia and the Basque Country (Agranoff and Gallarín 1997: 12–14). For those ACs that had strived for special recognition during the constitution-drafting process, the turn toward competence standardization was interpreted as the re-­ imposition of centralist control from Madrid, which undermined the constitutional pact achieved in the late 1970s, specifically the implicit recognition of the ‘historic nationalities’ in the Constitution. Challenged

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by Catalonia and the Basque Country in the Constitutional Court, several of LOAPA’s articles were struck down, but the landmark ruling upheld the prerogative of the central government to use ‘Basic Laws’ to encroach upon devolved competences to promote and protect ‘the national interest’ of the Spanish state (Muñoz-Machado 1983). The unexpected victory of the PSOE in the 1982 general election opened up a new phase in Spanish politics generally and for the development of the territorial model specifically. Having secured an overall majority, the PSOE’s election to office not only signaled an end to the consensual approach that had characterized the transition (at least until 1981), but it also initiated a decade-long strategy that, in the spirit of LOAPA, sought to temper enthusiasm for further territorial decentralization and symmetrize the devolution of competences among all ACs (Verge 2013: 323–324). To do so, the PSOE consistently invoked its responsibility to protect ‘the national interest’ to pass Basic Laws to set state-wide standards in ambits such as education, health care and tourism (Máiz et  al. 2010). Moreover, in 1992, just over a decade since the first Autonomic Pact between the PSOE and UCD, the PSOE and Popular Party (PP) signed the second Autonomic Pact designed to further harmonize the territorial model through rolling out the same competences to all 17 ACs. As was the case with LOAPA, the Autonomic Pact was perceived by the historic nationalities as an attempt to counter their claims to ethnonational distinctiveness. The state-wide parties’ ambivalence toward further devolution and penchant for symmetrization, however, was kept in check following the 1993 and 1996 general elections in which both the PSOE and PP relied on the support of Basque and Catalan political parties to stay in power. At various points between 1993 and 2011, sub-state nationalist parties in Catalonia and the Basque Country have played crucial roles in the formation of government in Madrid (Field 2016).2 While not part of formal coalitions, the electoral success of parties such as the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and Catalan Convergence and Union (CiU) (dissolved in 2015) afforded the parties significant leverage to extract concessions on 2  Field (2016: 49–55) notes that contextual factors, party goals and political institutions have all influenced the preference for minority government over coalition government in Spain. Often, the largest party following an election “did not fall far short of an absolute majority” (Field 2016: 51), hence a reduced incentive for smaller parties to join a coalition, or for the larger party to seek a coalition partner.

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matters of autonomy in return for supporting the minority governments in Parliament. This ‘mutual back scratching’ (Field 2014) wrought extensive powers for Catalonia, including, inter alia, increased fiscal powers and revenue, control of the regional police force and reform to the finances of the regional health service (Heller 2002: 672). In periods of majority government, however, the Basque and Catalan parties have had little to no leverage in securing further autonomy. In fact, as was the case under the majority governments of the PP (2000–2004; 2011–2015), discussions on territorial reform were replaced with “a renewed form of Spanish nationalism” and “a centralizing agenda realigning the party’s territorial policy with its traditional centralist and nationalist ideology” (Verge 2013: 330). Akin to the PSOE, the PP continued to introduce Basic Laws which encroached upon devolved competences, including the highly controversial 2013 Spanish Educational Law (Organic Law for the Improvement of Educational Quality—LOMCE), which sought to increase central government control over regional educational systems, including the language of instruction and curriculum content. While cautious of further territorial reform in the 1980s, by the turn of the new millennium, and a result of the hostile agenda of the PP toward territorial politics, the PSOE, under the leadership of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, became much more accommodationist and open to reforming and even enhancing the extant territorial model (Muro 2009). The lynchpin of this strategy was the opportunity for ACs to revise and modernize their Statutes of Autonomy, most notably Catalonia. Under Zapatero, the PSOE was elected to government in 2004 and 2008, albeit without an absolute majority. In 2004, a confidence and supply arrangement was reached between the minority PSOE, the leftist coalition United Left (IU) and the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC). In the case of the latter, ERC supported the PSOE in crucial votes such as budgets in 2005 and 2006 in return for reform of the Catalan statute. Statute reform, however, proved to be a hostile process and, rather than settling long-standing demands over autonomy provisions, precipitated wider dialogue on Catalonia’s place within Spain. This topic continues to dominate such discussions more than a decade later. The reformed Catalan statute sought to achieve a number of things, including clarification and protection of competences, increased executive, legislative and fiscal powers and recognition of Catalan nationhood (Keating and Wilson 2009). The PSOE, however, in spite of Zapatero’s pre-election promise to accept the reformed provisions of the statute and

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ensure a smooth process of ratification, subjected the draft to a number of modifications; amendments were applied to 144 of the 227 articles (Colino 2009: 273). As per the process of statute reform, the amended statute was subject to votes in both houses of the Spanish Parliament (having already passed in the Catalan legislature) and a subsequent referendum in Catalonia. On the basis of the perceived butchering of the statute, the ERC abstained from voting for the revised amendments in the Spanish parliaments, campaigned against the statute in the Catalan referendum and withdrew from coalition government in Catalonia. A majority of the Catalan electorate voted in favor of the statute in the referendum, but support was not resounding. Legal challenges against the statute were mounted by numerous political actors, including the PP, Spanish Ombudsman and five other ACs. The resultant ruling from the Constitutional Court in 2010 found 14 of the referred articles ‘unconstitutional’ and narrowed the interpretation of a further 27. Claims of a centralist bias dogged the Court’s judgment, which was broadly interpreted in Catalonia as “restrictive and manipulative and even as a step back in the process of territorial decentralization” (Rico 2012: 221). The judgment spurred civil society mobilization in defense of the Catalan statute and precipitated vociferous questioning of the ability and willingness of the Spanish state to accommodate Catalan demands for better recognition and protection within the Spanish territorial framework (Requejo and Sanjaume 2013: 15–17). In only a few decades, the Spanish territorial model brokered by Spain’s main political actors in the late 1970s has come under increasing strain. The open-ended nature of the territorial model provided no definitive path for the evolution of Spain’s decentralization project and paradoxically is criticized “for being both too centralized and too decentralized and simultaneously excessively rigid and overly flexible and fluid” (Colino and Hombrado 2015: 171). Despite some federal features (Moreno 2001), the state of autonomies falls short of a fully-fledged federation (Requejo 2017), not least a plurinational federation with explicit recognition of the state’s internal national plurality. Indeed, the only time ‘federation’ is mentioned in the Spanish Constitution is Article 145, which prohibits the establishment of a federation of the ACs. Since the transition to democracy, Spain has come a long way from Franco’s centralist authoritarianism, but the consensual compromise secured in the early phases of democratization has transmuted into a model anchored in majoritarian principles. While this has been much to the chagrin of nationalist parties in the Basque

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Country and Catalonia, their focus on building out (i.e. regional autonomy) as opposed to building in (creating shared rule institutions at the center) contributed to the majoritarian turn. For Mueller (2019: 154), “majoritarianism has impeded broad-coalition building at all levels and fostered a climate hostile to compromise.” The imposition of majoritarian principles, including a monistic interpretation of sovereignty and commitment to political uniformity, runs into difficulties in plurinational contexts (see Anderson 2018; Gagnon 2014), as evidenced in the constitutional clash between the Catalan and Spanish governments.

4   The Catalan Crisis The debacle over statute reform signaled a turn in the relationship between Catalan and Spanish relations. On the one hand, the forceful assertion of one-nation Spain in the Constitutional Court’s 2010 judgment put an end to the ambiguity that had successfully facilitated multiple interpretations of the Constitution vis-à-vis the national question. This, on the other hand, precipitated a change in approach among pro-autonomy Catalan elites, evidenced in the gradual evolution of the Catalan nationalist movement (albeit not a homogenous group) toward a pro-independence agenda. From 2010, increasing frustration with the mononational, nationalist and unitary approach of the central government (specifically, the PP and PM Rajoy) translated into continuous questioning of the ability of the Spanish state to accommodate Catalonia in Spain and, for many, the conclusion that a referendum on independence would be the only viable option to allow Catalans to determine their constitutional future. The decision of the Court in 2010 as well as the perceived intransigence of the central government sparked a flurry of civil society movements. Pro-independence organizations such as Assemblea Nacional Catalana and Òmnium Cultural have generated significant momentum which has not only seen the mobilization of likeminded Catalan citizens, but has also equally impacted upon Catalan political elites (Anderson 2019). This is most evidenced in the transformation of CiU’s territorial policy from a moderate accommodationist stance to a pro-secession agenda (Elias and Mees 2017: 131). Having failed to achieve fiscal autonomy for Catalonia—a commitment in the 2010 election rejected by the Spanish government—CiU adopted a pro-independence lexicon and endorsed a referendum on Catalan independence.

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The referendum took place in November 2014, notwithstanding the opposition of the Spanish Government, Parliament and Constitutional Court. Rebranded as a citizen participation process, an overwhelming majority of Catalans supported independence, but low turnout meant this was nothing short of a symbolic victory; there was no official mandate for Catalonia to secede from Spain. In 2015, however, plebiscitary elections were called and framed as a de facto vote on independence (Martí and Cetrà 2016). Pro-independence parties secured a majority of seats in the Catalan Parliament and joined forces to pass a resolution in the Catalan Parliament to initiate a route map to independent statehood, including legislation for a binding referendum on independence. On 1 October 2017, amid a massive and harsh police operation to prevent the referendum from going ahead, about 43% of voters participated in the referendum. From this number, over 90% voted in favor of the question: “Do you want Catalonia to become an independent country in the form of a republic?” Given the concerted state resistance to the vote and the boycott by anti-independence voters, the referendum resulted in only a “contentious … mandate for independence” (Cetrà et  al. 2018: 129). Despite initially suspending the declaration of independence on October 10  in return for negotiations with the central government, President Puigdemont redeclared Catalan independence on 27 October. At the same time, the Spanish Senate voted in favor of activating Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution, dismissing the Catalan government and putting Catalonia under direct rule.3 New elections took place in December 2017. The anti-independence Citizens party won the most seats, but, as has been the case since 2012, pro-independence parties once again secured a majority of parliamentarians. After several failed attempts, in May 2018 Quim Torra was sworn in as President of the Generalitat, head of a coalition government of pro-independence politicians. Despite the rhetoric of the PSOE in supporting dialogue between the Catalan and Spanish governments, the elevation of the PSOE to government in June 2018 did not herald much change in approach. This was compounded by the almost permanent period of election campaigning owing to the inability of the PSOE to form a majority government or 3  In response to this, President Puigdemont fled to Brussels to escape arrest. Some proindependence representatives fled to other European countries, while others, including VicePresident Oriol Junqueras, were arrested and remanded in custody on charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds.

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secure support for the investiture of party leader Pedro Sánchez. Akin to Catalan politics, politics in the rest of Spain has become increasingly polarized. For parties on the right of the ideological spectrum—Citizens, PP and Vox—outbidding on the Catalan issue has provided electoral mileage in strengthening their image as vanguards of the Constitution (Anderson 2020). The emergence of the far-right Vox is symptomatic of this increasing polarization, which in the 2019 elections advocated not only the re-­ suspension of Catalan autonomy but also the prohibition of pro-secession parties and organizations (Ferreira 2019: 86). For the new PSOE and United We Can coalition government, de-escalation and dialogue are promoted as priorities regarding Catalonia, but no light is yet visible at the end of the tunnel. In Catalonia, politics remains divided along the constitutional-­ independence axis, but even within the independence movement there is no common independence front. ERC, the long-standing supporter of independence, has increasingly championed dialogue and accommodation including negotiations with the central government, while other pro-­ independence parties—Together for Catalonia (JxCat) and Popular Unity Candidature (CUP)—see negotiations as an unachievable and unnecessary goal. This is further compounded by the lengthy sentencing of proindependence representatives to between nine and 13 years in prison for their role in organizing the 2017 referendum. Despite widespread condemnation from all pro-independence parties, there is no clear common approach in the pro-independence camp on the movement’s next steps.4 In light of this, the next sections of this chapter consider whether a workable alternative to the status quo in the shape of a power-sharing arrangement is possible.

5   Consociational Compromise at the Center To transcend the protracted stalemate between the Catalan and Spanish governments, some form of institutional innovation is crucial, albeit support for the institutionalization of a fully-fledged power-sharing arrangement in Madrid has yet to gain much traction. Appetite for such an arrangement is all but absent from the current discourse on territorial 4  At the time of writing (early 2020), Catalan President, Quim Torra, has vowed to call regional elections to break the deadlock between the pro-independence parties vis-à-vis an agreed independence strategy.

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reform as much in Spain as in Catalonia. As discussed supra, a consensual approach to politics, as was evident in the transition, is not alien to Spanish political life, but a mandatory power-sharing scheme that sought to prize relations with Catalonia—notwithstanding its status as a ‘historic nationality’—is outside the realms of feasible solutions to the constitutional impasse, even among the most radical of constitutional reformers.5 Indeed, this is a primary reason as to why a consociational model was not developed in the wake of the Spanish transition. Such an arrangement would have been considered unacceptable to other regional groups, such as Andalusians and Valencians (Lecours 2014: 60). For Catalan nationalists, a power-sharing arrangement, while it would increase Catalan influence at the center and fulfill some of the demands of independence supporters, would be seen as an integrationist approach to the Catalan issue, designed to contain rather than empower the nation’s self-determination aspirations. For power-sharing institutions to work effectively, much depends on political elites’ willingness to work together, a requisite that is currently absent in Spain and Catalonia. Some elements of consociational democracy, particularly the philosophy underpinning it, would go a long way in developing a more accommodationist approach to center-periphery relations and to temper the majoritarian thrust of Spanish democracy. For some Catalans, any institutional tinkering short of full independence may well be seen as too little, too late, but a workable alternative to the status quo, including constitutional renegotiation, reform and thus (for both sides) compromise, would go a long way in satisfying a significant proportion of Catalan voters.6 In the resolution of self-determination disputes, power-sharing and autonomy arrangements, while considered crucial, are often not enough to placate the demands of would-be secessionists and often require additional arrangements such as “inter-state or inter-regional and transborder institutions and … symbolic and functional recognition of other nationalities’ languages and identities in the constitution and public institutions” 5  Successive studies by the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas have recorded growing support for the devolution of fewer rather than more powers to ACs. 6  In a recent survey asking Catalans their preferred end result of the Catalan sovereignty process, 45.7% supported the devolution of more powers of self-government for Catalonia (33.9% supported independence) (ICPS 2019) and 71.9% of Catalans supported a revision of the 1978 Constitution to give more autonomy to the autonomous communities as an avenue to solve ongoing territorial tensions. In the rest of Spain, support for this option was markedly lower at 40.5% (CEO 2019).

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(McGarry and O’Leary 2010: 55). In the case of Spain, this requires some insightful thinking on the parts of Catalan and Spanish elites to move beyond the incumbent hierarchical model of territorial decentralization and develop a more coherent, accommodative and empowering territorial arrangement. This would include, inter alia, (constitutional) recognition of Catalan nationhood, competence shielding to prevent central government encroachment on sub-national jurisdictions, reform of extant fiscal arrangements and a more open, deliberative and consociational approach to politics, including parity of esteem in intergovernmental relations, such as an institutionalized mechanism for formal bilateral relations (Anderson 2018). The debate between federalism and consociationalism is well-­established in the academic literature (Elazar 1985; Lijphart 1985) and has been further developed by other scholars as it relates to plurinational polities (Gagnon 2010; Requejo 2013; Seymour and Gagnon 2012). Plurinational federations involve a division of sovereignty among sub-state and central governments, constitutional protection of competences and sub-state entities, constitutional and/or legal recognition and protection of different identities, and a consensual approach to decision-making at the center (Gagnon 2010: 1–3). Integral to the institutionalization of a plurinational federation is a commitment to asymmetrical autonomy arrangements, allowing the possibility for one or more of the self-governing units to enjoy more competences than others. In Spain, the evolution of a truly federal system has been impeded by successive Spanish governments, but the development of a plurinational federation would significantly alter the course of territorial politics, bolstering political stability and thus enhancing democracy, that is, a more accommodative, non-majoritarian style of democracy as befits a plurinational state. In plurinational polities, asymmetry is oft-considered crucial by scholars and practitioners as demonstrative proof of the state’s commitment to a politics of recognition, and thus its respect for the different peoples, languages, cultures and religions that exist within the state (Requejo 2015). In Spain, despite the asymmetrical evolution of the territorial model at the inception of the transition, successive central governments of both conservative and socialist political hues have sought to engineer the trajectory of the territorial model toward a more centralized and symmetrical territorial model. In this vein, an avenue out of the ongoing impasse between the Catalan and Spanish governments would include a commitment to and development of distinctive autonomy for Catalonia.

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This would involve the devolution of further powers for Catalonia, including changes to fiscal arrangements, as well as further statute reform. A further round of statute reform has already been offered by the PSOE, but unsurprisingly many Catalans are suspicious of such promises. The paucity of trust between both sides of the debate is an indisputable challenge to the resetting of relations but is also a primary motive behind a more consociational approach to politics. In the same vein as further devolution of powers, equal consideration to protecting the competences of sub-state entities from central government encroachment is also crucial. As discussed earlier, this has been a controversial component of the Spanish territorial model for decades, and the previous attempt by the Catalan government to create a typology of competence jurisdiction in the 2003 statute reform was rejected by the Constitutional Court. As Gagnon (2014: 16) attests, such protection is important to guarantee “that the national majority is prevented from unilaterally imposing its will on minority populations.” Important, therefore, is the regulated use of Basic Laws to temper the ability of central government from reasserting its authority in devolved competences under the guise of the national interest. Such an approach would bring Spain more in line with a plurinational federal tradition, and most importantly would demonstrate the willingness of state authorities and the national majority to accommodate and protect the state’s national minorities. What is more, the development of a veto power “regarding decisions made by state bodies that affect Catalonia” (Requejo et al. 2019: 48) would potentially serve to bolster Catalan confidence as a political entity within the confines of the Spanish state and thus potentially help rebuild trust between the Catalan and Spanish governments. Unlike other sub-national entities such as Quebec, calls in Catalonia for an absolute right of veto have been rather muted, albeit were mooted in the 1998 Declaration of Barcelona7 and already exist in the Spanish system with regard to the Basque economic model and its five-yearly quota laws concerning the Basque contribution

7  The Declaration of Barcelona was a joint declaration signed on 16 July 1998 by the main Catalan (CiU), Basque (PNV) and Galician (Galician Nationalist Bloc—BNG) parties. It complained that, after 20 years of democracy, Spain had yet to establish any official juridical or political recognition vis-à-vis the historical nationalities and called for a radical reform of the Spanish Constitution to recognize Spain as a multilingual, multicultural and multinational state.

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to the Spanish state.8 Calls for a minority veto power for Catalonia are likely to go unheeded by state elites, but the plurinational reality of the Spanish state and protracted territorial tensions between the Catalan and Spanish governments demonstrate that, irrespective of opinion that considers such mechanisms a step too far in accommodating sub-state diversity, they are proven tools (albeit with variable effects) to check the majoritarian tendencies of central governments while putting minority nations on a more equal and equitable footing (McEvoy 2013). In addition to providing enhanced self-government in line with federal and consociational thinking, energy should also be spent on the reform of state institutions, that is, providing mechanisms to bolster the power of Catalonia in informing, influencing and participating in the shared governance of the state. A number of forums have been developed in Spain to facilitate intergovernmental relations between the central government and ACs, such as Sectoral Conferences or the Conference of the Presidents (Colino and Parrado 2009; Requejo et al. 2019). To date, however, these have served as opportunities to exchange information rather than as mechanisms to ensure the influence of sub-state entities on central government decisions. An overhaul of intergovernmental machinery is urgently required to help rebuild trust in a spirit of shared self-interest between the Catalan and Spanish governments, including bilateral formulas. Similarly, this would require reform of the Spanish Senate to formally become—as the constitution proclaims—a ‘chamber of territorial representation.’ Hitherto, the Senate is organized along provincial as opposed to regional lines. Federalization of the Senate would likely boost the legitimacy of the chamber, particularly among ACs like Catalonia, as well as ensure an inclusive and better representative institution that operates in line with rather than separate to the sub-national units. The same principle ought to be applied to judicial bodies, namely the Constitutional Court. Unlike constitutional courts in other plurinational states—such as Belgium and Canada—there is no sub-national representation in the Spanish Constitutional Court, which remains a highly politicized body as a consequence of its nomination process (Casanas Adams 2017). In line with the consociational principle of proportionality, therefore, reform of the judiciary to include permanent Catalan representation and a role for ACs to 8  The negotiations involved in the renewal of the agreement necessitate mutual agreement between both the Basque and Spanish governments and in essence “gives both Spanish and Basque delegations equal veto power” (Gray 2016: 126).

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nominate constitutional justices would help bolster the perception of the court as an independent, impartial umpire as opposed to an extended organ of the central government. Shared rule, evidently, would be no panacea to the grievances of many Catalans, but the development of inclusive institutions at the center would arguably constrain central government dominance and thus keep in check the dominant hierarchical approach to territorial politics. Compared to current arrangements, this is antithetical to the traditional approach of Spanish elites, but necessary if state elites wish to foster loyalty to state institutions and eschew disintegration. Writing of majority groups in plurinational states, Burgess (2009: 179) posited, “[t]hey must consciously, deliberately and purposely organize relations in the state to facilitate autonomy and self-determination for minority nations and nationalities.” In Spain, autonomy has been developed but, in contradistinction to a consociational or plurinational federalist approach, has been undergirded by a unitary and at times neo-unitary philosophy rather than “a mindset that is sensitive to rival conceptions, visions and understandings of the political community” (Burgess 2009: 179). In this vein, rethinking Catalonia-Spain relations is not just about tinkering with institutional apparatus but resetting the overarching approach to majority-minority relations. In the case of Catalonia-Spain, a more consensual and non-majoritarian approach may not ultimately solve any intractable constitutional conundrum, but an open-ended dialogue, underpinned by consociational values such as compromise, respect and trust—to name just a few—is an indisputable requisite to engendering constructive engagement between central government and sub-state entities, including discussion on controversial topics such as a referendum on independence. As Keil and Anderson (2018: 96) note, “most multinational states live in the shadow of secession,” thus such states must be prepared to manage secessionist claims within a democratic framework, engaging rather than eschewing difficult dialogue. In the case of Spain, continued failure to do so is likely to hasten rather than impede the breakup of the state. Notwithstanding the reforms discussed above, there is very little prospect of serious change in the central state’s approach to politics, both at the center and the periphery. The weaponization of the Catalan constitutional crisis by parties such as Citizens, PP and Vox renders the opportunity for reform a difficult process and impedes any concessions to or

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compromise with pro-independence representatives. The institutionalization of a consociational power-sharing regime may well seem an impossible task in Spain, but the development of a more plurinationally sensitive political culture, in the spirit of compromise and negotiation, is far from a utopian ideal and a necessary requisite if Spanish elites wish to keep the state together.

6   Consociational Compromise at the Periphery Given the reticence of the central state to embark on a consociational exercise, an alternative way to look at the development of a power-sharing approach to the Catalonia-Spain debacle would be to institutionalize a regional power-sharing arrangement in Catalonia as opposed to power-­ sharing for the entire state. Such a power-sharing approach would be most suitably organized along the parameters of liberal consociationalism whereby the power-sharing arrangement is organized around “whatever salient political identities emerge in democratic elections, whether these are based on ethnic or religious groups or on subgroup or transgroup identities” (McGarry and O’Leary 2007: 675). Much like in Spain overall, debate on a power-sharing regime in Catalonia organized along ethnonational lines is all but absent. Support for such an arrangement would likely be tempered by the fact that most Catalans endorse a dual identity (both Catalan and Spanish), and thus any power-sharing agreement organized along ethnonational lines would run into issues, not least because “these ethnic groups are neither homogenous nor exclusive” (Barrio and Rodríguez-Teruel 2017: 1781). In a similar vein, power-­sharing may also increase and exacerbate existing ethnic polarization in Catalonia, fueling rather than dampening disagreements and freezing as opposed to thawing relations between different groups. As pointed out by McGarry and O’Leary (2010: 55), however, liberal (as opposed to corporate) consociational arrangements are designed to accommodate the parties that win elections rather than any predetermined demographic quota of national collectivity and thus are much more suited for polities divided by selfdetermination disputes. Complete dismissal of a consociational approach to politics in Catalonia is therefore unwarranted. As is the case in a state-wide consociational system, regional consociational regimes also play a key role in terms of conflict resolution, providing institutional structures and guidelines for a more cooperative and consensual approach to politics (Wolff 2004). As in Spain as a whole, a formal

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consociational regime is unlikely to flourish in Catalonia any time soon, but a more consensual and deliberative democratic  approach to doing politics may be a useful mechanism to bolster and rebuild trust between different groups at both elite and societal levels (O’Flynn 2006). This has been the case in other divided places such as South Tyrol, a classic case of regional consociationalism organized along linguistic lines (see Alber, this volume). The territory’s recent experience with an autonomy convention to revise its regional statute may provide some important lessons for Catalonia, particularly in the context of further statute reform and notwithstanding the absence of formal moves toward a mandatory power-­ sharing regime. South Tyrol’s autonomy convention took a participatory approach to dialogue on statute reform, including open meetings with members of the public, follow-up workshops with civil society organizations and a citizens’ assembly (Larin and Röggla 2019). The latter, for instance, facilitated dialogue between the different linguistic groups in the territory, including on controversial issues such as secession, and, in all but one of the eight working groups within the citizens’ assembly, decisions were informed by a consensus approach (Alber et al. 2018: 215). In the event of a further reform of the Catalan Statute of Autonomy, a more participatory model styled on the deliberative South Tyrolean approach would not only help to facilitate relations among the different groups in Catalonia, but would also reinforce some of the important principles undergirding a power-sharing approach, specifically mutual trust, cooperation and consensus decision-making. Trust and (forced) cooperation have been and still are key to the success of South Tyrol’s autonomy that developed as it did because of the institutionalization of various deliberative bodies (Alber 2017). As is the case with the institutionalization of a fully-fledged power-sharing regime in Spain, while reform of institutional structures along power-sharing lines may take some time to develop, an informal approach to power-sharing could be developed, not least in the approach elites take to practicing politics. As discussed above, there is no guarantee that further ethnic and/or ideological polarization would not ensue as a result of a mandatory power-­ sharing scheme. At the same time, however, a more consensual and deliberative model of politics, which would reinforce a sense of equality between the antagonistic population segments in Catalonia, would help facilitate cooperation between these groups. An overhaul to how politics is practiced in Catalonia may move many politicians beyond their ideological

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comfort zones, but some degree of innovation is necessary to transcend the protracted stalemate that has characterized inter-party relations for over a decade.

7   Conclusion The constitutional clash between the Catalan and Spanish governments is rooted in competing visions of the state. While these competing visions are not new, and as discussed supra framed the debate on the drafting of the constitution in the late 1970s, the radicalization of the Catalan nationalist agenda vis-à-vis autonomy and secession illustrates the widening gap between the role Catalonia currently plays and the role it wants to play. As discussed by Gagnon (2014), this is not unique to Catalonia, but the territorial crisis underlines the need for some sort of institutional innovation to resolve the deadlock that has characterized Catalan-Spanish relations for the last decade. This is no mean feat and, while it will require elites in Barcelona and Madrid to move beyond their political comfort zones, failure to do so may further damage the peaceful co-existence of Catalan society and hasten the disintegration of the Spanish state in less happy ways. It is not the argument of this chapter that a mandatory power-sharing system either in Madrid or in Barcelona would solve the protracted stalemate between the Catalan and Spanish governments as well as pro- and anti-independence elites in Catalonia itself. This, however, does not mean that neither Catalan nor Spanish elites have nothing to learn from the consociational approach. The philosophy undergirding consociationalism, particularly the commitments to protect and promote diversity, safeguard minorities and foster a consensual approach to political decision-making, would clearly go a long way in rebuilding trust between the Catalan and Spanish governments and thus restoring some constitutional stability in the political system. The evolution of Spanish politics from a consensual to a strongly majoritarian democracy has entailed significant implications for the plurinational Spanish state. Hence, some form of consensual decision-­ making, combined with a plurinationally sensitive political culture, informed by what Burgess (2012: 22) termed ‘federal values and principles’ is of crucial importance, particularly if the long-term goal of the state is to keep its internationally recognized borders intact. The development of a plurinational federal model in Spain with a commitment to institutional asymmetry and constitutional and juridical recognition would indisputably relieve some of the tensions in the extant territorial model, albeit

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reform short of an official referendum on Catalan independence seems unlikely to fully placate pro-independence supporters. The celebration of a referendum risks an affirmative vote for secession, but attempting to kick the issue into the long grass or, as has been the dominant approach in Spain, invoke the constitution as a legal bulwark to dialogue on the issue could continue to potentially embolden rather than arrest support for independent statehood. Spain’s first coalition government following the 2019 election represents a break in four years of political deadlock, but increasing polarization in the Spanish state and continuing tensions in Catalonia demonstrate the urgent need for some imaginative thinking to rebuild the bonds of the negotiated constitutional pact that succeeded in reconciling diametrically opposing views in the late 1970s. The recent resurgence of Spanish nationalism, personified in parties such as Citizens and Vox, illuminates the view that a fiercely uni-national and unitary approach to Spanish politics is as much a risk to the state’s territorial integrity as is a pro-independent Catalan government. As was the case in the early stages of the transition, a negotiated solution in the spirit of open dialogue and compromise is crucial to attempt to alleviate the engrained inimicality that has come to characterize Catalan-Spanish relations. After all, the future integrity of Spanish and Catalan democracy is at stake.

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Keil, S., & Anderson, P. (2018). Decentralization as a Tool for Conflict Resolution. In K.  Detterbeck & E.  Hepburn (Eds.), Handbook of Territorial Politics (pp. 89–106). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Larin, S., & Röggla, M. (2019). Participatory Consociationalism? No, but South Tyrol’s Autonomy Convention is Evidence that Power-Sharing can Transform Conflicts. Nations and Nationalism, 25(3), 1018–1041. Lecours, A. (2014). The Management of Nationalism in Canada and Spain. In L. Turgeon, M. Papillon, J. Wallner, & S. White (Eds.), Comparing Canada: Methods and Perspectives on Canadian Politics (pp.  50–72). Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Lijphart, A. (1985). Non-Majoritarian Democracy: A Comparison of Federal and Consociational Theories. Publius, 15(2), 3–15. Linz, J., & Stepan, A. (1996). Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation. Southern Europe, South America and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Magone, J.  M. (2008). Contemporary Spanish Politics (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. Máiz, R., Caamaño, F., & Azpitarte, M. (2010). The Hidden Counterpoint of Spanish Federalism: Recentralization and Resymmetrization in Spain (1978–2008). Regional and Federal Studies, 20(1), 63–82. Martí, D., & Cetrà, D. (2016). The 2015 Catalan Election: A de facto Referendum on Independence? Regional and Federal Studies, 26(1), 107–119. McEvoy, J. (2013). We Forbid! The Mutual Veto and Power-Sharing Democracy. In B.  O’Leary & J.  McEvoy (Eds.), Power-Sharing in Deeply Divided Places (pp. 253–277). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. McGarry, J. (2019). Classic Consociational Theory and Recent Consociational Performance. Swiss Political Science Review, 25(4), 538–555. McGarry, J., & O’Leary, B. (2007). Iraq’s Constitution of 2005: Liberal Consociation as Political Prescription. International Journal of Constitutional Law, 5(4), 670–698. McGarry, J., & O’Leary, B. (2009). Must Pluri-national Federations Fail? Ethnopolitics, 8(1), 2–25. McGarry, J., & O’Leary, B. (2010). Consociation and Self-determination Disputes: The Evidence from Northern Ireland and Other Recent Cases. In K. Breen & S. O’Neill (Eds.), After the Nations? Critical Reflections on Nationalism and Postnationalism (pp. 38–59). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Moreno, L. (2001). The Federalization of Spain. London: Frank Cass. Mueller, S. (2019). Catalonia: The Perils of Majoritarianism. Journal of Democracy, 30(2), 142–156. Muñoz-Machado, S. (1983). La interpretación de la constitución, la armonización legislativa y otras cuestiones (La sentencia del Tribunal Constitucional de 5 de Agosto de 1983: asunto LOAPA). Revista Española de Derecho Constitucional, 9, 117–114.

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Muro, D. (2009). Territorial Accommodation, Party Politics and Statute Reform in Spain. South European Society and Politics, 14(4), 453–468. O’Flynn, I. (2006). Deliberative Democracy and Divided Societies. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. O’Leary, B. (2008). The Logics of Power-sharing, Consociation and Pluralist Federations. In M.  Weller & B.  Metzger (Eds.), Complex Power-sharing in Theory and Practice (pp. 47–58). Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Payne, S.  G. (1993). Spain’s First Democracy: The Second Republic, 1931–1936. London: University of Wisconsin Press. Requejo, F. (2013). Plurinational Federalism and Political Theory. In J. Loughlin, K.  Kincaid, & W.  Swenden (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Regionalism and Federalism (pp. 34–44). London: Routledge. Requejo, F. (2015). National Pluralism, Recognition, Federalism and Secession (or Hegel Was a Clever Guy). In A. G. Gagnon, S. Keil, & S. Mueller (Eds.), Understanding Federalism and Federation (pp. 157–177). Farnham: Ashgate. Requejo, F. (2017). Is Spain a Federal Country? 50 Shades of Federalism. Retrieved from http://50shadesoffederalism.com/case-­studies/spain-­federal-­country/. Requejo, F., & Sanjaume, M. (2013). Recognition and Political Accommodation: From Regionalism to Secessionism: The Catalan Case. GRTP Working Paper, no 13. Retrieved from https://repositori.upf.edu/handle/10230/20628. Requejo, F., Grau, M., Martín, G., Mora, H., & Sanjaume, M. (2019). Self-­ government and Intergovernmental Relations in Contemporary Democracies: The Case of Catalonia. Barcelona: Institute of Self-Government Studies. Rico, G. (2012). The 2010 Regional Election in Catalonia: A Multilevel Account in an Age of Economic Crisis. South European Society and Politics, 17(2), 217–238. Rodríguez-Teruel, J. (2011). Los ministros de la España democrática: Reclutamiento político y carrera ministerial de Suárez a Zapatero (1976–2011). Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales. Seymour, M., & Gagnon, A. G. (2012). Multinational Federalism: Prospects and Problems. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Verge, T. (2013). Party Strategies on Territorial Reform: State-wide Parties and the State of Autonomies in Spain. West European Politics, 36(2), 317–337. Viver, C. (2012). Spain’s Constitution and Statutes of Autonomy: Explaining the Evolution of Political Decentralization. In M.  Burgess & G.  A. Tarr (Eds.), Constitutional Dynamics in Federal Systems: Sub-national Perspectives (pp. 218–236). Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Wolff, S. (2004). The Institutional Structure of Regional Consociations in Brussels, Northern Ireland, and South Tyrol. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 10(3), 387–414.

CHAPTER 10

Why Has Cyprus Been a Consociational Cemetery? John McGarry

Turkish Cypriot-controlled area

Area controlled by Cyprus government (Greek Cypriot area) UN Buffer Zone UK Sovereign Bases

Map 10.1  Cyprus. Source: https://d-­maps.com/carte.php?num_car=2160 &lang=en

© The Author(s) 2021 S. Keil, A. McCulloch (eds.), Power-Sharing in Europe, Federalism and Internal Conflicts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53590-2_10

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1   Introduction Cyprus has been labeled a “diplomat’s graveyard” (Lindahl 2019). It might also be described as a consociational cemetery. Between August 1960 and December 1963, Cyprus was the site of one of the clearest and best known examples of consociational failure, an experiment that faltered from the outset before ultimately collapsing amidst intercommunal violence. Since then, the island has witnessed numerous attempts to re-­ establish power-sharing, but these have delivered little more than the diplomatic “interment” of 25 UN envoys and counting (Hadjigregoriou 2014).1 How can we explain the failure of Cypriots to make their original consociation work or to negotiate a new one? Writing in 1977, Arend Lijphart, the founder of consociational theory, argued that the reason for Cyprus’s original consociational failure was a demographic imbalance. Consociations, he pointed out, were facilitated by a “multiple balance of power” in which there were at least three groups, none of which enjoyed majority status. The “crucially unfavourable” factor in Cyprus was that there was a “dual imbalance of power,” that is, only two groups, with one of them, the Greek Cypriots, in a majority of 80 percent (Lijphart 1977: 160). In such circumstances, Lijphart noted that the majority may attempt to dominate rather than to cooperate with the rival minority (Lijphart 1977: 55). Lijphart’s account suggested that the demographic imbalance had not just wrecked the original experiment in 1960–63 but also rendered Cyprus infertile soil for consociationalism going forward. The argument that majorities are unlikely to accept consociational power-sharing echoes, ironically, the position of Lijphart’s arch critic, Donald Horowitz, who has claimed that the combination of ubiquitous majorities and their unwillingness to share power makes consociationalism futile (Horowitz 2014: 8). This chapter is focused on this question of how majorities relate to consociationalism and specifically on Greek Cypriot positions and views 1  Writing in 2014, Hadjigregoriou counts 8 Secretary-Generals and 25 envoys. Another Secretary-General and two more envoys can now be added.

J. McGarry (*) Department of Political Studies, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected]

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on consociational power-sharing.2 While Lijphart’s explanation for consociational failure in Cyprus is important, it misses significant nuances of Greek Cypriot politics, of practical and comparative relevance. Implicit in the explanation are two assumptions that may be questioned. The first is that the failure of Cyprus’s government during 1960–63 and of subsequent attempts to restore power-sharing have resulted exclusively from Greek Cypriots’ rejection of a consociation. Such disputes over power-­ sharing were salient in the four Western European cases that informed classical consociational theory (i.e., Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland). The Cyprus question, however, has always had multiple dimensions, involving not just disagreements over power-sharing but disputes over self-determination and security and, since 1974, over the return of refugees, property and territory. These multiple disputes, moreover, are not simply discrete but impact each other. This complexity raises alternative, or at least additional, explanations for instability in the 1960–63 period and for the subsequent failure of Greek Cypriots to agree to a consociation. There is evidence from 1960–63 that Greek Cypriots rejected power-sharing with Turkish Cypriots not just because the latter were a minority but also because they resisted enosis with Greece, were prepared to consider partition (taksim) and were allies of Turkey, seen by Greek Cypriots as an existential threat. Since 1974, making a consociation in Cyprus has required a comprehensive settlement that achieves an acceptable package across the different dimensions of the Cyprus problem. There is evidence from settlement negotiations that Greek Cypriots are prepared to accept a consociation, notwithstanding their misgivings, as long as the overall settlement addresses their concerns over self-determination and security (particularly the latter) and as long as the settlement compensates them regarding refugees, property and territory.3 In short, the argument that a disagreement over a consociation can explain the collapse of Cyprus’s constitutional arrangements in 1963, or its current impasse, belies a more complex reality.4  For a different, although related, approach to this question, see McGarry (2017).  The chapter is concerned with how “majorities” relate to consociationalism in the context of multidimensional disputes. Consequently, it is focused on Greek Cypriot positions and views on consociational power-sharing. The Turkish Cypriots have their own legitimate views, but that is a subject for another time. 4  To argue that the Cyprus impasse is due to disagreements on consociationalism without examining Cyprus’s other disputes is like arguing that a patient died of a heart attack without an autopsy. For an example of such an argument, see Anderson and Choudry (2019: 421). 2 3

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The second implicit assumption in Lijphart’s argument is that the key factor that matters in a balance of power is demographic and, as a corollary, that the key relationship is that between the Greek Cypriot majority and the Turkish Cypriot minority.5 Since 1974, Greek Cypriots have been prepared to consider not just a consociation but also a bizonal federation within a suitable overall settlement. This has occurred not because their relative demographic weight has altered since 1963, but rather because of other forms of power that Turkish Cypriots, through their allies in Turkey, have brought to bear. These have resulted, inter alia, in the island’s de facto partition, the expulsion of around 160,000 Greek Cypriots from their homes and the expropriation of their property,6 as well as the stationing of a large number of Turkish troops in—and the introduction of unknown numbers of Turkish settlers to—the northern part of the island. Turkey’s power has established facts on the ground that have given it and the Turkish Cypriots negotiating cards that have offset the Greek Cypriots’ demographic advantage. In spite of this display of Turkish power, a c­ omprehensive deal that includes a consociation remains elusive. This stalemate is connected to other non-demographic economic and (geo)-political resources accumulated by the Greek Cypriots that so far have compelled them to see the status quo as preferable to any arrangements that Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots have been prepared to agree with.

2   The 1960–63 Consociation Lijphart is correct that the consistently unstable nature of Cyprus’s 1960–63 consociation and its collapse after only three years had much to do with the fact that Greek Cypriots were a large majority of over 80 percent who did not think they should have to share power with a Turkish minority of just 18 percent. Moreover, Cyprus’s “thoroughly” consociational institutions (Lijphart 1977: 158), along with the rest of the 1960 constitution, did not result from an act of Greek Cypriot will. Rather, they were imposed by Turkey and Greece which had negotiated a Cypriot constitution at the Zurich and London conferences of February 1959. The 5  Turkish Cypriots argue that they are a community and partners with Greek Cypriots in Cyprus rather than a “minority.” The use of minority here is not meant to challenge that claim, but merely to indicate that Turkish Cypriots are less than half of Cyprus’s population. 6  The 1974 partition also resulted in 40,000 Turkish Cypriots leaving, sometimes under pressure, the southern part of Cyprus, that is, the area under the control of the authorities of the Republic of Cyprus/Greek Cypriots.

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settlement more accurately reflected the power balance between Turkey and Greece than that between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. It was accepted by the Greek Cypriot leader Makarios under duress. It was alleged that British intelligence blackmailed him into acquiescence on the pain of exposing photographs of his private sexual life (James 2002: 20). Like the Irish pro-treaty faction in 1921, Makarios may also have believed that the choice was between the deal offered and continued rule from London, and like Ireland’s Michael Collins, he almost certainly did not see the offered terms as a final settlement.7 Greek Cypriots’ opposition to the 1960 consociation was exacerbated by the fact that it disproportionally represented Turkish Cypriots. The latter were allocated 30 percent of positions in the Council of Ministers and in the civil service—and that would have likely led to displacing Greek Cypriots. They were also given 40 percent of positions in the police and army (Kyriakides 1968: 77–79). The consociation was marked by two strong minority veto powers that suggested parity of decision-making between the two communities. The Greek Cypriot president or the Turkish Cypriot vice-president could veto decisions by the legislature or Council of Ministers affecting foreign affairs, defense or security (Constitution of the Republic of Cyprus, Arts. 50 and 57). This provision made the two officials effectively coequals in these domains. The only substantive difference between the two positions was that the president was able to nominate more ministers than the vice-president. In the legislature, tax measures, changes to the electoral law and the adoption of any law “relating to the municipalities” required the support of concurrent majorities of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot legislators (Constitution of the Republic of Cyprus, Art. 78 (2)). In the Greek Cypriots’ view, Turkish Cypriots rubbed salt in this wound by overusing their veto powers, a judgment seconded by Lijphart (Lijphart 1977: 160). The vice-presidential veto was used in October 1961 to prevent the establishment of a fully integrated army. Turkish Cypriot legislators used their veto in March and December of 1961 to block Greek Cypriot proposals on taxation, not because the proposals themselves were objectionable, but as leverage to press for more rapid implementation of affirmative action in the public service as well as the division of several 7  Collins famously declared during the post-treaty debate that it “gives us freedom, not the ultimate freedom that all nations desire…but the freedom to achieve it.” See https://www. oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/1921-12-19/2/.

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municipalities into Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot sections (Kyriakides 1968: 85, 87, 91). The last of these vetoes resulted in the legislature being unable to raise funds and led to its taxing power having to be delegated to separately elected Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communal chambers established by the 1960 constitution. Accordingly, the two most common adjectives that Greek Cypriots applied to the 1960–63 consociation and constitution were “dysfunctional” and “unworkable” (see Soulioti 2006: 119; Kranidiotis 1981). This background helps to explain why, in November 1963, the Cyprus president and Greek Cypriot leader, Archbishop Makarios, proposed “thirteen amendments,” several of which were aimed at radically modifying the existing consociation (Drousiotis 2008: 57; Kyriakides 1968: 105–106). The amendments proposed, inter alia, the abolition of the vice-­ president’s executive veto and the Turkish Cypriots’ legislative veto and that the public service, police and army be constituted on a strictly proportional basis. These proposals were rejected by Turkish Cypriots and Turkey. The resulting deadlock led to intercommunal violence and to the collapse of Cyprus’s consociation in December 1963. Turkish Cypriots then retreated into small noncontiguous enclaves scattered across the island. Six years of negotiations began in Beirut in 1968 but failed to produce agreement (Clerides 1990). Nonetheless, Cyprus’s consociation was not doomed purely by a disagreement over power-sharing. The island’s two communities were also mired between 1960 and 1963  in disputes over self-determination and security. Most Greek Cypriots preferred enosis (union) with Greece over independence for Cyprus.8 While this goal was prohibited under the 1960 constitution, that did not stop significant elements within the Greek Cypriot community from agitating for it. As an alternative to enosis, Greek Cypriots wanted a united (unitary) and independent Cyprus, fully independent of Turkey in particular. Greek Cypriots’ unwillingness to share power with Turkish Cypriots was exacerbated because many of the latter were not only steadfastly opposed to enosis but also supported—or were believed to support—taksim (partition), which was seen as implying secession of the Turkish Cypriot parts of Cyprus or, even worse, their union with Turkey. Regarding security, the Turkish Cypriots defended two treaties attached to the Cyprus constitution, which were opposed by Greek 8  In an informal referendum conducted by the Greek Orthodox Church in 1950, almost 96 percent of Greek Cypriots supported enosis (Anderson 2008).

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Cypriots. The Treaty of Guarantee gave Turkey, Greece and the United Kingdom a right of unilateral intervention in Cyprus to uphold the constitutional order. The Treaty of Alliance permitted Turkey and Greece to station 650 and 950 troops, respectively, in Cyprus on an indefinite basis. As Turkey was much stronger than Greece militarily and closer to Cyprus, both treaties were seen by Greek Cypriots as threatening their security. They were also seen as an affront to Cyprus’s sovereignty and the right of its people to self-determination and as at odds with principles of decolonization and the UN Charter. Greek Cypriots had the perspective of irredentist nationalists (who wished to unify with the motherland), a threatened regional minority and the island’s dominant majority. They saw their Turkish Cypriot “partners” in government as secessionists or Turkish irredentists and perceived them as fifth columnists of Ankara. Some saw the very text of the consociational constitution, with its emphasis on the accommodation of “two” communities, as “separatist” and as having originated in a British imperial desire to divide and conquer (Soulioti 2006: 118). The relationship between consociation and self-determination/security was best represented by the municipalities crisis, the “greatest source of trouble” in the 1960 constitution (Kyriakides 1968: 94; Drousiotis 2008: 21–56). Turkish Cypriots wanted, and the 1960 constitution provided for, the five largest Cypriot towns to be formally divided into separate Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot municipalities. Turkish Cypriots’ view of municipal self-­ government was more extensive than this term usually suggests, and many of them saw separation as important to their ability to resist enosis and to survive as an intergenerational ethnic community (Markides 1998: 178; see also Markides 2001). In contrast, many Greek Cypriots were convinced that separation was a step toward partition and even that self-­ governing Turkish Cypriot urban areas could be used as beachheads for a Turkish invasion. The refusal of Greek Cypriots to permit separate municipalities antagonized the Turkish Cypriots and lay directly behind their use of the legislative veto over taxation (Kyriakides 1968: 85–87). Greek Cypriots saw this as an abuse of the veto right, which on its face was supposed to protect the Turkish Cypriots regarding fiscal matters only (Soulioti 2006: 156). The legislative vetoes over taxation, and the vice-­ president’s veto of an integrated army, were seen by Greek Cypriots as deliberate attempts to make the consociation unworkable in the interests of Turkey. These rival self-determination projects and a threatening security environment, as well as the fact that Turkish Cypriots were a small minority, led Greek Cypriots to consider the consociation unworkable.

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3   Post-1974: From Partition to the Annan Plan Turkey’s partition of Cyprus in July–August 1974 radically altered the island’s balance of power and the two communities’ relative bargaining strengths. The partition produced serious setbacks for Greek Cypriots. Following an Athens-backed coup in Cyprus aimed at enosis, the Treaty of Guarantee was used by Turkey to justify what it described as its intervention in Cyprus, or its “peace operation,” but what Greek Cypriots saw unequivocally as an invasion. The Treaty of Guarantee was also used by Turkey to justify its stationing of upwards of 35,000 heavily equipped troops in northern Cyprus after partition, far exceeding the 650 permitted by the Treaty of Alliance (1960). To protect them against what they regarded as an occupation, the Greek Cypriots had to rely on UNFICYP, a rather thinly stretched UN peacekeeping force (currently 756 soldiers patrolling a 180-km “buffer zone”) plus the Republic of Cyprus’s National Guard, a largely conscripted army of around 10,000 that lacks any serious aerial or naval capacity (United Nations 2019; European Defence Information 2019). This large Turkish force in the north of the island produced anxieties among Greek Cypriots that Ankara could expand its control at a time of its choosing. As the (Greek Cypriot) National Council reported in 1989, there was a worry “that one day Turkey, with its overwhelming military superiority …will use northern Cyprus as a springboard for further expansionism” (National Council 1989). Regarding self-determination, the Greek Cypriots’ national homeland was now partitioned, and Turkish Cypriots were territorially concentrated for the first time in their own contiguous northern region. By 1983, the latter’s leader, Rauf Denktaş, declared the unilateral independence of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), although it was only recognized by Turkey. After partition, Turkey introduced an unknown number of Turkish settlers into the area it controlled, further exacerbating Greek Cypriots’ self-determination fears, as it threatened the Greek Cypriots’ demographic position on the island. The settlers also exacerbated security concerns, as some were demobilized soldiers (National Council 1989). Partition added the creation of a major refugee crisis on top of previous antagonisms. Some 160,000 Greek Cypriots, around one-third of the entire Greek Cypriot community, were expelled from what became the TRNC, while 40,000 Turkish Cypriots fled to the Turkish-controlled zone. This expulsion was followed by the loss of the refugees’ property

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and homes, which came to be occupied by Turkish Cypriots9 or by settlers from Turkey. Over 36 percent of the island’s territory, including its most fertile agricultural region, some of its most famous historical monuments and tourist areas, and 60 percent of its coastline came under the control of Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots.10 Whatever the Greek Cypriot contribution to the partition may be judged to be, the partition itself was significantly disproportionate. Their stunning setback in 1974 led Greek Cypriots to reassess their position. A new realpolitik led the Greek Cypriot leadership to understand that any reunification that would address their concerns on security, self-­ determination, refugees, property and territory would require the concession of not just a consociation but also a federation. The High-Level Agreements of 1977 and 1979 accepted that a reunited Cyprus would have to be based on a “bicommunal and bizonal federation.” Details about power-sharing were not included, although the 1977 agreement noted that each of the federation’s two zones would be administered by a different community. In 1992, the Greek Cypriot side, led by President George Vassiliou, accepted the “Ghali Set of Ideas” as the basis for negotiations for a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus problem. The said ideas, an initiative of the UN Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali that followed consultations with the two sides, indicated that a reunited Cyprus would have a federal Council of Ministers in which 30 percent would be Turkish Cypriots (as in 1960–63). A Turkish Cypriot would hold one of the three important ministerial portfolios of foreign affairs, defense or finance (United Nations 1992, Annex: para. 38). Decisions by the Council of Ministers and by the legislature concerning foreign affairs, defense, security, the budget, taxation, immigration and citizenship were to be subjected to a veto by either the president or vice-president, one of whom would be a Turkish Cypriot (United Nations 1992: Annex, paras. 42, 44). The Set of Ideas specified that legislation on these same matters would require separate majority votes from the representatives of both communities in the lower house if a majority of representatives from either side called for it (United Nations 1992: Annex, para. 32). These executive and 9  Some of these Turkish Cypriots were refugees themselves. Indeed, some may have been two-time refugees, having been displaced in 1963–64 as well as in 1974. 10  The fact that 36 percent of the island’s territory has 60 percent of its coastline results mainly from the fact that the Turkish Cypriot area includes the long thin Karpass Peninsula that juts out from Cyprus’s northeast toward Syria.

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legislative veto powers were more extensive than those in the 1960 constitution. The substantive area of disagreement on power-sharing related to the position of head of state/government. The Greek Cypriots rejected the Turkish Cypriots’ preference for co-presidents on the grounds that this was unfair to the majority and also implied a confederation. They instead favored a president and vice-president elected by an integrated electoral system that would ensure that one of the two positions (almost certainly that of vice-president) would go to a Turkish Cypriot and that would, they thought, favor the election of two moderates (United Nations 1992: Annex, para. 36; National Council 1989).11 Greek Cypriots believed this proposal would reduce the prospects of hardliners occupying the top two executive positions and hence reduce the prospects of taksim. In proximity talks that preceded the UN’s Annan Plan of 2004, Greek Cypriot negotiators again accepted the consociational principle of co-­ decision-­ making, agreeing that decisions made by federal institutions “should comprise votes of both communities” (Faustmann 2004: 7). The Annan Plan provided for a Swiss-style federal executive council of six persons (four Greek Cypriots and two Turkish Cypriots) in which all executive decisions would require at least one vote from council members of each community. This proposal was as close to concurrent majority decision-­making as possible, given that 50 percent of the Turkish Cypriot members would have to agree to any decision. The council was to elect two of its members, one from each constituent state, to serve as president and vice-president, with the representative of the larger constituent state serving as president for two-thirds of each term. This neat compromise, fully in line with consociational principles, superseded the prior Greek Cypriot insistence on a permanent (Greek Cypriot) president and the 11  The unanimously agreed Greek Cypriot National Council report of 1989 provided two options for electing the president and vice-president: (i) a communal model whereby the president would be elected by the Greek Cypriot community and the vice-president would be elected by the Turkish Cypriot community and (ii) an integrative model whereby there would be a universal election for president. If the candidate elected was Greek Cypriot, the vice-presidential candidates would all be Turkish Cypriot. The vice-president would then be elected in a universal (all-island) election in which Greek Cypriot votes would be weighted to form the same percentage of the total vote (in the vice-presidential election) as Turkish Cypriot votes comprised in the presidential election. The National Council did not specify what would happen if the elected president was a Turkish Cypriot, as this was very unlikely, but if it transpired, there would presumably be a second universal election for vice-president in which candidacies were restricted to Greek Cypriots (see National Council (1989)).

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Turkish Cypriot insistence on co-presidents. The council was to be indirectly elected by a special majority in the Senate (i.e., a majority that included at least two-fifths of senators from each community). The Senate itself was to be elected on separate communal rolls, with equal numbers of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. These rules were also a compromise, between the Greek Cypriot preference for integrated and direct elections for the presidency, in which each community’s voters would play a modest role in the election of the other community’s leaders, and the Turkish Cypriot preference for communal elections. The Turkish Cypriots were given effective legislative vetoes: the passage of laws would ordinarily require a simple majority in the House of Representatives and Senate plus at least 25 percent of senators from each community, while exceptional votes, including the budget, international treaties and approval of the presidential council, would need a majority in the House and a special majority in the Senate, that is, 40 percent of senators from each community (Annan Plan 2004: Art. 39).12 The idea of a presidential executive council was suggested by UN mediators, one of whom was a Swiss diplomat,13 but it faced little opposition from either of the sides in the negotiations. Reporting on the talks that led to the plan, the UN Secretary-­ General Kofi Annan informed the Security Council that the presidential council was “broadly accepted” by the parties to the negotiations and “one of the least contentious issues in the discussions which followed the presentation of the plan” (United Nations 2003: para. 23). While the Annan Plan was overwhelmingly rejected in the subsequent referendum by 76 percent of Greek Cypriots, two non-consociational reasons drove this decision. The first relates to the plan’s non-consociational substantive content and how this was refracted to the Greek Cypriot public by its leadership. The second relates to the geopolitical and economic context, which allowed Greek Cypriots to resist proposals they considered suboptimal. Distinguishing Greek Cypriot responses to the consociational and non-­ consociational parts of the plan is not simple, however, because Greek Cypriots often connect concerns over power-sharing with those over 12  Constitutional amendments required the support of Parliament and then approval by separate referendums in each constituent state (Annan 2004: Art. 37.3). 13  This is support for the view that specialists propose what they are most familiar with. Lijphart and Horowitz, two leading institutional designers, have each generally proposed designs based on what operates in their native countries (the Netherlands and the United States, respectively).

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security and self-determination. In 1989, the Republic of Cyprus’s National Council worried that Turkish Cypriots could use power-sharing to make the state dysfunctional and provide “a pretext for a further invasion by Turkey at a tactically convenient time” (National Council 1989). In his pre-referendum TV speech in April 2004 where he recommended a “resounding No” to the Annan Plan, the Greek Cypriot leader and President of the Republic of Cyprus, Tassos Papadopoulos, argued that the Turkish Cypriot legislative veto could prevent laws limiting Turkish settlement in Cyprus and that the ability of Turkish Cypriot ministers to create deadlocks in the executive would “paralyze” the state, facilitating the secession of the by-then constitutionally legitimized Turkish Cypriot entity (Papadopoulos 2004). Nonetheless, insofar as Greek Cypriots were able to separate the plan’s consociational and non-consociational content, they seem to have been more opposed to the latter than the former while being open to accepting the former if their concerns about the latter were addressed (re: security and self-determination) and if they were adequately compensated (re: refugees, property and territory). The most unpopular part of the plan for Greek Cypriots was that which dealt with security (Faustmann 2004). The Treaty of Guarantee remained without significant changes. Provisions that applied the Treaty to both constituent states, as well as to Cyprus as a whole, were seen on the Greek Cypriot side as an extension of its provisions (Annan Plan 2004: Art. 8.1 (a)).14 While Turkey agreed to reduce the number of troops it had introduced in 1974, those who rejected the plan emphasized the slow pace of withdrawal over 14 years and that the 650-strong Turkish troop contingent permitted under the Treaty of Alliance would remain until Turkey decided otherwise (Annan Plan 2004: Art. 8.1 (b) (iii)). Papadopoulos emphasized in contrast that the Greek Cypriots were obliged to disband their National Guard (Papadopoulos 2004). Greek Cypriots did not trust Turkey to deliver on its commitments in the plan, especially those relating to security. They were not enamored by the fact that the guarantor powers themselves were to be involved in the monitoring of the plan’s implementation, including its demilitarization provisions, and that robust mechanisms for securing compliance, or even verification, appeared to be lacking (Coufoudakis and Kyriakides  This claim was made by, among others, Coufoudakis and Kyriakides (2004: 32).

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2004: 38–40).15 The absence of trust, which is typical of such situations, underlined the importance of an “implementation” process that both sides could accept.16 In a referendum exit poll, the Mega TV channel reported that 75 percent of Greek Cypriots “gave security as their reason for voting no,” although this figure was influenced by the limited choices presented (security, economic costs, support for the president’s position and preferring to live separately).17 In a more serious academic survey involving regression analysis and that examined all of the plan’s salient provisions including those that dealt with government, property/territory and self-determination, Lordos found that the security provisions drove the Greek Cypriots’ rejection of the Annan Plan: “Much more than any other single aspect of the plan, the referendum vote largely depended on the … security provisions. If the security provisions were felt by an individual to be unacceptable—in the sense that they would conceivably lead to further military interventions by the Turkish Army—then that individual was likely, all else being equal, to vote ‘No.’ If alternatively the security provisions were felt to be tolerable—in the sense that ‘within a European Union context the intervention rights of Turkey would be rendered meaningless in practice’—then that individual was more likely to vote ‘Yes,’ all else being equal” (Lordos 2013: 13). In contrast, Lordos found that the plan’s provisions on governance (i.e., power-sharing) had no influence on the Greek Cypriots’ rejection: “it was the only aspect of the Annan Plan that did not contribute to the ‘No’ vote.”18 15  Nathalie Tocci reports that 80 percent of Greek Cypriot “no” voters rejected the plan “out of fear that Turkey would not deliver on its commitments” but does not provide a reference to the poll cited nor any details of the questions asked (were the respondents given certain choices or asked to state their own reasons for voting no?), size of the survey and so on (Tocci 2004: 42). 16  The author helped to create such an implementation plan, one introduced by the UN at the Crans-Montana international conference in July 2017 (see United Nations 2017). The conference collapsed without a full discussion of this plan, but it is very likely it will be reintroduced should negotiations resume. 17  Cited in Hansard (UK), July 6, 2004, col. 183WH. This poll does not appear to have contrasted security with other substantive parts of the plan, such as its government, territory or property provisions. The 25 percent who did not select “security” voted no to “support the president’s position” (7 percent), because of “economic cost” (5 percent) and because they “preferred to live separately” (13 percent). The exact questions asked cannot be ascertained as Mega TV has since shut down. 18  Personal email correspondence from Alexandros Lordos to the author

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Greek Cypriots also had important difficulties with the plan’s provisions on self-determination and property/territory. The Greek Cypriot leadership had agreed to the “painful compromise” of a bizonal federation in 1977 (Tombazos 2010: 232) but it was determined that the federation be as integrated as possible. The “Greek Cypriot nightmare,” according to Annan, was that Turkish Cypriots would use any settlement’s provisions on self-determination to legitimize what they had been unable to achieve since 1974—international recognition of their polity, after a breakdown of the settlement (United Nations 2003: para. 74). This bad dream was given resonance by the collapse of the communist federations of Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in the 1990s,19 all of which were followed by the recognition of their federal constituent entities as independent states. To allay the possibility of secession and recognition, Greek Cypriots had insisted that the federation be created by the existing Republic of Cyprus, i.e., that it should be a “holding together federation” (Stepan 1999). In contrast, Turkish Cypriots sought a federation created by two preexisting states, i.e., one that was “coming together.” In the plan, the UN opted for a compromise that involved parthenogenesis, giving rise to a “new state of affairs,” but this was portrayed by the Greek Cypriot leadership as involving the destruction of the republic. As Papadopoulos explained in a widely quoted remark in his TV address, “I was given an internationally recognized state. I am not going to give back a community” (Papadopoulos 2004). Rejectionists also pointed out that under the plan’s terms, the constitutional recognition of the Turkish Cypriot “constituent state” would occur immediately, while gains for Greek Cypriots, such as Turkish troop withdrawals and property restitutions, would come later and were dependent on Turkey’s goodwill: “The Turkish Cypriot community gains all the basic demands it made, from the first day…to be exact, 24  hours after the holding of the referenda.…In contrast, everything that the Greek Cypriot community is aspiring to achieve…are postponed without guarantees and depends upon the goodwill of Turkey to fulfill the obligations it undertakes.…In other words, ...all we get in return is a hope for goodwill of the Turkish side to keep the agreement” 19  Sozen (2007: 11) claims that the disintegration of the communist federations encouraged the Turkish Cypriot leader Denktash to claim self-determination for the Turkish Cypriots in negotiations. Clearly, he didn’t need much encouragement as he declared the independence of the TRNC in 1983, almost a decade before the Soviet Union collapsed.

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(Papadopoulos 2004). Attention was also drawn to provisions of the plan that would allow large numbers of settlers to remain, alongside the claim that Turkish Cypriot legislators would be able to prevent future laws limiting more immigration from Turkey. Lordos’s analysis separated these self-­ determination issues into two categories: “legal status”20 and “settlers.” Each made roughly equal and significant contributions to the “no” vote and together they came close to rivaling concerns over security (Lordos 2013: 11). The other saliently negative aspect of the plan for Greek Cypriots involved property and territory, although these issues were less important than either security or self-determination. Here the issue was not so much whether provisions on property and territory allayed (or exacerbated) concerns about sharing power, but whether they offered sufficient compensation for sharing power (and whether they respected the broad consociational principle of proportionality). The plan’s territorial provisions allowed Turkish Cypriots to retain control over 28 percent of Cyprus’s territory and around half of its coastline, with Greek Cypriot critics noting that this, the latter aspect in particular, was unfair. Within the Turkish Cypriot territory, only one-third of Greek Cypriot property was to be restituted (although restitution was to be greater in the roughly 8 percent of the island’s territory that was to be transferred from the Turkish Cypriot to the Greek Cypriot region) (Lordos 2013: 7). Lordos concluded that the plan was rejected by the Greek Cypriots because of its security, self-determination and property-territory provisions and because only one of the two significant Greek Cypriot political parties—DISY21—had backed the plan. He estimated that a revised plan that addressed Greek Cypriots concerns on security and self-­determination; compensated them adequately regarding property-territory; was supported by the other significant moderate party, AKEL;22 and that would leave the plan’s power-sharing provisions unaltered, would have delivered a 56 percent “yes” vote among Greek Cypriots (Lordos 2013: 20). 20  This is a reference to the Annan Plan’s approach that the two sides should not be required to agree on the previous legal status of their previous administrations but that a “virgin birth” would occur giving rise to a “new state of affairs” (Lordos 2013: 8). 21  DISY (Democratic Rally or Dimokratikós Sinagermós) is a major Greek Cypriot political party from the center-right, led in 2004 by Nicos Anastasiades, the current President of the Republic of Cyprus. 22  AKEL (Progressive Party of Working People or Anorthotikó Kómma Ergazómenou Laoú) is the main Greek Cypriot leftist party, led in 2004 by Demetris Christofias.

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The second reason for the plan’s rejection by Greek Cypriots was that they clearly saw the consequences of accepting the plan as less attractive than those of rejecting it. This perception was related to the plan’s contents and to the positions of their political parties, but also to issues of context and realpolitik that went beyond the fact that Greek Cypriots were a demographic majority. Some Greek Cypriots had accepted partition and were content with the status quo. Partition had been extraordinarily violent, but through expulsion and flight it had sufficiently homogenized the two parts of Cyprus that overt conflict between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots had come to an end.23 It was arguable, paradoxically, that a settlement would create more prospects for violence than the status quo, as it would mix two rival communities that had been hermetically sealed off from each other. The opening of border crossings between Cyprus’s two parts did not begin until 2003. Greek Cypriots had also performed reasonably well economically in spite of partition. When Cyprus, meaning the Greek Cypriot-controlled Republic of Cyprus, acceded to the EU in 2004, its GDP per capita was already higher than two of the EU’s member states (Greece and Portugal) and it was substantially richer, per capita, than any of the accession countries from the eastern bloc.24 It was successful in both tourism and finance in particular. While advocates of a settlement sought to market it in terms of its economic benefits, Greek Cypriot rejectionists were able to point to the costs of reunification, including subsidizing the much more deprived Turkish Cypriots community: its GDP per capita was only one-­third that of the Greek Cypriots.25 A memo of the Republic of Cyprus Planning Bureau leaked in 2003 estimated that the cost of reunification would be 16 billion Cyprus pounds or 27 billion Euro, about 2.3 times the size of the Greek Cypriot GDP.  This estimate was based on costs of property compensation that assumed property price inflation of 10 percent p.a. since 1974. Foreign experts hired by the Cyprus government reported in  There have been no deaths in Cyprus related to its political dispute since 1996.  In 2003, just before accession, Cyprus’s GDP per capita (expressed in purchasing power standards) was 83 percent of the EU average, ahead of Greece (79 percent) and Portugal (73 percent), and substantially ahead of any of the accession countries from Eastern Europe (see Eurostat (2004)). 25  The GDP of the Greek Cypriot area in 2004 was 19,034 Euro compared to 6340 Euro for the Turkish Cypriot area (not adjusted for cost of living). Figures supplied, with my thanks, by Fiona Mullen of Sapienta Economics (https://sapientaeconomics.com/). 23 24

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another document leaked just before the referendum that the Annan plan would “bankrupt” the federal government (Eichengreen et al. 2004).26 While Greek Cypriots were compelled by the events of 1974 to seek a settlement that included a consociation and a federation, they retained sufficient geopolitical resources to resist any settlement they saw as disadvantageous. The Greek Cypriots controlled a state, the Republic of Cyprus. United Nations Security Council Resolution 186 (March 4, 1964) had recognized the Cypriot authorities, by this point shorn of their Turkish Cypriot members, as the legitimate government of Cyprus. Being a recognized state meant that the Greek Cypriots were able to trade with other states, attract investment and tourism through open travel links and establish diplomatic relations with the world’s other states. The Greek Cypriots’ monopolization of the state after 1963 may have contributed to partition, but recognized statehood enabled the Greek Cypriots to ensure that, after 1983, the TRNC was not recognized by any state but Turkey, as this was opposed by the Cypriot authorities. The TRNC’s international isolation was costly, making it entirely dependent on Turkey. In 2004, Greek Cypriots could rationally judge that time was on their side and that they could hold out for better terms than those presented in the Annan Plan. Negotiations on the Annan Plan occurred simultaneously with the process of Cyprus’s accession to the EU. Pressure from Greece, which threatened to veto the extension of the EU to Eastern Europe, obliged the EU, at the Copenhagen Conference of 2002, to allow Cyprus (meaning the government-controlled areas) to accede to the EU before a settlement with Turkish Cypriots (Loizides and McGarry 2019). This fact allowed Greek Cypriots to reject the Annan Plan without fearing it would adversely affect their prospects for accession, though it incentivized Turkish Cypriots to endorse the plan because accession to the EU required them to do so. Once in the EU, Greek Cypriots would acquire a veto over the accession not just of the Turkish Cypriots but of Turkey too, plausibly strengthening their hand in future negotiations. Papadopoulos reminded his community before the referendum that “if the sovereign people reject the Plan by their vote, the Republic of Cyprus will become a full and equal member of 26  The Eichengreen et al. report was based on the third version of the Annan Plan, not the fifth version that was put to referendum and which Eichengreen told Fiona Mullen represented a “great improvement.” Personal communication between the author and Fiona Mullen, Director of Sapienta Economics.

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the European Union. We would have achieved the strategic goal we have jointly set, i.e., to upgrade and shield politically the Republic of Cyprus.…Shall we do away with our internationally recognized state [a reference to his argument that the Annan Plan abolished the Republic of Cyprus] exactly at the very moment it strengthens its political weight, with its accession to the European Union?” (Papadopoulos 2004). Greek Cypriots correctly judged that their position was not analogous to their fellow Greek-speaking islanders, the Melians, who during the Peloponnesian war in 416 BCE were told that they had to do “what they must” (Thucydides 1910: 5.89). Turkey had the military power to force Greek Cypriots to do its bidding in 2004, but there were constraints on this power. Internally, the AKP was then not inclined to give the Turkish military its head, and attacking an EU member state, albeit one not in NATO, would have been incredibly injudicious and would have terminated Turkey’s hopes of EU accession, which were then still vibrant. In short, Greek Cypriots had reasons to reject the Annan Plan that went beyond their reluctance to make concessions to a minority. They were willing to have a consociational component to a settlement, but not the Annan Plan. In contrast, the Turkish Cypriots calculated that the Annan Plan would significantly improve their lot and supported it by 65 percent. They could not get into the EU without a settlement and had no prospects for gaining recognition as an independent state. Without either, they would remain isolated and marginalized.

4   After 2004: From the Annan Plan to Crans-­Montana and After After 2004, the Greek Cypriot leadership continued to signal that it would accept consociational power-sharing as part of a total settlement that includes a satisfactory resolution of other disputes (security, self-­ determination, property and territory). When negotiations between the two communities resumed in 2008, they were conducted, unlike the Annan Plan, on a “Cypriot-owned, Cypriot-led” basis, that is, compromises were to result from agreements between the two leaders rather than from arbitration or pressure by the UN.  Between 2008 and 2010, the Greek Cypriot leader, Demetris Christofias, agreed with the Turkish Cypriot leader, Mehmet Ali Talat, on a directly elected, rotating presidency in which a Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot would rotate as

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president each term on a 2:1 temporal basis, with each serving as vicepresident when not president.27 They agreed there would be a Council of Ministers, selected by the president and vice-president, in which at least 30 percent of the ministers would be Turkish Cypriots.28 Decisions in the Council of Ministers were to be taken by majority vote, including at least one positive vote from a minister of each community (Convergences 2008–2012 2013: 5).29 Unlike the Annan Plan, the president and vicepresident were to be elected directly by way of an integrated electoral system involving a modest element of “cross-voting,” that is, that allowed each community’s voter to play some role in the election of the other community’s leader.30 As with earlier iterations of cross-voting, this was an initiative of the Greek Cypriot side and reflected its traditional concerns about the dangers of Turkish Cypriot hardliners assuming high office in a united Cyprus.31 It may also have reflected Christofias’s and Talat’s partisan interests, as they were the leading political moderates in their respective communities. Christofias’s support for power-sharing was based on the “integrated whole” principle that informed the post-2008 negotiations, that is, nothing was considered agreed until everything was agreed. Christofias’s embrace of power-sharing (including a rotated presidency) was clearly, though implicitly, designed to incentivize the Turkish Cypriots and Turkey to deliver on the other disputes. Unfortunately, before these matters could 27  The convergence on a rotating presidency was reported at the President’s press conference of March 22, 2012: http://www.mfa.gov.cy/mfa/Embassies/Embassy_Athens.nsf/ All/F5C9391CCD622C9AC22579C90034677E?OpenDocument&print [accessed: 10 October 2019]. 28  The Greek Cypriots proposed a 7:3 Greek Cypriot/Turkish Cypriot ratio on the council of ministers but were prepared to accept 8:5 conditional on other convergences in the governance chapter (Convergences—2008–2012 2013: 23). 29  The Greek Cypriots accepted that decisions by the council of ministers should require at least one positive vote from ministers from each community, but the Turkish Cypriots sought at least two positive votes. 30  The Cyprus electorate as a whole would vote for Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot candidates for the presidency, but Greek Cypriot votes for Turkish Cypriot candidates would be weighted so that they formed the same percentage of votes (for Turkish Cypriot candidates) as the percentage of Turkish Cypriot votes cast for Greek Cypriot candidates. The upper limit of cross-voting was to be set at 10 percent for the first election and was not to exceed 20 percent thereafter. 31  Turkish Cypriots also have concerns about dysfunctionality, but they are more likely to be worried about dysfunctionality leading to their exclusion from the shared institutions (reflecting their experience in December 1963) than about it resulting in partition.

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be negotiated, the power-sharing agreement fell afoul of its modest cross-­ voting (centripetal) element, which incensed hardliners, particularly on the Turkish Cypriot side (McGarry 2017; McGarry and Loizides 2015). They correctly concluded that cross-voting was designed to marginalize them. The problem was that Talat faced an election in 2011. Two Turkish Cypriot nationalist parties cooperated to defeat him because of the cross-­ voting issue, and he was replaced by a hardliner, Dervis Eroglu. After AKEL’s Christofias was replaced as Greek Cypriot leader by DISY’s Nicos Anastasiades in 2013, the latter retracted the convergence on a rotating presidency but not the other consociational elements accepted by Christofias. It seems reasonably clear that Anastasiades’s retraction of a rotating presidency was partly tactical rather than principled, though a rotating presidency is not popular among Greek Cypriots when they are asked about it in isolation, rather than as a part of a settlement that is acceptable overall. Christofias had been criticized for making the concession on rotation up front and particularly when it failed to be reciprocated (Christophorou 2013: 3). At the conference in Crans-­ Montana, Switzerland, in June–July 2017, Anastasiades reoffered Christofias’s concession of a rotating presidency, although this time the Greek Cypriot leader made it explicitly conditional on reciprocal concessions on other matters, including full Cypriot sovereign independence, that would include a sunset clause for the withdrawal of Turkish troops and the abolition of Turkey’s treaty-based right of intervention (Cyprus Mail 2017; Reuters 2017). Indeed, no party in Cyprus, Greek Cypriot or Turkish Cypriot, has ever sought to conclude a power-sharing deal without a comprehensive settlement. The UN has always understood that a settlement requires a resolution of the multiple dimensions of the Cyprus problem, even if it has sometimes sought to achieve progress on different dimensions sequentially rather than in one package. The need for a comprehensive settlement underlay the Ghali Set of Ideas in the early 1990s, the Annan Plan in 2002–04 and the Crans-Montana conference of June–July 2017. At the latter, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres proposed a package approach. He suggested intensive negotiations on a five-dimensional deal that included power-sharing (mainly the issue of a rotating presidency), security, property, territory and “equivalent treatment” (the issue of giving Turkish nationals rights similar to those enjoyed by Greek nationals in

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a reunited Cyprus that was part of the EU). The plausible assumption underlying the UN’s approach was that a successful package would involve Greek Cypriots accommodating the Turkish Cypriots and Turkey on power-sharing and equivalent treatment, while the Turkish Cypriots and Turkey would accommodate the Greek Cypriots on property, territory and security. If the package was agreed, it was thought that the sides would reach a point of “no return” toward a settlement, with outstanding and more minor issues to be completed over a period of weeks or months. The conference collapsed, however, without agreement (United Nations 2017: 21; Economist 2017). As with the Annan Plan, there is evidence that security remains the most salient issue for Greek Cypriots and that their support for any settlement (and thus a consociation) will be importantly shaped by how it deals with this dimension. A 2011 poll by Cyprus2015 that examined which issues were priorities for Greek Cypriots found that security was the most urgent priority and was well ahead of all others, including a rotating presidency (power-sharing), property, territory, settlers and the division of competences between federal and constituent state authorities: 71 percent of Greek Cypriots considered security a priority compared to 42 percent for property and 33 percent for “the issue of the presidency” (Cyprus2015 2011: Figure 25, 86). A Noverna poll in 2017 had a similar finding. Asked which of some 60 items were “essential” for a settlement, the most popular pick among Greek Cypriots by far, chosen by 50 percent, was that “all Greek and Turkish troops should leave Cyprus immediately” (Irwin 2017: 19).32 The difficulty facing negotiators is that security is also a top concern for Turkish Cypriots, along with the need for power-sharing (see Cyprus2015 2011: Figure 25). While Greek Cypriots’ security concerns reflect their experiences in 1974, Turkish Cypriots’ security concerns reflect their experiences as a beleaguered minority during 1963–74 and particularly in 1963–64 (Drousiotis 2008). It may be possible to satisfy Turkish Cypriots’ concerns about security in a manner acceptable to Greek Cypriots, for example, through the withdrawal of Turkish troops and the abolition of Turkey’s intervention rights combined with the 32  To the best of the author’s knowledge, there are no surveys that ask Greek Cypriots to weigh the relative importance of different aspects of the Cyprus problem that do not show security as the most salient concern.

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demilitarization of Cyprus, international guarantees and the establishment of a Turkish Cypriot police force that is capable of defending its community.33 But even if Turkish Cypriots were prepared to accept the withdrawal of Turkey’s troops and guarantees, this will require the formal consent of Turkey, which is a party to the treaties that would have to be amended or abolished (the Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Guarantee). Turkey has its own geopolitical interests in Cyprus, which it does not want to ally with Greece against Turkey, as well as a desire to protect Turkish Cypriots. It would be difficult for it to give up either its rights to station troops in Cyprus or to intervene there, even if Turkish Cypriots would accept this. This may be seen by Turkey, including by Turkish opposition parties, as representing “1960 minus,” that is, as less than what Turkey was allotted under Cyprus’s 1960 constitution. With EU accession unlikely, it may be necessary for Turkey to gain on some other important front to accept such a package. Greek Cypriots’ preparedness to embrace a comprehensive settlement (and hence a consociation) continues to depend not just on the settlement’s substantive content but also on their perception of whether an attainable deal is better than the status quo. In this respect, the current Greek Cypriot position is not much different than in 2004. The island remains peaceful, and this seems reasonably set to continue. There is little prospect of significant intercommunal violence, ironically in part because of partition, and while Turkey continues to have the capacity to threaten Greek Cypriots militarily, it would be extraordinarily difficult for it to justify force, short of a suicidal Greek Cypriot attack on the north. There are occasional murmurings from the Trump administration and pleadings from Turkish Cypriot nationalist elements that UN peacekeepers should be withdrawn or wound down, respectively, as a means to save money or to concentrate Greek Cypriot minds on the virtues of agreement (Foreign Policy 23 August 2019). However, there is little possibility that the UN—a profoundly conservative institution—will take such a step, given that it 33  There is recent evidence that Turkish Cypriots have some flexibility regarding the current guarantee system. In a survey conducted by the Centre for Migration, Identity and Rights Studies (CMIRS) in September 2019, 37 percent of Turkish Cypriots stated that they view alternatives to the current system positively, while another 16.4 percent stated they do not have an opinion on the issue. On the other hand, 46.4 percent of Turkish Cypriots believe the “current guarantee system should continue unchanged” (Cyprus Mail 2019). As with a consociation, views on the guarantee system are likely to be influenced by whatever else is in the settlement package.

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would almost certainly increase instability and not just in Cyprus, but also between Greece and Turkey and possibly beyond. The EU is unlikely to pressure Greek Cypriots to settle, as Cyprus is an EU member state controlled by Greek Cypriots, and Cyprus’s government has close relations with Greece, another EU member state. The possibility of other states recognizing the TRNC in a way that might incentivize the Greek Cypriots to deal seems similarly remote, given the importance of territorial integrity to states everywhere and the particular dangers attached to recognizing a region that was created by external military force. While the continuing settlement of Turks in the north constitutes a long-run threat to Greek Cypriots’ demographic dominance of the island, so far this issue seems to have a time horizon that is beyond that which concerns most politicians, the Cypriot equivalent of climate change perhaps.34 Greek Cypriots also remain prosperous and have now largely recovered from the banking crisis they suffered in the wake of the 2013 Greek debt crisis. By 2018, Cyprus was ranked 15th in GDP per capita among the EU’s 28 states, and, by 2019, its real GDP had surpassed its precrisis peak (IMF 2019a, b). The Greek Cypriots’ tourism industry in particular has thrived amid the disturbed neighborhood of the Eastern Mediterranean, at least until COVID-19 hit in March 2020. The sole geopolitical factor that may make Greek Cypriots more amenable to a settlement than in 2004 relates to a new development: the discovery of hydrocarbons, gas in particular. In 2011, natural gas was found in Cyprus’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).35 As it is the Republic of Cyprus’s authorities that ordinarily would be assumed to control these resources, such a development, ceteris paribus, should have made the status quo even more attractive to Greek Cypriots vis-à-vis a settlement. Turkey, however, has claimed both that part of what Cyprus considers its EEZ belongs to Turkey and that Turkish Cypriots have a right to exploit resources within the remainder, the latter in the event that Greek Cypriots 34   Pro-settlement Greek Cypriot politicians, such as Averof Neofytou and Andros Kyprianou, the leaders of DISY and AKEL, respectively, often point to the dangers posed by Turkish settlement in the north, but these appeals do not appear to have had the intended effect on the Greek Cypriot electorate as yet. 35  The government of Cyprus has estimated that the discovered natural gas resources in its “Block 11” will be worth $9.5 billion to the Cyprus government over 18 years, but this estimate is linked to the price of oil (against which natural gas prices are pegged). Other natural gas resources have since been discovered, but the amounts have not been released. Drillings are ongoing.

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do not agree to co-exploit these resources with Turkish Cypriots.36 In 2018, Turkey used its navy to prevent drilling by companies that had been licensed by Cyprus’s authorities, and it has since begun to drill in Cyprus’s EEZ on its own behalf and on behalf of Turkish Cypriots. These events have created the possibility that Greek Cypriots may be unable to extract gas resources or may see some of these being exploited by Turkey and Turkish Cypriots. Such consequences may influence Greek Cypriots in the direction of a settlement, particularly if it becomes clear that the offshore resources are lucrative and that a comprehensive settlement is the most feasible way to exploit them.

5   Conclusion The arguments presented here are not just relevant to Cyprus but comparative as well. While the cases that informed classical consociational theory focused primarily on disputes over consociational rules of executive formation and decision-making—almost all of the more recent cases, including Bosnia-Herzegovina (1995), Northern Ireland (1998), Burundi (2000) and Iraq (2005) have, like Cyprus, been more multidimensional and have included serious disputes over self-determination and/or security. The successful adoption and maintenance of consociations in all of these latter cases, to the extent that has occurred, has been linked not just to consociational rules but to how these non-consociational disputes have been managed (McGarry 2019). In the case of Northern Ireland, like Cyprus, Lijphart attributed the failure of power-sharing around the time of the 1974 Sunningdale Agreement to the existence of a dual imbalance of power, that is, to the fact that unionists were then a significant majority of Northern Ireland’s electorate (Lijphart 1975: 100, 1977: 160). But as in Cyprus, this unionist majority also opposed power-sharing with nationalists because of their self-determination concerns: nationalists did not recognize Northern Ireland’s legitimacy and sought to use power-sharing to achieve a united Ireland. The Sunningdale Agreement included an all-­ Ireland political institution, the Council of Ireland, at a time when the Irish constitution claimed that Northern Ireland was part of Ireland. Unionists’ opposition to Sunningdale was reinforced because they believed 36  In July 2019, the Turkish Cypriots proposed co-exploitation with the Greek Cypriots, but the latter are very unlikely to accept this as, among other reasons, it would imply recognition of the Turkish Cypriot authorities (Kathimerini 2019).

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it did not sufficiently maintain their security—indeed the IRA was then engaged in a violent campaign to impose Irish unification. By the time of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, unionists were significantly more willing to share power, not just because their majority position had weakened but also because the Agreement abandoned Ireland’s constitutional claim over Northern Ireland and recognized that Irish unification would require the consent of majorities in both parts of Ireland. Unlike Sunningdale, the Belfast Agreement was reached in the context of comprehensive ceasefires. Unionists’ support for power-sharing remained fragile during the early years of the Agreement because of disputes over security, including over radical reforms to the police and to the decommissioning of republican weapons. When an agreement was reached on these issues in 2005–06, even the more hardline of Northern Ireland’s two unionist parties embraced its consociation leading to a period of unprecedented stability (McGarry and O’Leary 2009: 45–47; O’Leary 2019: vol. 3). The broad lesson is that in multidimensional disputes, the prospects for a consociation should not be examined in isolation but alongside the other dimensions of a conflict and settlement. It is not just that a consociation may need a comprehensive settlement that involves agreement on multiple disputes, but that how these other disputes are settled will affect the prospects for consociational adoption and maintenance. Lijphart is entirely right to argue that a demographic “multiple balance of power” offers positive conditions for establishing and maintaining consociations in deeply divided polities, as no single community will be able to govern alone democratically. On the other hand, consociations may be adopted and maintained because of power variables other than the demographic resources of majorities (votes) and that offset such resources. In the case of Burundi’s Arusha Accords (2000), parties representing the large Hutu majority (85 percent) reached a consociational deal with parties of the Tutsi minority (15 percent) because the latter commanded considerable military resources: before the Accords, the Tutsis controlled Burundi’s official army and the state’s other institutions. Similarly, South Africa’s ANC, which drew the bulk of its support from the country’s large African majority, accepted a power-sharing arrangement with the white minority in 1994, albeit briefly, because the latter controlled the security sector and the state, which meant that an exclusively ANC government was not initially feasible. In contemporary Syria, many in the Sunni Arab majority-dominated opposition would accept power-sharing with the Alawite minority-dominated regime if that was on offer to them. Iraq’s

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Shi’a majority would likely have embraced power-sharing with the various Sunni Arab minority-dominated regimes that have ruled Iraq from its creation in 1920 had this been an option. Northern Ireland’s unionist majority accepted power-sharing in 1998 not just because its numbers were dropping or because its self-determination and security concerns were addressed, but also because its demographic advantage was offset by the application of British power. The UK government, in cooperation with the Irish Republic, incentivized unionists to share power with nationalists by telling them the alternative was no longer direct rule from London—a dispensation that was more attractive to unionists—but instead cooperation between London and Dublin, which was less attractive. In Cyprus, as we have seen, the European Union incentivized the Turkish Cypriot minority to accept a settlement in 2004, but not the Greek Cypriot majority. The conundrum in Cyprus is that the application of Turkish power in 1974 has made Greek Cypriots more open to a consociation than they were before, but the latter have remained in a strong enough political and economic position to refuse one unconditionally. This is different from 1959 when Greek Cypriots lacked a state and found themselves in the position attributed to the Melians by Athens ambassadors, unable to refuse any offer made to them by a stronger power. The two conclusions of this chapter are straightforward. Majorities may be prepared to support consociational power-sharing, or oppose it less, if the settlements in which consociations are embedded address other core concerns, particularly over self-determination and security. A majority may also support such a settlement if realpolitik dictates that it should.

References Anderson, G., & Choudry, S. (2019). Territorial Cleavages and Constitutional Transitions: Political Mobilizations, Constitution-making Processes, and Constitutional Design. In G.  Anderson & S.  Choudry (Eds.), Territory and Power in Constitutional Transitions (pp.  374–428). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Anderson, P. (2008). The Partitions of Cyprus. London Review of Books 30(8): 7–16. Retrieved November 1, 2019, from https://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n08/ perry-­anderson/the-­divisions-­of-­cyprus Annan Plan. (2004). The Comprehensive Settlement of the Cyprus Problem. Retrieved November 1, 2019, from http://www.hri.org/docs/annan/ Annan_Plan_April2004.pdf

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Christophorou, C. (2013). Presidential Elections in Cyprus in 2013. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung: International Policy Analysis. Retrieved October 19, 2019, from http://library.fes.de/pdf-­files/id/09669.pdf Clerides, G. (1990). Cyprus: My Deposition Vol. 3. Nicosia: Alithia Publishing. Constitution of the Republic of Cyprus. Retrieved from http://www.kypros.org/ Constitution/ Convergences—2008–2012. (2013). Retrieved October 10, 2019, from https:// www.sigmalive.com/news/politics/45703/apokalyptiko-­d iavaste-­ to-­77selido-­eggrafo-­ntaouner Coufoudakis, V., & Kyriakides, K. (2004). The Case Against the Annan Plan. London: Lobby for Cyprus. Cyprus Mail. (2017, July 5). President’s Proposals Dismissed as ‘Nothing New.’ Retrieved October 19, 2019, from https://cyprus-­mail.com/2017/07/05/ rumour-­mill-­accusations-­order-­day-­crans-­montana/ Cyprus Mail. (2019, October 27). Survey Shows Some Turkish Cypriot Flexibility over Guarantees. Retrieved October 27, 2019, from https://cyprus-­mail. com/2019/10/27/survey-­s hows-­s ome-­t urkish-­c ypriot-­f lexibility-­o ver-­ guarantees/ Cyprus2015. (2011). Solving the Cyprus Problem. Interpeace/‘Cyprus 2015’ Initiative: Nicosia. Retrieved October 21, 2019, from https://www.undp.org/ content/dam/cyprus/docs/ACT%20Publications/Civil%20Society/ cyprus2015%20solving%20the%20cyprus%20problem%20en.pdf Drousiotis, M. (2008). The First Partition Cyprus 1963–1964. Nicosia: Alfadi Publications. Economist. (2017, July 14). Cyprus Talks Collapse. Retrieved October 19, 2019, from https://country.eiu.com/article.aspx?articleid=1235682707&Country= Cyprus&topic=Politics&subtopic=Forecast&subsubtopic=Internation al+relations Eichengreen, B., Faini, R., von Hagen, J., & Wyplosz, C. (2004). Economic Aspects of the Annan Plan for the Solution of the Cyprus Problem Report. Retrieved October 14, 2019, from http://scholar.google.ca/scholar_ url?url=https://repositor y.graduateinstitute.ch/record/10135/files/ e4e4b267f0bee637a8cf79a171e8c4dfbd55.pdf&hl=en&sa=X&scisig=AAGB fm349CXcH9aJAr6swjf8I2gbxap6kg&nossl=1&oi=scholarr European Defence Information. (2019). Cyprus. Retrieved October 07, 2019, from http://www.armedforces.co.uk/Europeandefence/edcountries/countrycyprus.htm Eurostat. (2004). GDP Per Capita in New Member States Ranges from 42% of EU25 Average in Latvia to 83% in Cyprus. Retrieved October 10, 2019, from https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/STAT_04_73 Faustmann, H. (2004). The Cyprus Question Still Unsolved: Security Concerns and the Failure of the Annan Plan. Suedosteuropa-Mitteilungen, 6, 44–68.

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Foreign Policy. (2019). State Department Defends U.N. Peacekeeping. Retrieved October 18, 2019, from https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/08/23/state-­ department-­defends-­un-­peacekeeping-­document-­trump-­blue-­helmets/ Hadjigregoriou, S. (2014). The Facilitators The UN Representatives & Advisers to Cyprus, 1964–2014. Nicosia: MAM Publishers. Horowitz, D. (2014). Ethnic Power Sharing: Three Big Problems. Journal of Democracy, 25(2), 5–20. IMF. (2019a). Report for Selected Countries and Subjects. Retrieved October 19, 2019, from https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2018/02/weodata/weorept.aspx?pr.x=68&pr.y=11&sy=2017&ey=2018&ssd=1&sort=coun try&ds=.&br=1&c=946%2C137%2C122%2C181%2C124%2C918%2C138% 2C964%2C182%2C960%2C423%2C935%2C968%2C128%2C939%2C936%2 C961%2C172%2C132%2C184%2C134%2C174%2C144%2C944%2C178% 2C136%2C112%2C941&s=NGDPDPC%2CPPPPC&grp=0&a= IMF. (2019b). Cyprus: IMF Staff Concluding Statement of the 2019 Article IV Mission. Retrieved October 19, 2019, from https://www.imf.org/en/News/ Articles/2019/09/26/mcs092619-­cyprus-­imf-­staff-­concluding-­statement-­ of-­2019-­article-­iv-­mission Irwin, C. (2017). Cyprus Peace Poll 1—Critical Issues in the Cyprus Negotiations. Retrieved October 21, 2019, from http://www.peacepolls.org/peacepolls/ documents/007936.pdf James, A. (2002). Keeping the Peace in the Cyprus Crisis of 1963–64. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Kathimerini. (2019). Nicosia to Reject Turkish Natural Gas Proposal. Retrieved from https://knews.kathimerini.com.cy/en/news/nicosia-­to-­reject-­turkish-­ natural-­gas-­proposal Kranidiotis, N. (1981). Difficult Years: Cyprus 1950–1960. Athens: I. D. Kollaros and Co.. Kyriakides, S. (1968). Cyprus: Constitutionalism and Crisis Government. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Lijphart, A. (1975). Review Article: The Northern Ireland Problem: Cases, Theories and Solutions. British Journal of Political Science, 5(1), 83–106. Lijphart, A. (1977). Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration. New Haven: Yale University Press. Lindahl, I. (2019). Notes from the Graveyard of Diplomats: Cyprus 2002–2004. Limassol: Heterotopia Publications. Loizides, N., & McGarry, J. (2019). The 2002–04 Annan Plan in Cyprus: An Attempted UN-Mediated Constitutional Transition. In G.  Anderson & S.  Choudry (Eds.), Territory and Power in Constitutional Transitions (pp. 43–59). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lordos, A. (2013). Rational Agent or Unthinking Follower? A Survey-based Profile Analysis of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot Referendum Voters. In

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T. Diez & N. Tocci (Eds.), Cyprus: A Conflict at the Crossroads (pp. 17–47). Manchester: Manchester University Press. Markides, D. (1998). The Issue of Separate Municipalities in Cyprus 1957–1963: An Overview. Journal of Mediterranean Studies, 8(2), 177–204. Markides, D. (2001). Cyprus 1957–1963: From Colonial Conflict to Constitutional Crisis: The Key Role of the Municipal Issue (Minnesota Mediterranean and East European monographs). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. McGarry, J. (2017). Centripetalism, Consociationalism and Cyprus: the ‘Adoptability’ Question. Political Studies, 6(2), 512–529. McGarry, J. (2019). Classical Consociational Theory and Recent Consociational Performance. Swiss Political Science Review, 25(4), 538–555. McGarry, J., & Loizides, N. (2015). Power-Sharing in a Re-United Cyprus: Centripetal Coalitions vs Proportional Sequential Coalitions’. The International Journal of Constitutional Law (I*CON), 13(4), 847–872. McGarry, J., & O’Leary, B. (2009). Power-Shared after the Deaths of Thousands. In R.  Taylor (Ed.), Consociational Theory: McGarry & O’Leary and the Northern Ireland Conflict (pp. 15–84). Abingdon: Routledge. National Council. (1989). Greek Cypriot Proposals 1989. Retrieved October 7, 2019, from https://www.pio.gov.cy/en/assets/pdf/cyproblem/Proposals% 201989%20EN.pdf O’Leary, B. (2019). A Treatise on Northern Ireland, Volume III: Consociation and Confederation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Papadopoulos, T. (2004). Address to Cypriots by President Papadopoulos. Originally Printed by: Cyprus News Agency, April 8, 2004. Retrieved from the Hellenic Resources Network. Retrieved October 14, 2019, from http://www. hri.org/news/cyprus/cna/2004/04-­04-­08.cna.html#01 Reuters. (2017, July 6). Cyprus Reunification Talks Collapse, U.N. Chief ‘Very Sorry.’ Retrieved October 19, 2019, from https://www.reuters.com/article/ us-­cyprus-­conflict/cyprus-­reunification-­talks-­collapse-­u-­n-­chief-­very-­sorry-­ idUSKBN19S02I Soulioti, S. (2006). Fettered Independence: Cyprus, 1878–1964, Volume 2. University of Minnesota Press: University of Minnesota. Modern Greek Studies Program. Minneapolis. Sozen, A. (2007). The Cyprus Negotiations and the Basic Parameters: From the 1963 Inter-communal Negotiations to the Annan Plan. Paper Presented at the Conference “The Cyprus Conflict: Looking Ahead.” EMU, 7–8 May 2007. Retrieved August 24, 2019, from https://www.academia.edu/275008/ The_Cyprus_Negotiations_and_the_Basic_Parameters Stepan, A. (1999). Federalism and Democracy: Beyond the U.S. Model. Journal of Democracy, 10(4), 19–34. Thucydides. (1910). The Peloponnesian War. London: J.M. Dent.

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CHAPTER 11

Conclusion: The Past, Present and Future of Power-Sharing in Europe Soeren Keil and Allison McCulloch

1   Introduction At the beginning of this book, Allison McCulloch framed the discussion on power-sharing in Europe through three specific lenses. She highlighted the importance of power-sharing adoptability (how do consociations come into being?), its functionality in different countries (how does consociationalism work?) and the adaptability or end-ability of such systems (how do consociations end, transform or fall apart?). At the end of the book, we would like to reflect on how these themes were taken up by the authors and what they might suggest for power-sharing theory and practice in a more comprehensive manner.

S. Keil (*) School of Law, Policing and Social Sciences, Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury, UK e-mail: [email protected] A. McCulloch Department of Political Science, Brandon University, Brandon, MB, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2021 S. Keil, A. McCulloch (eds.), Power-Sharing in Europe, Federalism and Internal Conflicts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53590-2_11

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2   Adoptability Adoptability, or the conditions under which would-be power-sharing partners come to see consociation as an acceptable form of government, exhibits a variety of patterns across the cases studied in this book. Specifically, we find that the cases vary according to, first, whether consociation was adopted pre-emptively by political elites in the context of deteriorating—but not necessarily violent—intergroup relations or whether it is introduced as a means for ending violent conflict; second, whether the decision to share power was arrived at through an internal process guided by domestic elites or whether consociation was adopted at the behest of— or potentially under duress from—external actors, and; third, whether the agreement to share power was part of a formalized peace settlement or whether the agreement was informally arrived at in the form of a “grand bargain” without being constitutionalized. What can be identified from the cases in this book is a scale of adoptability. On this scale, power-sharing can serve as a tool specifically selected by domestic elites to overcome deep divisions. The Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland fit in this category and so does, more recently, Belgium. Further along the scale, we find cases in which elites still played a major role, but power-sharing became much more of a tool of peace-making (rather than peace-keeping) and in which external actors become more prominent. Here, power-sharing has mainly been used as a tool to overcome ongoing group conflict (Noel 2005; Sisk 1996; McCulloch 2014). The cases of Northern Ireland and South Tyrol fit this pattern, and so do the cases of North Macedonia and Cyprus, despite the short-lived nature of the first power-sharing arrangement in Cyprus and the continuing inability to reach agreement on a new comprehensive settlement that would reunite the island. A third category along the adoptability scale are “imposed power-sharing” settlements. Many contemporary consociations would have been unable (or at least unlikely) to adopt their institutional framework without the support—or, indeed, coercion—of external actors. This often takes the form of external actors structuring, organizing and mediating the talks that culminate in a power-sharing “agreement.” Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo are clear examples, as it was mainly international actors that designed and later imposed consensual decision-making rules (even signing on behalf of local actors in the case of Bosnia) (for Bosnia, see Merdzanovic 2015; for Kosovo, see Skenday 2014).

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The cases also exhibit variability according to the extent to which the agreement to share power has been formalized or constitutionalized. In the cases of Bosnia and Kosovo, for example, power-sharing provisions along consociational lines have been written into the constitutions of both countries. The same is the case for Belgium, where a process toward more corporate consociation and decentralization has occurred in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Likewise, Switzerland has many of its power-­ sharing institutions fixed in the constitution. In contrast to Bosnia and Kosovo, however, these allow for much more flexibility in their implementation as pointed out by Sean Mueller in Chap. 4. In Northern Ireland and South Tyrol, there have been regional statutes and frameworks, which have constitutional rank and ensure power-sharing at the regional level, albeit these regional statutes are embedded in wider international agreements. A similar approach might be taken in the future in Catalonia, as highlighted by Paul Anderson in this volume. Despite his call for the end of majoritarian politics in Spain, he highlights that Catalonia, too, is a divided territory: divided between Catalan and Spanish speakers and divided between those supporting the independence of Catalonia and those supporting its continued membership in Spain. Yet, it is worth highlighting that neither the Good Friday Agreement nor the South Tyrol autonomy statute is as such protected within the British and Italian constitutional frameworks, respectively. While the UK’s devolution process ensures that Northern Irish autonomy has some constitutional protection, the flexible and uncodified nature of the UK constitution makes changes, at least in theory, easy. In practice, however, there is clear evidence to show that adjusting and managing the framework for Northern Ireland is rather challenging, as pointed out by Cera Murtagh in Chap. 7. Likewise, in Italy, South Tyrol is protected as of one of five regions with special status, which ensures that some of its autonomy is secured in Italian constitutional law. But the regional power-sharing system, which brings together German, Italian and Ladin speakers, is not part of this constitutional architecture and is only protected by the regional and provincial statute. In fact, as highlighted by Elisabeth Alber in her contribution, South Tyrol’s power-sharing framework is part of a complex mix of regional statute, provincial arrangements and constitutional provisions— thereby ensuring that the provisions are protected at different levels. Regional power-sharing arrangements have become more common in recent years and have been discussed in areas such as North Kosovo and Catalonia (see here also Paul Anderson’s contribution in Chap. 9). Yet,

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key questions remain about the constitutional protection of regional autonomy and power-sharing institutions and their ability to reform and adapt within the wider constitutional framework of the host country. In North Macedonia and Kosovo, treaties and extra-constitutional agreements provided the framework for the current power-sharing arrangements. The Ohrid Framework Agreement for North Macedonia and the Ahtisaari Plan for Kosovo laid down provisions which resulted in numerous legal changes, including the adaption of the constitutional frameworks. Here, we can observe a mixture of formal and informal arrangements, especially in the case of North Macedonia. The absence of any constitutional mechanisms to enshrine long-term power-sharing can also be found in the classic cases. In the Netherlands, consociational power-sharing was exclusively informal; as Matthijs Bogaards demonstrates in Chap. 2, it was based on an elite consensus that cooperation would lead to better policies and politics. Similarly, Peter Bussjäger and Mirella Johler in Chap. 3 highlight the elite consensus on executive power-sharing in Austria after the experiences of the Second World War and in the wake of having to build an independent Austrian state (and identity) in the midst of the Cold War in Europe. This lack of constitutionalized and formalized power-sharing also explains why it has become less important in both countries over time and why a gradual transition away from consociational decision-making has been possible. What all the chapters in this volume show is that power-sharing arrangements, whether highly formalized and part of constitutional frameworks or more informal through separate agreements and practices over time, are always the result of a particular historic moment, in a country—a society—at a specific given moment. As Bogaards and Bussjäger  and Johler point out, the situation in the Netherlands and Austria changed over time, making consociational arrangements both less suited for social peace and stability and less appealing for elites. Likewise, as discussed by Mueller, the Switzerland of 2020 is very different from the Switzerland of 1848, when power-sharing was first institutionalized. Yet, in the Swiss case, while power-sharing has adapted, updated and evolved according to changing circumstances, its ongoing need and relevance are not disputed among Swiss political elites. This raises another issue: the way power-sharing systems come into being, and the way they adapt, change and shift and potentially end, has a substantial impact on their functioning. A consociation designed by domestic political elites who pre-emptively and mutually agree to share power as a way to ward off the deterioration of intergroup

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relations and even one where conflict actors, facing a mutually hurting stalemate, agree to channel their differences through institutional, rather than violent, means is very different from a consociation imposed on reluctant power-sharing partners by external actors. This undoubtedly affects functionality.

3   Functionality Just as the journey to consociation can follow multiple paths, how a consociation functions once adopted can lead to different outcomes. In the introduction, McCulloch raised the question of how to assess the functionality or performance of power-sharing arrangements. Minimally, functionality might entail an end to violent conflict, the securing of peace and the maintenance of the system (McGarry 2019); maximally, it might entail effective decision-making, consistent service delivery and regular public goods provisions (McEvoy 2017). Moreover, it is no easy feat to assess the extent of functionality, that is, whether a system is working well or if it is struggling and potentially close to collapse. By this, we mean the tendency for power-sharing systems to lean toward brinkmanship politics, where parties engage in high-stakes gambles which threaten to topple the system (e.g., Milorad Dodik’s tendency to use the threat of referendums to extract further concessions for Republika Srpska or the Janus-faced approach of the Serb List in Kosovo to engaging with both Pristina and Belgrade at the same time) makes it difficult to predict outcomes definitively. Collapse appears imminent but the parties are eventually able to pull themselves back from the brink and recalibrate the power-sharing relationship. Further, consociationalism’s end does not necessarily signal its failure. The end of consociationalism in the Netherlands and Austria can hardly be characterized as unsuccessful, as both countries remain thriving liberal democracies. Functionality, therefore, has to be assessed in the light of each power-­ sharing system’s capability to adapt, shift and change in order to maintain its initial usefulness—namely the protection of societal peace, inclusion of major groups in decision-making and accommodation of diversity within divided societies. Peace is important, but so too is the ability to govern. Consequently, while the surrounding circumstances shift and change, and while identities might evolve and adapt, so too are power-sharing systems required to adapt.

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Here, we can identify a two-dimension map of functional adaptation across the cases studied in this book. Along the X-axis, we can map the longevity of the system, that is, whether consociationalism has ended or whether it may be considered a more permanent feature of the political terrain, that is, a “fixed destination” rather than a transitional device (Maphai 1996: 78). On the Y-axis, we can consider the functionality of the system, that is, whether it works as intended (Fig. 11.1). In quadrant I, we have the cases of Switzerland, Belgium and South Tyrol. In these countries, power-sharing has remained relevant for a substantial period of time with the system adapting to new social and political circumstances. Political reforms have been enacted either through substantial state reforms, as was the case in Belgium, through careful constitutional revisions as in Switzerland or through revisions of the regional statute and further decentralization and institutionalization of different power-sharing rules as seen in South Tyrol. In each case, power-sharing functions as a result of two fundamental conditions. First, elites remain committed to the need for power-sharing and the framework in which it is to function. They did however—and this is the second condition for success—accept that their societies and territories were changing in light of political, social and economic influences. Hence, the question was never Fig. 11.1  Functional adaptation in European power-sharing cases Austria Netherlands

Switzerland Belgium South Tyrol

Cyprus

Bosnia and Herzegovina Kosovo North Macedonia Northern Ireland

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whether power-sharing should be abandoned but how to go about reforming and updating it to suit the new situation in which political elites found themselves. In Chap. 4, Sean Mueller highlights how religion has become less salient in Switzerland’s power-sharing system, but language and regional identities remain key markers of different identities; hence, there is a continued need for power-sharing in the country. In Chap. 8, Elisabeth Alber evaluates the struggle of German speakers in South Tyrol for accommodation, but she also emphasizes that power-sharing, once institutionalized, has not been questioned by the mainstream political actors in the region and has instead adapted to become more inclusive—but also stricter—through the quota system. Likewise, in Chap. 5, Patricia Popelier highlights how the Flemish language rights movement prompted the transformation of the Belgian state into one of the most decentralized systems in the world, in which the two main language groups are compelled to work together. The pressures brought about by such decentralization may throw up doubt among some parties about whether there should be a Belgian state at all, but as long as Belgium continues to exist, it will likely necessitate power-sharing institutions at the center. In quadrant II, we have cases in which power-sharing systems are adapted by withering away. As highlighted by Bogaards, there is no fixed point in which consociationalism ended in the Netherlands; it simply became less relevant over a period of time, aided in this process by its informal configuration. Bussjäger  and Johler see a similar trajectory in Austria. Although they provide a more precise timeframe than Bogaards, they are cautious about a fixed moment at which consociational power-­ sharing ended in Austria as well. In the case of Cyprus—the lone case in quadrant III—it is easier to identify the moment its consociation ended, namely when large-scale violence broke out between the communities and Turkish Cypriots left the joint institutions in 1963. Unlike the cases of the Netherlands and Austria, here power-sharing ended not because it had served its purpose, as identified by Lijphart (1969, 1977), but because power-sharing was unable to uphold societal peace in the wake of the two groups’ opposing political projects and the interference of neighboring countries, as discussed by John McGarry in Chap. 10. In quadrant IV we find the collection of “new wave” cases, where consociation was adopted after violent conflict and through external mediation efforts. In these cases, a move away from power-sharing seems unlikely, but so too has functional adaptation proven difficult. As John

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Hulsey and Soeren Keil highlight in Chap. 6, power-sharing in the Balkans has had mixed results. Here, a clear link to power-sharing adoptability can be made—the more power-sharing is imposed by external actors and the less it is based on domestic elite consensus and compromise, the less likely it is to function and thrive. In their comparison of Bosnia, Kosovo and North Macedonia, Hulsey and Keil contend that only North Macedonia is a success story, and only to a limited extent. In the other two countries, power-sharing has resulted in elite state capture and continued blockage of reform efforts, so that progress in Bosnia’s and Kosovo’s democratization and European Union integration is slow-going. Power-sharing, in other words, prevents functionality in these two countries, because it limits the democratic change and renewal of political elites and, by doing so, allows elites to focus less on political outcomes and progress and more on ethnic outbidding and group polarization. Elements of this polarization can also be found in Northern Ireland, where limited progress has been made since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement because of the unevenness of elite cooperation and compromise. Yet, where Northern Ireland differs from Bosnia and Kosovo is its capacity to reform and restart. This has happened multiple times, as discussed by Cera Murtagh in Chap. 7. While these “fresh starts” are not of the same magnitude of the Belgian state reforms or Swiss constitutional revisions, they too demonstrate the adaptability of the power-sharing system and the willingness of elites to reform the system (McEvoy 2017). Given the circumstances which brought these cases to power-sharing in the first place, it is not altogether surprising that they have struggled to meet maximalist definitions of functionality. Yet any assessment of their performance should also be tempered by the observation that the cases included in quadrant IV are today more peaceful and more inclusive than they were prior to the adoption of consociationalism. Power-sharing systems, we might therefore conclude, can wither away over time—they become less and less relevant and are consequently able to fade away. Or as Lijphart describes it, consociationalism can “render itself superfluous” (1977: 228). However, they might also reform, adapt, shift and change but remain relevant over a substantial period of time, as has been in the case in Switzerland, South Tyrol and Northern Ireland. Or, if imposed rather than voluntarily agreed to by elite bargaining and consensus, they might result in state capture and political stagnation, as seen in Bosnia and Kosovo. While the cases may have different outcomes, all the chapters in this volume highlight the importance of elites in the

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functionality of power-sharing systems. Hulsey and Keil, for example, demonstrate that, while the institutional set-up in Bosnia is not conducive to reaching consensus and making power-sharing work, it is local elites who undermine the system and pervert specific institutional elements such as the vital national interest veto. This highlights the important connection between adoptability and functionality: the specific set of institutions agreed at the point of adoption (especially in terms of whether they adhere to more of a liberal or corporate approach) and the circumstances under which they are adopted will inform the viability of the system itself over time. Power-sharing systems sometimes struggle to function, and, rather than adapting through grand reforms as seen in Belgium, they have to adjust through small  reforms and changes (McCulloch 2017). This has been the case in Northern Ireland, which did not fall into the trap of Bosnia and Kosovo; instead, here institutions and elites have demonstrated their ability to making the system work through small-scale reforms. Moreover, external actors, including the UK and the Irish governments, have played an important role in reviving power-sharing in Northern Ireland (McCulloch and McEvoy 2019). The same cannot be said about Bosnia’s and Kosovo’s neighboring countries, which have regularly interfered in the internal affairs of both countries and undermined their power-­ sharing agreements. Even attempts by international and European actors to make the systems work better—make them more functional—and break some of the deadlock have mainly failed in the two countries, but not, it is worth noting, in North Macedonia, where the EU played a key role in the democratic changes in 2017. More work is needed in order to understand when external actors can help stabilize and revitalize power-sharing arrangements and when their intervention spoils consensus and undermines consensual decision-making processes. While the EU played a supportive role in the democratic reforms undertaken in Macedonia in 2017, the EU has not always delivered on its promises in the Balkans. For North Macedonia, the amount of political capital expended to get to the Prespa Agreement—which resolved the country’s long-standing naming dispute with its neighbor, Greece—was not reciprocated in kind by the EU when France vetoed the opening of accession talks in 2019. That French veto, of course, draws analogies with consociationalism itself, where veto power is central to its decision-making process. Analyzing the EU’s institutional architecture through a consociational frame is not new as debates from the 1990s and early 2000s suggest

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(e.g., Gabel 1998; Bogaards and Crepaz 2002). We see some merit in this framing. Yet, we also share the perspective of those who have argued that comparative federalism, and not consociational power-sharing, better captures the nature of the EU and allows for a deeper analysis of the EU as a federal political system (Burgess 2000; Lehmbruch 2012). While the two frameworks are by no means exclusive, we believe that recent scholarship on the EU as a multilevel governance system has been particularly useful in furthering our understanding of its political system (Hooghe and Marks 2000). Having said this, however, it is also obvious that seeing the EU in terms of its consociational features reiterates a central theme of this volume: consociations come in all shapes and sizes.

4   End-ability Throughout the chapters in this book, three possible endings for power-­ sharing systems have been discussed. First, there is a gradual transition away from consociation. In the cases of the Netherlands and Austria, consociation ended because it became less relevant to decision-making processes in light of changes in their respective societies, economies and politics throughout the second half of the twentieth century. Second, power-sharing can end by violent collapse. In Cyprus, consociational power-sharing ended not because the rather imposed constitutional settlement of 1960 did not provide for a transition to joint decision-making and peaceful coexistence but because different domestic political agendas and influences from outside actors contributed to further polarization between the power-sharing partners. It did so to such an extent that the system collapsed as a result of political deadlock and widespread interethnic violence. Finally, in all other cases, we still see power-sharing in operation today. Here, it has not ended but adapted over time, as discussed in the previous section, and where it has not, we see centrifugal pressures on the system, negatively affecting functionality. The chapters in this book raise wider questions over the purpose of power-sharing. While Arend Lijphart’s earlier writings (e.g., his 1977 book, Democracy in Plural Societies) suggest that consociational power-­ sharing is often a transitional arrangement that can eventually give way to more competitive forms of democracy, this trend and prediction can be confirmed only partially when looking at the cases discussed in this volume. It holds true for the Netherlands and Austria, countries that developed as predicted by Lijphart (1977: 228)—the very existence of

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power-sharing over a substantial period of time built enough trust and cooperation among elites that formalized power-sharing mechanisms became less important. This, plus socioeconomic changes in both countries, explains why we see the transition of consociationalism to more majoritarian and competitive forms of decision-making in the two cases. Elsewhere, however, this transition has not taken place. The question therefore arises: why, for example, was Austria able to move away from power-sharing, while Switzerland has remained committed to its consociational decision-making, albeit with several major reforms of its constitutional framework? The answer to this question is multifaceted, but at the heart of it lies the root motivation for power-sharing: diversity in society. This diversity, characterized by language and regional identity, has not gone away and remains important for Swiss politics today (Linder and Mueller 2020). While identities formed around political ideologies, social classes and religion might become less relevant in contemporary European societies, which are becoming ever-more secular, liberal and less class-­ centric, identities focused on language, ethnicity or national belonging do not seem to become less salient. If anything, the opposite trend can be observed, with an increase in identity politics across the globe (Fukuyama 2019). This also explains the continued need for power-sharing arrangements as an instrument of peace-keeping, both in Europe (e.g., in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Kosovo) and beyond. When power-sharing ends violently, it is hard to reinstall. In the case of Cyprus, the end of consociationalism resulted in the ultimate division of the island and a current status quo which suits both groups but especially the Greek Cypriots, as pointed out by John McGarry in Chap. 10. When Slobodan Milosevic undermined the fine-tuned power-sharing arrangement between the different Republics in Yugoslavia, it too resulted in large-scale violence and the breakup of the country (Ramet 2006). Paul Anderson, in his discussion of Spain and Catalonia in Chap. 9, makes the argument the other way around. In the absence of more consensus-­ oriented politics in Spain (and Catalonia) and a clear willingness by elites on all sides to find compromise and work together, the Spanish state will remain contested, and calls for Catalan independence will persist. The chapters suggest that the debates over whether power-sharing should be seen as only a transitional device are, in some respects, misplaced. The crux of the issue is not so much when power-sharing should end but whether, as an institutional response to deep division, it can adapt to changing societal, economic and political circumstances. Consequently,

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the success of consociationalism should not (just) be measured by whether a society no longer needs the “stronger medicine” of consociationalism (Lijphart 2008: 8) and can instead function with a more majoritarian form of democracy. In some cases, the move to majoritarian democracy would not induce “normal” politics; it would instead retrigger mistrust and exclusion (McCulloch 2017). Here, success can be seen not by the system’s end, but by its ability to adapt and evolve over the long term. Not all consociations are equipped for adaptability, as anyone familiar with the attempts at political reforms to the Bosnian presidency is well aware. This suggests that the underlying logic of the system—corporate or liberal—is important for its adaptability, with corporate rules generally more difficult to reform. It is not the whole story, however, as the substantial reforms in corporate Belgium and South Tyrol highlight. Territorial autonomy may be another part of the equation. Federations can have their own rigidity—especially in relation to the enactment of political reforms— but where they can serve as a kind of institutional safety net so that minorities can continue to protect their vital interests, even in the absence of consociational guarantees, they can support a consociation’s end-ability, as was the case in Austria. Above all, it is the ability to anticipate moments of stalemate between power-sharing partners that makes the difference. This means building in deadlock-breaking mechanisms from the start. Strategies proposed elsewhere include post-settlement settlements and their accompanying ad hoc high-level talks between parties in the face of stalemate, some form of external mediation (such as “placing outsiders in swing positions on supreme courts”) and even what has been called “living consociationalism,” which is where “‘minor institutional reforms’ are adopted through ‘less demanding procedures’; ‘medium institutional reforms’ are adopted procedures with a ‘medium level of stringency’; [and] ‘major institutional reforms’ are adopted through ‘highly demanding procedures’” (du Toit 2003; McCulloch 2017; McGarry 2017: 284; Cochrane, Loizides and Bodson 2018: 66). The chapters here confirm this emphasis on dialogue and the joint resolution of joint matters. Institutions which keep parties talking to one another remain key to successful adaptation and to avoiding the worst forms of power-sharing’s end. This brings us back to the beginning. No constitution, peace agreement or autonomy statute can plan for any and all eventualities, but well-designed institutions can help to set a divided society on the right course, whether this results in the eventual

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end of power-sharing when the time is right or whether it entails the sharing of power over the long term.

5   Where to Next? We started this volume by noting the enduring nature of the consociationalism research program. For more than 50 years now, scholars and practitioners have debated the merits of consociationalism and have found both support for and against this mode of democracy in divided societies. In our contribution to these debates, we have centered three lines of inquiry, focusing on the claims that consociationalism is difficult to adopt, difficult to function and difficult to reform and even harder to end. The critiques of adoptability, functionality and end-ability are all, to some degree, grounded in empirical reality but, we suggest, do not tell the whole story. The chapters in this book provide some of that necessary context—at least in the case of European power-sharing systems—for explaining consociationalism’s uneven track record. Beyond fleshing out the reasons for a mixed track record, the chapters also orient us toward new lines of inquiry and further areas of exploration of consociational performance. Let us conclude by briefly outlining three such avenues. In focusing on the twin questions of “how do consociations come in and out of being?” and “how do they work in practice?,” we also asked our contributing authors to reflect on any pressing challenges facing their respective cases. One theme repeated throughout the chapters was the need to navigate wider political trends playing out all across Europe. Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, South Tyrol and Spain are all grappling with widening party polarization and the growing popularity of right-wing populist parties, such as the Freedom Party, Party for Freedom, Swiss People’s Party, Lega and Vox. The rising popularity of Vlaams Belang, a party which combines Flemish separatism with right-­ wing populism, illustrates the challenges. Despite its strong electoral showing—the party came in second among Flemish parties elected to the Belgian Chamber of Representatives in the 2019 elections—it remains the subject of a cordon sanitaire, keeping it out of government. On the face of it, this may seem at odds with a style of government predicated on, ostensibly, letting all parties governing together. Yet, as Brendan O’Leary has demonstrated, a coalition is consociational when it includes at least plurality support from all the major segments, not that it has to include all

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parties in government (O’Leary 2005), suggesting that, as long as the Flemish are well-represented in government—which the constitutional rules mandate—the coalition need not include all parties. As the commitment to the cordon sanitaire starts to unravel, Belgium will serve as an important test case for how to manage right-wing populism in a consociational context (see Bogaards 2020). This challenge extends beyond the classic cases. Populist politics are also evident in the immigration debates in South Tyrol, in the Brexit fallout still unfolding in Northern Ireland and in the enduring popularity of populist politicians, such as Milorad Dodik and Albin Kurti in the Balkans, as well as the increasing radicalization of Mariano Rajoy while serving as Spanish Prime Minister. In addition to having to mediate the complex national, ethnic, religious and linguistic cleavages in place, many of the European consociations are now also contending with how to mediate new and stark ideological divides. Understanding the connection between populism and consociationalism—does populism overburden an already-­ fragile system? Does consociationalism encourage politicians to take up populist rhetoric? Should extremist parties be kept out of grand coalitions?—remains a relatively under-explored area, so directing our attention toward the relationship can offer new ways of assessing consociational functionality. A second area worth (re)visiting is the relationship between consociationalism and federalism. While a 1985 debate between Daniel Elazar and Arend Lijphart  and others highlighted the differences between the two approaches, the chapters in this volume tell a different story. In all but one chapter (The Netherlands), there is a clear connection between territorial autonomy and consociational power-sharing. In other words, the two seem to go hand in hand rather than rival each other. They are, then, different sides of the same coin when trying to manage ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity in deeply divided territories (Keil 2013, Caluwaerts and Reuchamps 2015, Anderson and Keil 2018). While autonomy provisions played a key role in encouraging the functionality of power-sharing arrangements in South Tyrol and Northern Ireland, it has decreased functionality of power-sharing in Bosnia, as highlighted by Hulsey and Keil in this volume. In Catalonia, Anderson argues that the focus has always been on territorial autonomy and not on formal power-sharing, while John McGarry highlights the linkages of the two concepts in relation to the current debates about reunification in Cyprus. When looking at the more recent uses of power-sharing in Europe and beyond, we find a clear

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pattern of linking power-sharing and territorial autonomy (this is the case in Belgium, Bosnia, Kosovo and Northern Ireland in Europe since the end of the Cold War, as well as in Iraq and Sudan). More research is needed on the relationship between consociational power-sharing and federalism in order to elucidate the conditions under which they reinforce and support each other, contributing to peace-building and state functionality, and the conditions under which they contradict each other, preventing functionality, as has been observed in Bosnia. Finally, while we have focused in this volume on power-sharing on a single continent—Europe—questions of adoptability, functionality and end-ability may play out differently in other contexts. There are important lessons about power-sharing adoptability from, for example, the ongoing peace process for Syria (Salamey, Abu-Nimer and Abouaoun 2018) about how weak adoptability translates into dysfunctionality from Iraq (McEvoy and Aboultaif 2020), about how power-sharing functionality can give way to stalemate and chronic crisis from Lebanon (Nagle and Clancy 2019, Deets and Skulte-Ouaiss 2016) and about the prospects of peaceful power-­ sharing end-ability from Burundi (Vandeginste 2017), to name only a few. Though initially conceptualized with European countries in mind, power-­ sharing theory and practice have traveled the globe, taking new forms and offering new insights. There is, consequently, still much more to know about how consociations come in and out of being and how they work in practice. In sum, the debates on power-sharing carry on.

References Anderson, P., & Keil, S. (2018). Decentralization as a Tool of Conflict Resolution. In E.  Hepburn & K.  Detterbeck (Eds.), Handbook of Territorial Politics (pp. 89–106). Cheltenham and Northampton: Edward Elgar. Bogaards, M. (2020). Militant Consociational Democracy: The Political Exclusion of the Extreme Right in Belgium. In S. Baume & S. Novak (Eds.), Democracy and Compromise. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Bogaards, M., & Crepaz, M. (2002). Consociational Interpretations of the European Union. European Union Politics, 3(3), 357–381. Burgess, M. (2000). Federalism and European Union—The Building of Europe 1950–2000. London: Routledge. Caluwaerts, D., & Reuchamps, M. (2015). Combining Federalism with Consociationalism: Is Belgian Consociational Federalism Digging its Own Grave? Ethnopolitics, 14(3), 277–295.

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Cochrane, F., Loizides, N., & Bodson, T. (2018). Mediating Power Sharing: Devolution and Consociationalism in Deeply Divided Societies. London: Routledge. Deets, S., & Skulte-Ouaiss, J. (2016). Jumping out of the ‘Hobbesian Fishbowl’ and into the Fire: Lebanon, Elections, and Chronic Crisis. Demokratizatsiya, 24(4), 513–530. Du Toit, P. (2003). Why Post-settlement Settlements? Journal of Democracy, 14(3), 104–118. Fukuyama, F. (2019). Identity: Contemporary Identity Politics and the Struggle for Recognition. London: Profile Books. Gabel, M. (1998). The Endurance of Supranational Governance: A Consociational Interpretation of the European Union. Comparative Politics, 30(4), 463–475. Hooghe, L., & Marks, G. (2000). Multilevel Governance and European Integration. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Keil, S. (2013). Multinational Federalism in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Farnham: Ashgate. Lehmbruch, G. (2012). Die Entwicklung der vergleichenden Politikforschung und die Entdeckung der Konkordanzdemokratie—eine historisch-­institutionelle Perspektive. In S.  Köppl & U.  Krahnenpohl (Eds.), Konkordanzdemoratie— Ein Demokratietyp der Vergangenheit? (pp. 33–50). Baden-Baden: Nomos. Lijphart, A. (1969). Consociational Democracy. World Politics, 21(2), 207–225. Lijphart, A. (1977). Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration. New Haven: Yale University Press. Lijphart, A. (2008). Thinking About Democracy: Power Sharing and Majority Rule in Theory and Practice. London: Routledge. Linder, W., & Mueller, S. (2020). Swiss Democracy: Possible Solutions to Conflict in Multicultural Societies (4th ed.). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Maphai, V. (1996). A Season for Power-sharing. Journal of Democracy, 7(1), 67–81. McCulloch, A. (2014). Power-Sharing and Political Stability in Deeply Divided Societies. London: Routledge. McCulloch, A. (2017). Pathways from Power-Sharing. Civil Wars, 19(4), 405–424. McCulloch, A., & McEvoy, J. (2019). ‘Bumps in the Road Ahead’: How External Actors Defuse Power-Sharing Crises. Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 13(2), 216–235. McEvoy, J. (2017). Power-Sharing and the Pursuit of Good Governance: Evidence from Northern Ireland. In A. McCulloch & J. McGarry (Eds.), Power-Sharing: Empirical and Normative Challenges. London: Routledge. McEvoy, J., & Aboultaif, E. (2020). Power-Sharing Challenges: From Weak Adoptability to Dysfunction in Iraq. Ethnopolitics. Online First. McGarry, J. (2017). What Explains the Performance of Power-sharing Settlements? In A.  McCulloch & J.  McGarry (Eds.), Power-Sharing: Empirical and Normative Challenges. London: Routledge.

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McGarry, J. (2019). Classical Consociational Theory and Recent Consociational Performance. Swiss Political Science Review, 25(4), 538–555. Merdzanovic, A. (2015). Democracy by Decree: Prospects and Limits of Imposed Consociational Democracy in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Stuttgart: Ibidem. Nagle, J., & Clancy, M. A. (2019). Power-Sharing after Civil War: Thirty Years since Lebanon’s Taif Agreement. Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 25(1), 1–8. Noel, S. (Ed.). (2005). From Power Sharing to Democracy: Post-Conflict Institutions in Ethnically Divided Societies. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. O’Leary, B. (2005). Debating Consociational Politics: Normative and Explanatory Arguments. In S. Noel (Ed.), From Power-sharing to Democracy: Post-conflict Institutions in Ethnically Divided Societies (pp.  3–43). Montreal: McGill-­ Queen’s University Press. Ramet, S. (2006). The Three Yugoslavias: State-Building and Legitimation, 1918–2005. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Centre Press. Salamey, I., Abu-Nimer, M., & Abouaoun, E. (Eds.). (2018). Post-Conflict Power-­ Sharing Agreements: Options for Syria. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Sisk, T. (1996). Power Sharing and International Mediation in Ethnic Conflicts. Washington, DC: United States Institute for Peace. Skenday, E. (2014). Creating Kosovo: International Oversight and the Making of Ethical Institutions. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Centre Press. Vandeginste, S. (2017). Exit Arusha? Pathways from Power-sharing in Burundi. A Manuscript Outline. Working Paper 2017.01. Antwerp: Institute of Development Policy and Management.

Index1

A Abortion (Northern Ireland), 12, 143, 155, 158–161 Adaptability, 13, 14, 195, 264, 268 See also Functional adaptation Adoptability, 1–16, 257–261, 264, 265, 269, 271 AKEL (Cyprus), 241, 246, 249n34 Alarm bell procedure, 97, 101, 103, 184 Alliance Party (Northern Ireland), 143, 151, 152, 158 Anastasiades, Nicos (Cyprus), 241n21, 246 Ankara (Cyprus), 233, 234 Annan Plan (Cyprus), 234–250 Annexation (South Tyrol), 172, 174, 183 Anti-consociational sentiment (Belgium), 10, 90 Arusha Accords (Burundi), 251

Asymmetrization, 99 Asymmetry, 105–106, 189, 193, 214, 220 Austria, 2, 7–10, 14, 15, 21, 32, 44–62, 172, 175–177, 179, 229, 258, 260, 261, 263, 266–269 Austrian Constitutional Court, 48 Austrian Convention, 59 Autonomous Communities (Spain), 14, 203, 206–209, 213n5, 213n6, 216 Autonomy convention (South Tyrol), 14, 219 -statute (South Tyrol), 172, 176, 177, 192, 259, 268 B Barcelona, 220 Declaration of, 215, 215n7 Basque Country, 203–207, 209–210

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s) 2021 S. Keil, A. McCulloch (eds.), Power-Sharing in Europe, Federalism and Internal Conflicts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53590-2

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INDEX

Belfast Agreement, 149, 251 Belgium, 2, 8, 10, 11, 32, 76, 90–110, 216, 229, 258, 259, 262, 263, 265, 268–271 Belgrade, 135, 261 Berücksichtigungsprinzip, 48 Bicameralism, 10, 46, 70, 74–75, 80, 83 Bilingualism, 96, 178 Bill of Rights (for Northern Ireland), 149, 157 Bolzano/Bozen (South Tyrol), 172, 173, 177–180, 183, 187, 189, 192, 192n15 Bosnia and Herzegovina, 6, 7, 11, 116, 116n1, 118, 120–122, 126–127, 144, 147, 258 Breakdown (of consociationalism), 6, 145, 240 Brexit, 154, 155, 163, 270 Brussels, 90–93, 96–99, 99n5, 101, 103, 103n9, 105, 107, 211n3 Burundi, 144, 250, 251, 271 C Calvinists (The Netherlands), 21, 22, 24, 24n4, 24n5, 31 Canada, 76, 216 Catalan independence movement, 202 Catalonia, 14, 202–221, 259, 267, 270 Catholic Church, 92, 94 Catholics, 21–24, 24n5, 29, 71, 73, 83, 91, 94, 97, 149, 151n2, 164 Centralism, 49, 53, 55, 62, 204, 206, 208, 209 Christofias, Demetris (Cyprus), 241n22, 244–246 Classic, or classical consociationalism, 44, 53, 60, 61, 229, 250 Cleavages

in Belgium, 91–95 ethnic divisions, 182 ideological division, 94, 270 Coalition-building, 5 Coalition formation, 117, 118, 121, 124, 128, 130 Cold War, 53, 144, 260, 271 Collegialism, 10, 70, 74, 75, 80 Commission of 19 (South Tyrol), 176 Commission of Six (South Tyrol), 179–182, 194 Communities (Belgium), 1, 10, 11, 13–15, 28, 55, 89, 90, 92, 94, 95, 97–102, 103n9, 104–107, 110, 117, 118, 120–124, 130, 133, 134, 143, 148, 149, 151n2, 152, 153, 157, 160, 164, 213n6, 217, 230n5, 231–237, 236n11, 240, 242–245, 245n29, 248, 251, 263 Community Flemish Community, 90, 99, 100, 103, 103n9 French Community, 90, 99, 104 Compromise, 5, 6, 8, 10, 21, 32, 54, 59, 68–84, 91, 94, 105, 123, 152, 157, 182, 202–221, 236, 237, 240, 244, 264, 267 Confederalism, 83, 90, 106, 108–109 Confidence and supply agreement, 155 Consensus democracy, 9, 15, 33–35, 90, 95, 110 Consociationalism grand coalitions, 32, 59, 60, 120, 205, 270 mutual veto, 32 proportionality, 31, 32, 216, 241 segmental autonomy, 32, 46 Constitutional Framework for Provisional Self Government (Kosovo), 119 Cooperative federalism, 48, 58

 INDEX 

Corporate consociation, 4, 7, 16, 27n10, 259 Corporatism, 9, 44–62 Crans-Montana talks (Cyprus), 239n16, 244–250 Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), 126, 127 Cross-cuttingness, 70–73, 84 Cypriot-owned, Cypriot-led, 244 Cyprus Greek Cypriots, 15, 228–250, 229n3, 230n5, 230n6, 232n8, 236n11, 239n15, 241n21, 241n22, 242n25, 245n28, 245n29, 247n32, 249n34, 250n36, 252, 267 Turkish Cypriots, 15, 229–238, 229n3, 230n5, 230n6, 235n9, 235n10, 236n11, 240–250, 240n19, 242n25, 245n28, 245n29, 245n30, 245n31, 248n33, 250n36, 252, 263 D Dayton Peace Agreement, 117 Decentralization, 8, 11, 47, 117, 118, 123, 124, 133–135, 180, 203, 205–207, 209, 214, 259, 262, 263 Deliberative democracy, 15, 219 Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), 128, 129 Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), 128, 129, 132 Democratic Union for Integration (DUI) (North Macedonia), 129, 130 Democratic Unionist party (Northern Ireland), 12, 143, 146, 150–156, 158n3, 159–161

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Denktash, Rauf, 240n19 De-pillarization, 9, 35, 57, 57n9 Direct democracy, 10, 68, 70, 74, 76, 80, 83, 84 DISY (Cyprus), 241, 241n21, 246, 249n34 Dodik, Milorad, 261, 270 Double parity, 180 Dyadic federalism, 104–105, 107 E Elazar, Daniel, 6, 9, 91, 104, 105, 110, 214, 270 Elite accommodation, 1 Elizabeth (II), Queen of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, 12 Emancipation, 21, 23–25, 27, 29, 29n17, 30, 36 See also Pillars, emancipative power End-ability, 1–16, 257, 266–269, 271 Enosis (union), 16, 229, 232–234, 232n8 Entities (Bosnia and Herzegovina), 11, 90, 97–100, 102, 105, 106, 108, 109, 122, 123, 127, 134, 147, 206, 214–217, 240 Equality Commission (Northern Ireland), 149 Ethnic outbidding, 3, 145, 264 Ethnic quota system (South Tyrol), 178, 187, 189–190 European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), 7, 50n4, 147 Europeanization, 80, 82, 83 European Union accession, 243, 244, 248 European Union, as consociation, 61, 244, 265, 266 European Union, as federation, 58

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INDEX

European Union (EU), 58, 60, 61, 80–82, 93, 119, 153–156, 179, 239, 242–244, 242n24, 247–249, 252, 264–266 Exclusion amid inclusion dilemma, 143, 146 Exclusive Economic Zone (Cyprus), 249 F Federal Constitution of Austria, 49–51, 54 Federal Council (Switzerland), 55, 74, 78, 81, 83, 101 Federalism, 3, 4, 8–10, 16, 44–62, 69, 70, 74–76, 80, 84, 90, 93, 100, 103–107, 109, 121, 266, 270, 271 Federalism and consociationalism, 8, 10, 11, 90, 214 Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnia and Herzegovina), 11, 120, 147 See also Entities First Autonomy Statute (First ASt) (South Tyrol), 176, 178 First Republic (Austria), 45, 51–54 Flanders, 11, 93, 94, 96, 107, 108, 110 Flemish Movement, 92, 95, 96 Fortuyn, Pim, 33 FPÖ (Austrian Freedom Party), 56, 57, 59–62 Fragmentation, 45, 61, 126, 127, 184, 205 Franco, General Francisco, 204 Functional adaptation, 262, 263 Functionality, 3, 5, 6, 8, 12, 15, 16, 117, 257, 261–266, 269–271 Functionality and longevity of consociationalism, 5, 6, 12, 270

G Gaelic Athletic Association games, 12 Germany, 34, 45, 51, 52 Ghali, Boutros Boutros, 235 Ghali Set of Ideas (Cyprus), 235, 246 Good Friday Agreement (GFA), 12, 13, 148–151, 153–155, 157, 161, 163, 251, 259, 264 See also Belfast Agreement Grand bargain (Austria), 9, 46–48, 258 Grand coalition, 2, 32, 51, 55, 56, 59, 60, 120, 121, 128, 144, 205, 270 Greece, 15, 116n2, 130, 229–233, 242, 242n24, 243, 248, 249, 265 Gruber-De Gasperi Agreement (South Tyrol), 175, 176, 189 Gruevski, Nikola, 129, 130, 133 H High Level Agreements (Cyprus), 235 Hillsborough Agreement (Northern Ireland), 151 Horizontal power-sharing, 44, 173, 174, 179, 182, 187–191 Horowitz, Donald, 2, 6, 7, 145, 149, 228, 237n13 Human Rights Commission (Northern Ireland), 149 Hybrid consociation, 145 I Independence referendum, Catalonia, 202 Institutional reform (by country), 13, 98, 268 See also Institutional tinkering Institutional tinkering, 35, 203, 213

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279

Integration, 21, 22, 24–27, 28n12, 30, 30n18, 36, 53, 54, 71, 80, 82, 97, 145, 161, 173, 194, 264 Intergovernmentalism, 148 Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization-Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity, 129, 130 Internal violent conflict, 12 Iraq, 144, 250, 252, 271 Irish language, 153, 154, 157, 158n3 Irredentism, 233 Islamic pillar, 9, 21, 26–30, 36 See also Muslim pillar (the Netherlands) Italy, 14, 45, 172–177, 179, 193, 194, 259

Ladin, 175n2, 181, 184n8, 187, 188 linguistic minority, 71 parity (Belgium), 94, 101, 102 Lebanon, 7, 21, 144, 271 LGBT+, 147, 153, 155, 158n3, 159 Liberal consociationalism, 11, 27n10, 133, 134, 218 Liberals (The Netherlands), 23n3, 33, 70 Lijphart, Arend, 1, 2, 6, 9, 21–23, 23n3, 26, 26n9, 27, 27n10, 29–36, 30n19, 36n24, 44–47, 90, 117, 120, 144, 228–231, 237n13, 250, 251, 263, 264, 266, 268, 270 Living consociationalism, 268

J Johnson, Boris, 156

M Macedonia, 11, 12, 116n2, 118–124, 126, 129–133, 135, 265 Macedonian Revolutionary Organization–Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity (VMRO-DPMNE), 129, 130 Macedonia wiretapping scandal, 130, 133 Madrid, 202, 204, 206, 207, 212, 220 Magic formula (Switzerland), 69 Majoritarian democracy, 33, 34, 90, 203, 220, 268 Makarios, Archbishop, 231, 232 Marriage equality, 12, 142, 153, 155, 158 See also Same-sex marriage May, Theresa, 155 Migration, 28, 29, 80–82, 91, 94, 95 Milošević, Slobodan, 119, 267 Minorities linguistic, 16, 71, 146, 191 Mistrust, 12, 107, 150, 268

K Kelsen, Hans, 49, 50 Kompatscher, Arno, 172 Komšić, Željko, 127 Kosovo, 6, 8, 11, 12, 116–124, 126, 128–135, 144, 258–260, 264, 265, 267, 271 Kurti, Albin, 129, 131, 270 Kurz, Sebastian, 61, 62 L Lager (Austria), 44, 52–54, 57 Länder (Austria), 48–50, 55–58, 61, 62 Landeshauptleutekonferenz (Austria), 44, 48 Language exams (South Tyrol), 191

280 

INDEX

Modernization, 23–25, 57 Multiculturalism, 30, 30n18, 36 Multi-dimensional power-sharing, 9, 10, 44 Municipalities, 8, 70, 75, 82, 96, 97, 122, 123, 189, 190, 231–233 Muslim pillar (the Netherlands), 22, 27n11, 28, 29n17, 36 N Napoleon, 71 National Council (Cyprus), 55, 59, 69, 74, 77, 82, 234, 236, 236n11, 238 Nationalism, 95, 126, 148, 158, 162, 163, 204, 208, 221 NATO, 93, 118, 119, 128, 244 Neo-corporatism, 53 Netherlands, the, 1, 2, 7–10, 15, 20–36, 45n1, 92, 229, 237n13, 258, 260, 261, 263, 266, 269, 270 New Decade, New Approach (Northern Ireland), 156 New wave cases (of power-sharing), 5, 8, 9, 263 See also New-wave power-sharing New-wave power-sharing, 2, 5, 8, 9, 263 Non-dominant groups, 146 North Macedonia, 6, 8, 11, 116–124, 116n2, 129–130, 133–135, 258, 260, 264, 265 See also Macedonia Northern Ireland, 6–8, 12–14, 135, 142–164, 250–252, 258, 259, 264, 265, 267, 270, 271 Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive, 148, 149

O Ohrid Framework Agreement (OFA), 118–122, 129, 133, 260 Others, 118, 145, 158 See also Non-dominant groups ÖVP (Austrian People’s Party), 50, 53, 54n5, 56, 57, 59–61 P Pacificatie politiek (the Netherlands), 31, 32 Pacification of 1917, 9, 20, 31, 35 Package, the (South Tyrol), 56, 176–179, 247 Pacted transition, Spain, 204 Parades and flags (Northern Ireland), 12 Paris Peace Treaty (1947) (South Tyrol), 175 Parliamentarism, 46, 52 Partisanship, 56, 204, 245 Partition, 7, 15, 229, 230, 230n6, 232–244, 245n31, 248 Party for Democratic Action (SDA), 126, 127, 132–134 Party polarization, 11, 80, 269 Peloponnesian war, 244 Petition of concern (PoC) (Northern Ireland), 13, 143, 150, 152, 157, 159–161 Pillarization, 9, 21–30, 24n6, 28n12, 29n17, 33, 35, 36, 36n24, 44, 54 Pillars emancipative qualities, 9, 21, 23–25, 29n17 ghettoization, 26 modernization, 23–25 Plurinationalism, 14, 15, 203, 209, 210, 214–217, 220

 INDEX 

Polarization, 10, 11, 31, 32, 70, 80–84, 105, 143, 162, 205, 212, 218, 219, 221, 264, 266, 269 Polder politics, 20–36 Political competition, 6, 11, 16, 76, 80, 124–126, 130–134, 183 Politics of accommodation, 8, 30–32, 35 Populism and consociationalism, 270 Portugal, 242, 242n24 Power-dividing, 90, 95–103 Power-sharing horizontal, 44, 75, 173, 174, 179, 182, 187–191 new-wave, 2, 5, 8, 9, 263 regional, 13, 218, 259 vertical, 75, 173, 179–182, 180n7 Presidentialism, 46, 182, 236n11, 237 Prespa Agreement, 265 Pristina, 261 Protestants, 22, 24, 24n4, 24n5, 28n12, 29, 31, 71, 83, 149 R Rajoy, Mariano, 210, 270 Realpolitik, 235, 242, 252 Referendums, 69, 75, 82, 83, 149, 155, 174, 177, 192n13, 192n14, 202, 202n1, 209–212, 217, 221, 232n8, 237, 237n12, 239, 243, 243n26, 261 See also Direct democracy Refugees, property, territory (Cyprus), 229, 235, 238 Regional consociation, 13, 14, 16, 218, 219 Renner, Karl, 51 Republic of Ireland, 12–14, 149, 155

281

Republika Srpska (Serb Republic) (Bosnia and Herzegovina), 11, 120, 147, 261 See also Entities Residual powers, 192 S St Andrews Agreement (Northern Ireland), 150, 151, 154, 162 Same-sex marriage, 143, 152, 155, 159 Scale of adoptability, 258 Schooling and autonomy, 32 School Pact (Belgium), 94 Schüssel, Wolfgang, 59, 60, 62 SDS (Bosnia and Herzegovina), 126, 127 Second Autonomy Statute (Second ASt) (South Tyrol), 172, 173, 175, 177–181, 183, 184, 184n8, 186, 188, 189, 192n14, 194 Second Republic (Austria), 45, 53–56, 61 Second Spanish Republic, 203 Secularization, 23, 25, 94 Self-determination, 2, 3, 15, 16, 27, 175, 177, 203, 213, 217, 218, 233–235, 238–241, 240n19, 244, 250 Self-determination and security, 4, 229, 238, 241, 244, 252 Serb Democratic Party (SDS), 126 Serb enclaves (Kosovo), 11 Serbia, 118, 119, 123 Serb List/Srpska Lista (Kosovo), 11, 128, 132, 135, 261 Single Transferrable Vote (STV), 149 Sinn Féin, 12, 143, 146, 150–156, 159–161, 163–164 SNSD (Bosnia and Herzegovina), 126, 127

282 

INDEX

Socialists (The Netherlands), 21, 22, 23n3, 31, 51, 52, 126, 214 Social partnership (Austria), 44, 54, 58, 61, 62 Social politics, 55 South Sudan, 271 South Tyrol, 8, 13, 14, 172–195, 219, 258, 259, 262–264, 268–270 South Tyrol, as consociational success, 13 South Tyrolean People’s Party (SVP), 77, 78, 80–83, 175n2, 176, 177, 183–187, 193 Spain, 8, 14, 202–221, 259, 267, 269 Spanish civil war, 204, 205 Spanish Constitutional Court, 216 Spanish People’s Party (PP), 208–210, 217 Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), 202, 206–208, 211, 212, 215 Spielregelverfassung (Austria), 50, 55 SPÖ (Social Democratic Party of Austria), 50, 53, 54, 54n5, 56–60 Ständestaat (Austria), 45, 52 State capture, 6, 118, 132–134, 264 State dissolution (Belgium), 11, 107, 109 Stormont House Agreement (Northern Ireland), 152 Suárez’, Adolfo, 204–206 Sudan, 271 Sunningdale Agreement (Northern Ireland), 250 Suspension of Catalan autonomy, 212 Swiss Peoples’ Party (SVP), 69, 70, 269 Switzerland, 2, 8–11, 21, 32, 34, 45, 51, 68–84, 135, 172, 229, 246, 258–260, 262–264, 267, 269 Syria, 235n10, 251, 271

T Taksim (partition), 16, 232, 236 Talat, Mehmet Al (Cyprus), 244–246 Territorial autonomy, 8, 124, 133, 172–195, 268, 270, 271 Territorial model in Spain, 203, 205, 206, 209, 215 Treaty of Alliance (Cyprus), 233, 234, 238, 248 Treaty of Guarantee (Cyprus), 233, 234, 238, 248 Trentino-South Tyrol, 172, 174, 176–178, 191, 193 Trento (South Tyrol), 172, 173, 177, 178, 180n7, 192n15 Turkey, 15, 229–235, 238–241, 239n15, 243–250 Turkish military, 4, 230, 238, 240, 244, 246, 247 Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), 234, 240n19, 243 Turkish troops, see Turkish military Typology of democracy, 32, 33 U Unilateralism, 119, 121, 233, 234 Union of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), 126, 127 Unitary state, 50, 90, 98, 191 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK) UK government, 152, 155, 157, 252 UK Parliament, 143, 152 UK Secretary of State (for Northern Ireland), 149, 156 United Kingdom of the Netherlands, 92 United Nations (UN) Peacekeepers, 248

 INDEX 

Peacekeeping Mission in Cyprus (UNFICYP), 234 Security Council, 237 Security Council Resolutions, 243 UN-led administration (Kosovo), 119 V Vertical power-sharing, 75, 173, 179–182, 180n7 Vetevendosje (Kosovo), 129 Veto powers, 5, 15, 55, 122, 123, 173, 215, 216, 216n8, 231, 236, 265 Vienna, Congress of, 71 Vlaams Belang, 108, 269 Vox (Spanish Party), 212, 217, 221, 269

283

W Wallonia, 11, 95, 110 Western Balkans, 116–135 Wiretapping scandal (North Macedonia), 130, 133 World Politics (journal), 1 World War Two/World War II/ WWII, 93, 94, 96 Y Yugoslavia Federal Republic of, 117 Socialist Federal Republic of, 118 Z Zaev, Zoran, 130