Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Why consociation, why agonistic, and why for Iraq? In societies increasingly multicultural, consociational political representation is normatively speaking better than assimilation in French republican or liberal nationalist style and better too than integration in liberal multiculturalist style. In particular, deliberative political discourse and tighter forms of consociation inspired by Rawls’s Law of Peoples may be a rescue from reification and essentialism. But if preferences are for less liberalism and more democracy, then agonistic political discourse and agonistic consociation are most suitable. In post-colonial states, both forms of political discourse, deliberative and agonistic, may offer tight consociational alternatives; in the case of Iraq, they may offer a remedy to the roughly loose consociation inscribed in the current constitution. However, only an agonistic state is by definition patriotic and therefore can best insure national unity and independence.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Does Pakistan need to adopt and maintain Consociational governance to practise democracy? If so, what Consociational arrangements would be more likely to accommodate ethnic minorities and ensure distributive justice? The paper attempts to answer these questions looking closely at the ethnic composition of Pakistan, the roll and strength of Pakistani Federation towards management of diversity, and the arrangements of power sharing presented by Consociational school of thought.
Arend Lijphart (1992) identified India as a consociational federation. Since then, the relative political stability of India has been considered as a potential of consociational federation while the democratic instability of Pakistan as a limitation of non-consociational federation by “Consociationlists”. This judgement led to the suggestion that Pakistan “will need to adopt and maintain Consociational governance at federal centre”to“practise democracy. Hence, the argument has been presented by senior Consociationlists1; it deserves an empirical inquiry to examine the relevancy of Consociational arrangements of power sharing with the multiethnic society of Pakistan.
The paper would examine whether Executive Power-sharing, Provincial autonomy, Proportionality (proportionality in allocation of resources, representation, and opportunities), and Minority rights protection through Veto legislation can diminish the centralisation of political power and regional disparities that underpin the ethnic mobilisation in Pakistan. The study would enable us to draw some conclusion about the utility of consociational devices in multiethnic societies of developing world.
Keywords: Pakistan, consociational governance, management of diversity

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Using a simple scenario of civil war with two rivals with asymmetrical power distribution, I illustrate how different political institutions—power-sharing institutions and veto points—traditionally conflated under the single concept of consociationalism provide the rivals with contradictory incentives. The main goal at this stage is not so much to empirically test specific hypotheses as it is to clearly specify the kinds of incentives different institutional arrangements present for different players. However, I do illustrate using survival analysis that while decentralization—an obvious form of power-sharing—increases the likelihood of post-civil war regime stability significantly and substantially, the number of veto points has the opposite effect. The latter occurs because the provision of mutual veto powers—as prescribed by Lijphart (1969, 1977, 1999) as part of consociational power-sharing—makes the political system too rigid in terms of the dominant party’s ability to take back at least some of the powers it has resented sharing with the minority in the first place. In other words, even though the provision of more veto points, especially as they relate to constitutional changes, might facilitate reaching a settlement initially, it does seem to put the stability of peace at risk as it reduces parties’ capability to address their distributional grievances through legitimate means.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Popular explanations for disparities in battle death totals during civil wars have suggested causes such as battlefield conditions, size of the population, and the number of conflict dyads. I theorize that democratic institutions, specifically propo