Description

Power-sharing arrangements refer to multiple vehicles to create broad-based governing coalitions of a society’s significant groups in a political system that provides influence to legitimate representatives of minority groups.

Objectives

Power-sharing establishes a more equitable balance of power, makes negotiation an attractive alternative to violence, promotes and expands citizen participation in the political process, strengthens voter confidence in open methods of choosing government, and encourages a competitive political environment.

Expected outcome or impact

Power-sharing alleviates tension in a divided society by offering an alternative to simple majoritarian governance in which minority ethnic groups may be permanently excluded from power. Power-sharing provisions—proportional representation, reserving legislative seats for minority parties, requiring that a winning presidential candidate receive a minimum percentage of the vote—emphasize inclusion and moderation and provide losers with an incentive to work within the system rather than to opt out and confront the government.

Relationship to conflict prevention and mitigation

Power-sharing reduces the risk of violent conflict by reconciling principles of self-determination and democracy in multiethnic states, allowing minority groups to conduct legal political activities and providing them with an alternative to violence and a stake in the outcome of the political process. Power-sharing arrangements help promote government legitimacy and a sense of political fairness among the populace. Power-sharing arrangements such as proportionality in civil service recruitment and resource allocation can help reduce conflict by encouraging formation of broader coalitions to capture more "spoils" of government. Consociationalism helps manage conflict by encouraging ethnic group leaders to solve problems cooperatively by participating in post-election coalitions.

Implementation

Organizers

Internal leaders—government and opposition—organize power-sharing efforts. The international community can encourage these efforts through means such as conditions for development or technical, and military assistance.

Participants

Political groups, their representatives, and the voting population participate in creating and implementing power-sharing arrangements.

Activities

"Power-sharing involves a wide range of practices, not a simple model or formula that can be universally applied." Power-sharing arrangements can be constitutional, electoral, military, executive or legislative reforms. The appropriate choice of power-sharing approaches depend on the conflict’s dynamics. Aspects of various approaches may be incorporated simultaneously. Power-sharing arrangements can include:

· Proportionality applied to civil service recruitment and resource allocations so that positions and resources are allocated according to group numbers, helping to ensure impartiality and equity.

· Proportional representation applied to elections, promoting minority party and community confidence and guaranteeing a voice in national politics for numerically weaker parties. This tactic is covered in depth in a separate profile in this section.

· Consociationalism or group building block approach implies executive power shared among all significant groups, with groups retaining a high degree of autonomy. Coalition-building and statesmanship are important to keep the consociation together. Consociational democracies are characterized by multiparty cabinets and systems, proportional representation, proportionality in the distribution of civil service positions, public funds and legislative seats, political decentralization, a minority veto on vital issues, and written constitutions that recognize certain non-dominant group rights.

Consociational conflict-regulating practices include granting territorial autonomy, creating confederations, adopting proportional representation in administrative appointments, including consensus decision rules in the executive, and adopting a proportional electoral system in a parliamentary framework.

· Acknowledging group rights: corporate (non-territorial) federalism. This integrative, pluralist approach seeks to create incentives for political moderation and increase minority influence. A modified proportional system can make "moderation rewarding by making politicians reciprocally dependent on the votes of members of groups other than their own." The integrative approach strives to craft pre-election coalitions that transcend ethnic identities, substituting regional or economic interests.

Integrative conflict-regulating practices include creating a non-ethnic federal structure, establishing an inclusive, centralized unitary state, adopting majoritarian but ethnically neutral executive, legislative, and administrative decision-making bodies, adopting a semi-majoritarian or semi-proportional electoral system that encourages the formation of preelection coalitions (vote pooling) across ethnic divides, or devising "ethnicity blind" public policies.

Donors must consider compatibility among suggested economic and political reforms before supporting power-sharing. The international community can provide information on power-sharing systems in other countries to demonstrate feasible options for political leaders and can encourage power-sharing through a combination of carrots and sticks including conditioning aid or linking membership in collective security, trade, and other international organizations to power-sharing and minority inclusion in the political process.

Set-up time

The time needed to set up power-sharing arrangements varies. Negotiating arrangements satisfactory to all sides can be very time-consuming. The process of implementing power-sharing arrangements usually takes a year or more.

Timeframe to see results

Once successfully implemented, power-sharing arrangements likely will remove a significant cause of violent conflict, contributing to long-lasting conflict prevention.

Conflict context

Stages of conflict

Power-sharing arrangements may be effective at any stage of conflict; post-conflict transitions are especially opportune periods. "The paradox of promoting power sharing early in the escalation of an ethnic conflict is that at a nascent stage of tensions, parties may be unwilling to embrace power-sharing practices because they are not sufficiently desperate or feel insufficiently compelled. At a late state of conflict, after significant violence, enmities may be too deep for parties to share power for mutual benefit. Determining when a conflict is ripe for a power-sharing solution is at best a difficult judgment call requiring intimate knowledge of a situation, especially of the true predisposition of the parties and their willingness to live together within a common or shared political framework."

Type of conflict

Power-sharing arrangements can be appropriate for internal communal conflicts over territory and political institutions. Principles of proportionality in civil service recruitment and resource allocations can be especially helpful in ethnic conflicts. Consociational democracy may be more appropriate for societies which value group rights over individual rights or for ethnically or religiously driven conflicts because "it offers greater accommodation to group rights and more protection to those who feel vulnerable in a majoritarian system." An integrative or pluralist approach may be most appropriate for a country with sharp political or ideological differences. Without incentives for compromise, in a severely divided society, leaders will not be willing to accommodate. A modified proportional system can be devised through an electoral system that would make "moderation rewarding by making politicians reciprocally dependent on the votes of members of groups other than their own."

Prerequisites

Power-sharing arrangements require:

· Legitimate political leadership.

· Leaders’ commitment to democracy-building.

· Political institutions capable of absorbing expanded political participation—legalized political parties, labor unions, and religious groups, for example.

· Citizen support that discourages cancellation, postponement, or non-participation in elections by any groups or parties.

· Significant groups who believe that the failure to accommodate will precipitate greater conflict and who are motivated to avoid worsening conflict. · Political parties with a degree of unity and organizational coherence.

· Political leaders who are able to persuade their constituents to act peacefully.

· Negotiations among political leaders.

· Incentives for leaders to negotiate sharing power; governments often consider power-sharing arrangements when facing political opposition due to legitimacy problems and/or conflicts within the ruling group.

· While the existence of effective systems of governance make power-sharing arrangements easier to implement, power-sharing can proceed in the absence of democratic traditions and pluralistic political institutions with measures such as a national conference. Power-sharing arrangements are less suitable, however, for societies without strong political guidance by legitimate leaders, political parties and a political institutional framework.

· Consensus among political leaders on respecting power-sharing processes and upcoming election results.

Other conditions which favor the success of power-sharing arrangements in managing ethnic conflict include:

· Power-sharing embraced by a core of moderate political leaders who genuinely represent the groups they purport to lead.

· Flexible practices that allow for equitable distribution of resources.

· Arrangements arrived at indigenously, not merely the result of heavy external pressures or parties’ short-term, zero-sum expectations.

Past practice

Within the Greater Horn of Africa

Burundi, 1992 and 1994. During Burundi's 1989-1993 political transition, stability was contingent upon President Buyoya's control of the Tutsi-dominated army and ruling party. After the victory of the Hutu-led Frodebu party, the new coalition government set aside one third of the portfolios for Tutsis. This did not sufficiently address Tutsi insecurity, and Tutsi military officers attempted a coup during which President Ndadaye was assassinated. This incident sparked a surge of ethnic killings, leaving 50,000 dead and nearly one million displaced.

In September 1994, a power-sharing agreement was signed which gave the powerless presidency (presently Sylvestre Ntibantunganya) and 55 percent of the ministerial jobs to the Hutu. The agreement gave the Tutsi 45 percent of government ministries, the post of the newly empowered Prime Minister, and a number of provincial and local government posts.

Outside the Greater Horn

Zimbabwe, 1987. In post-agreement Zimbabwe, Prime Minister Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) government acted to consolidate power, dismissing Joshua Nkomo and the remaining Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) members from the cabinet in 1982-1984. Although ZANU managed to gain an impressive election victory in 1985, Mugabe was frustrated in his effort to promote a single-party system by his failure to win seats in Nkomo's Matabeleland stronghold or to shake Ian Smith's hold on the white electorate. Tensions remained high as Mugabe unleashed a "get tough" policy, establishing an executive presidency, abolishing the upper house, and ending the practice of reserving seats for whites. These tensions eased considerably in 1987, however, as ZANU and ZAPU held unity talks, concluding successfully with a signed unity accord. Significantly, following the signing of this accord, Nkomo was appointed one of the two party Vice-Presidents and other key ZAPU members were given seats in the cabinet. This inclusion brought about a further easing of strains—and in particular a decline of terrorism in Matabeleland.

South Africa, 1993. South Africa's 1993 Constitution provides that any party winning over 5 percent of National Assembly seats will be included in the cabinet on a proportional basis during the 5-year transition period. Namibia and South Africa used proportional representation systems in their founding elections, "mainly to assure their minority constituencies a place in the new evolving order." Power-sharing was essential in South Africa’s peaceful change of government. Without an agreement on transitional power-sharing, the conflict over apartheid may not have been brought to an end, or a new round of killing may have occurred.

Evaluation

Strengths

Power-sharing arrangements can expand political participation and promote peaceful resolution of issues before they develop into violent conflicts.

Power-sharing provides an alternative to dissolving multiethnic states into separate, ethnically homogeneous states by accommodating ethnic groups’ claims for self-determination in a democratic framework within states.

The process of constitutional reform for creating new institutional arrangements, such as power-sharing, among different ethnic groups can "provide incentives for politicians to promote accommodation among groups and build coalitions across ethnic lines in the competition for political office and at every branch and level of government."

Power-sharing arrangements generate a culture of negotiation and compromise. Formal practices of proportionality can inspire a sense of confidence and well-being among less advantaged groups, promote their identification with a new political order, and thereby help increase the stability of political institutions.

Power-sharing arrangements can address fundamental causes of conflict based on unfair distribution of material resources and information.

Efforts to achieve power-sharing arrangements can be cost-effective.

Weaknesses

Political and ethnic/racial conflicts are commonly influenced by the ownership and distribution of resources. The economic problems which often parallel political inequalities must also be addressed for political power-sharing arrangements to succeed in preventing or mitigating conflict in the long term.

In some cases—Burundi, for instance—political parties may have marginal power, with the real power base lying in military and militia group factions. In such a situation, "even if you reach an agreement or understanding among those political [party] groupings, it doesn't guarantee you're going to have peace and stability."

"Cohabitation" with former enemies may be difficult, and parties may be unwilling to accept losing an election despite the conditions of the power-sharing agreement.

Power-sharing arrangements among ethnic groups can mitigate or exacerbate ethnic conflict. Groups resisting formalized changes in the political structure can initiate violence. It can be difficult to decide which groups should be included and excluded, and under what conditions. Power-sharing in a situation such as in Liberia "is problematic because it gives incentives for warlords to 'spoil' the process if they are not included in the settlement and incentives for current groups to further factionalize. Yet if such leaders are included in a power-sharing pact, their legitimacy as political leaders is affirmed and reinforced by the international community." Proportionality can generate opposition, even violence, from the relatively advantaged peoples and subregions.

International community promotion of power-sharing in situations of deep conflict runs the risk of potentially rewarding aggression or appeasement of extremists, or may induce parties to share power insincerely when they are still deeply suspicious and remain intent on violence to the other.

Critics claim that power-sharing arrangements such as consociationalism allow the leadership to continue ruling contrary to mass preferences as the power-sharing system’s structural characteristics lock in a previously agreed-upon arrangement. Critics assert that power-sharing maintains, legitimizes and strengthens groups’ claims against the state, reinforcing and entrenching ethnicity in the political system by freezing group boundaries in the political system through statutory reservation of offices for specific group representatives. These analysts recommend keeping power-sharing practices as flexible as possible. Critics claim that consociational institutions are anti-democratic because they can stifle opposition politics, and the absence of an opposition party may reduce the government’s accountability.

References and resources

Arend Lijphart.

Donald P. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985.Paula M. Hirschoff, "Healing Ethnic Wounds," World View, Vol. 4:2 (Summer 1991).

Charles William Maynes, "Containing Ethnic Conflict," Foreign Policy No. 19 (Spring 1993).

Timothy D. Sisk, Power Sharing and International Mediation in Ethnic Conflicts, United States Institute of Peace, Washington, DC, and Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, New York, 1996.