Liberal Consociationalism in Theory and Practice: Power Sharing and Self-governance?
Thursday March 10, 2011, at 16:00
Conference Room – Ground Floor IBEI
Conference
Stefan Wolff (University of Birmingham)
Consociationalism as a theory managing in particular violent conflict in divided societies has two broad dimensions that have emerged most clearly in its liberal consociational version—power sharing and self-governance. Beginning with a discussion of power-sharing and subsequently turning to self-governance I examine the conceptual links between them systematically and illustrate my analysis with empirical examples. Engaging with critics of both power sharing and territorial self-governance, I offer a conditional theoretical and empirical defence of liberal consociationalism thus also contributing further to the development of liberal consociational theory and practice.