Abstract
How can (deeply) divided societies be politically organized in such a way as to foster a stable and democratic power-sharing? This is the lead question that political scientists have been trying to answer in the late 1960s, when the first scientific comparative analyses of consociational systems were published.1 Deeply divided societies — or, in the initial American literature, ‘plural societies’ — are societies where political divisions follow very closely lines of objective social differentiation or ‘cleavages’ that can be of a religious, ideological, linguistic, regional, cultural, ethnic or other nature. Not only the political landscape, but society as a whole (interest groups, media, workers’ associations and other components of civil society) is structured and divided along the lines of cleavages, which are therefore called ‘segmental’ cleavages, with ‘segments’ referring to those groups of the population bounded by such cleavages.
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Notes
See, among others, G. Lehmbruch, Propozdemokratie: Politisches System und politische Kultur in der Schweiz und in Österreich (Tübingen, J.C.B. Mohr, 1967); A. Lijphart, Typologies of Democratic Systems, Comparative Political Studies, April 1968, pp. 3–44.
For this theoretical introduction, we will primarily refer to the work of Arend Lijphart (A. Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies. A Comparative Exploration, Yale University Press, New Haven, London, 1977 and
A. Lijphart, ‘Changement et continuité dans la théorie consociative’, Revue Internationale de Politique Comparée, 4, 3 (décembre 1997), pp. 679–697).
In addition to the financial challenges, this can also be detrimental for the efficiency of public administration. For an evaluation of the negative consequences of the structural ‘pilarization’ of the public sector as the outcome of the typical Belgian consociational pacification policy, see L. Huyse, Passiviteit, Pacificatie en Verzuiling in de Belgische Politiek. Een sociologische studie, (Standaard Wetenschappelijke Uitgeverij, Antwerp, 1970), pp. 247–249.
G. Lehmbruch, ‘Consociational democracy in the international system’, European Journal of Political Research, 3, 4 (December 1975), p. 382, quoted in A. Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies, p. 67.
Also in the view of Lewis, it is not democracy that has failed in plural or heterogeneous societies, but a specific form of majoritarian democracy (A. Lewis, Politics in West Africa, (George Allen and Unwin, London, 1965)).
C. Braeckman, Terreur africaine. Burundi, Rwanda, Zaïre: les racines de la violence (Fayard, 1996), p. 37.
On the use of the term ‘revolution’ to describe the period between November 1959 (la ‘jacquerie’) and September 1961 (the elections and the referendum on the monarchy), see F. Reyntjens, Pouvoir et Droit au Rwanda. Droit Public et Evolution Politique, 1916–1973 (Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale, Tervuren, 1985), pp. 233–235.
See, for instance, J. P. Chretien, Rwanda. Les médias du génocide (Karthala, Paris, 1995), p. 119;
P. Rutazibwa, Espérance pour mon peuple et pour le monde (Editions Centrales, Kigali, 1995), p. 13.
B. Barry, ‘Political accomodation and consociational democracy’, British Journal of Political Science, 5, 4 (October 1975), pp. 502–503.
The historical question of ethnicity in Rwanda and ethnogenesis will not be discussed in the context of this article. We refer to specialized literature on this issue (see, among others, C. Newbury, The Cohesion of Oppression. Clientship and Ethnicity in Rwanda 1860–1960 (Columbia University Press, New York, 1988), p. 322.;
J.P. Chretien, ‘Hutu et Tutsi au Rwanda et au Burundi’, in J.L. Amselle, et E. M’Bokolo (dir), Au coeur de l’ethnie (La Découverte, Paris, 1985), pp. 129–166;
M. Mamdani, ‘From conquest to consent as the basis of state formation: reflections on Rwanda’, New Left Review, 216, March/April 1996, pp. 3–36). The only position we do want to take is that Rwanda has a plural society. Whether the Hutu, Tutsi and Twa segments are qualified as ethnic groups, socio-economic classes or groups of a sui generis kind, the mere existence of segments cannot be denied. Herewith, we do not want to take a position regarding the historical situation (which is sometimes qualified as being ‘harmonious and spontaneous’ or as ‘a feudal Tutsi dictatorship’), nor regarding the ideal situation in a future (which can be seen as a harmonious co-existence between clearly identified and separate groups or as national unity and homogeneity).
R. Lemarchand, Burundi. Ethnic Conflict and Genocide (Cambridge University Press, New York, 1995), pp. 160–161.
The National Commission in charge of the question of national unity, established in October 1988 was perfectly balanced, composed of 12 Hutu and 12 Tutsi without that being a formal requirement (F. Reyntjens, L’Afrique des Grands Lacs en Crise (Karthala, Paris, 1994), p. 68). In the Constitution of 13 March 1992, the politically relevant segments are implicitly recognized : ‘Chaque candidature aux élections présidentielles doit ête présentée par un groupe de deux cents personnes formé dans un esprit d’unité nationale en tenant compte des diverses composantes de la population burundaise’ (article 67) : each candidate to the presidential elections should be nominated by a group of at least 200 persons, set up in a spirit of national unity but taking into account the different components of the Burundian population.
Guichaoua notes that, with regards to the strategy of the internal opposition ‘le type d’alliance à conclure avec lui (= le FPR) divise chaque parti. D’un côté, la tentation domine de prendre appui sur la puissance militaire du FPR de façon à en finir pour de bon avec le régime Habyarimana, de l’autre est préconisée une stratégie d’autonomie et de maintien d’une position centrale dans le système de confrontation tripolaire’ et ‘Les stratégies de tension ethnique conduisent inexorablement à la bipolarisation’ (A. Guichaoua, Les antécédents politiques de la crise rwandaise de 1994, Arusha, Avril 1997, pp. 36–37).
See, for instance, the list of RPF opponents who have gone into exile since 1995, compiled by International Crisis Group (International Crisis Group, Rwanda at the end of the transition: A necessary political liberalization, Nairobi/Brussels, November 2002, p. 28).
On several attempts of the Hutu, but also Tutsi opposition in exile to form alliances, see, among others, International Crisis Group, ibid., pp. 23–25. On the more recent breakdown of those (attempted) alliances, see, among others, M. Rafti, ‘The dismantling of the Rwandan political opposition in exile’, in F. Reyntjens, and S. Marysse (eds), L’Afrique des Grands Lacs. Annuaire 2003–2004 (L’Harmattan, Paris, 2004), pp. 23–44.
G. Prunier, Rwanda 1959–1996. Histoire d’un génocide (Dagorno, 1997), p. 440.
P. Musoni, Shared Values in Rwanda, Paper presented at the Conference on ‘Share Values and Promoting a Culture of Peace in Rwanda’, Kigali, 6–8 October 1998, p. 3. Newbury confirms that, before the reign of Kigeri Rwabugiri (around 1860) and the establishment of a central administration in Kinyaga, the clan was considered to be more important as an identity-shaping factor than the notions of Hutu and Tutsi (C. Newbury, op. cit., p. 11).
P. Kagame, Rwandan United For A New Era, Inaugural Address as President of Rwanda, October 2003, p. 3.
M. Mamdani, ‘Pluralism and the right to association’, M. Mamdani, et J. Oloka-Onyango (eds), Uganda. Studies in Living Conditions, Popular Movements and Constitutionalism (JEP, Kampala, 1993), p. 558.
This is to be distinguished from the Gacaca tribunals that were more recently established to deal with the criminal prosecution of (the majority of) genocide suspects. See, among others, UVIN, P., ‘The Gacaca Tribunals in Rwanda’, D. Bloomfield, D., T. Barnes, and L. Huyse et al (eds), Reconciliation after Violent Conflict. A Handbook (International IDEA, Stockholm, 2003), pp. 116–121.
Some analysts refer to a ‘legal absurdness’, see A. Kaburahe, Le cas du Burundi, Paper presented at the Conference on ‘The (Im)possibility of Democratization in Africa’, University of Antwerp, 18 October 2004, p. 7.
See, for instance, D. Horowitz, ‘Ethnic conflict management for policymakers’ in J.V. Montville (ed.), Conflict and Peacemaking in Multiethnic Societies (Lexington, 1990), pp. 115–130. Compared to consociational approaches, the integrated models seem to rely nearly exclusively on political willingness to introduce them. The critique that a consociational approach may sharpen existing cleavages is valid only in the short run: well-structured, clearly identifiable and separate segments are indeed important tools to introduce a consociational regime. However, it has been shown how, with the passage of time, these cleavages can be de-institutionalized on the basis of mutual respect.
J.S. Furnivall, Colonial Policy and Practice: A Comparative Study of Burma and Netherlands India (Cambridge University Press, 1948), pp. 489–503.
International Crisis Group, ‘Consensual democracy’ in post-genocide Rwanda. Evaluating the March 2001 District Elections (Nairobi, Brussels, October 2001), p. iii.
See, among others, I. Samset, and O. Dalby, Rwanda: Presidential and Parliamentary Elections, Oslo, Nordem Reports 12/2003, 2003, p. 59.
See, among others, Human Rights Watch, Preparing for Elections: Tightening Control in the Name of Unity (New York, May 2003), p. 16.
M. Mamdani, When does a Settler become a Native? Reflections of the Colonial Roots of Citizenship in Equatorial and South Africa, Inaugural Lecture, University of Cape Town, New Series No. 208, 13 May 1998, p. 11.
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Vandeginste, S., Huyse, L. (2005). Consociational Democracy for Rwanda?. In: Marysse, S., Reyntjens, F. (eds) The Political Economy of the Great Lakes Region in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230523890_5
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