Consociationalism, Power-Sharing and Self Governance in Latin America

Based on the groundbreaking contribution of Arend Lijphart, the theory of consociationalism offers concrete treads on how practices to bridge political, economic and ethnic elites may well become worthy instruments of governance in polities with considerable conflict potential. Yet, these top-down institutional arrangements have at best maintained democratic stability let alone that are deemed to inhibit meaningful and substantive democratic progression. In normative democratic terms, it has been touted as a sort of model of exclusionary democracy requiring a high degree of elite autonomy from their constituencies. Whereas consociationalism in West European countries with significant social divisions might have proven successful in preventing domestic conflict, the record for Latin American countries is mixed. In addition to the semi-consociational period in Uruguay (1952-1976), the Colombian consociational interlude (1958-1974) can be counted as a largely successful case. Still, considering the subsequent guerrilla insurgency and drug trade challenge, it is can hardly offer a poster child solution for sustainable conflict management. Similarly, Venezuela has incorporated consociational features as a result of the Punto Fijo agreement in 1958 followed by four decades of institutional stability. The virtual collapse of its party systems and the beginning of the Chavez era cast doubt nonetheless on the long-term prospect of such cartel arrangement Consequently, this begets the question whether there might be more legitimate and effective institutional arrangements at lower levels of the conflict dimensions pillars than the elite level in the Latin American context. This paper reconsiders the potential of consociational solutions in Latin America by offering a conceptual instrument to assess power-sharing mechanisms in the region. This instrument is in turn used to examine three experiences of power-sharing in the region: the Consulta Previa (previous consultation) in Bolivia, Usos y Costumbres (indigenous customs) in Mexico and Coparticipación (Coparticipation) in Uruguay.