Decision-Making Dynamics on Independent Commissions in Post-Conflict Societies

Power-sharing in general and consociationalism in particular, advises against simple majoritarian decision-making as it facilitates the permanent exclusion of certain groups. Instead consociationalists advocate for proportional representation of different groups in important institutions and for anti-majoritarian mechanisms such as qualified majority voting. Such recommendations have frequently been interpreted and applied to facilitate the inclusion of members of former rebel groups or communities which were in violent conflict with the state into new reformed state institutions. Many intra-state peace agreements structure post-conflict governance institutions according to these recommendations, including by organizing independent commissions according to such principles. Independent commissions, bodies which possess and exercise some specialised public authority but are neither directly elected nor directly managed by elected officials, are crucial elements of peace agreements as they are mandated to carry out vital tasks including monitoring ceasefires or overseeing elections. The successful completion of such tasks is vital to the sustainability of peace accords, yet these important institutions have received very little scholarly attention. Theorists have largely restricted themselves to examining power-sharing in traditional legislative and executive institutions and have failed to incorporate these independent commissions into their studies of power-sharing. This paper fills this gap by examines independent commissions as an additional important arena for power-sharing. It explores how such bodies may reach decisions and what determines the choice of decision-making strategy. It does so through in-depth analysis of a diverse set of commissions drawn from a new dataset which compiles information on all independent commissions established by intra-state peace agreements reached between 1990 and 2018.