The Theory and Practice of Consociationalism in the Middle Eastern Context: New Dimensions of an Old Problem | South-Russian Journal of Social Sciences
The Theory and Practice of Consociationalism in the Middle Eastern Context: New Dimensions of an Old Problem
Vol. 22 (2021) No. 4, Political Institutions and Processes
Vol. 22 (2021) No. 4
Political Institutions and Processes

The Theory and Practice of Consociationalism in the Middle Eastern Context: New Dimensions of an Old Problem

Kharitonova O.G.
Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO University) under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation
ORCID ID 0000-0003-1908-0613
PDF (Russian)
https://doi.org/10.31429/26190567-22-4-61-80
https://doi.org/10.31429/26190567-22-4-61-80

How to Cite Array

Kharitonova O.G. (2021) The Theory and Practice of Consociationalism in the Middle Eastern Context: New Dimensions of an Old Problem. South-Russian Journal of Social Sciences, 22 (4), pp. 61-80. DOI: 10.31429/26190567-22-4-61-80 (In Russian)
Submission Date 2021-11-06
Accepted Date 2021-12-08
Published Date 2022-07-14

Copyright (c) 2022 Оксана Геннадьевна Харитонова

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Abstract

The events of the “Arab Spring” and the ensuing protracted armed conflicts in a number of Middle Eastern countries have once again drawn the attention of researchers to those multi-ethnic and multi-confessional societies in which the use of consociational mechanisms allows the maintenance of the state framework despite the high level of conflict between segments. The article attempts to systematize the root concept of consociation, to determine the logic of the use of adjectives with this concept, and to analyze modern consociations in (the) Lebanon and Iraq along these lines. The article attempts to systematize the root concept of consociation, to determine the logic of the use of adjectives with this concept, and to analyze modern consociations in (the) Lebanon and Iraq along these lines. The main analytical tool and simultaneously the subject of analysis is the theory of consociationalism (consociative democracy). Due to the elasticity of the key features of consociation, its conceptualization is based on the principle of “family resemblance”. To determine the basic (necessary and sufficient) elements of an ideal-typical consociation, we take the entire set of formal institutional mechanisms identified by A. Lijphart, if the democracy attribute is excluded. The analysis of the application of institutional mechanisms of consociation in the Middle Eastern political and cultural context showed that Lebanon is an ethno-confessional consociation, where formally democratic institutions at the national level coexist with authoritarian segments. Iraq, on the other hand, is a non-democratic partial consociation dominated by the Shiite segment. In the case of Lebanon, the attributes refine the concept of consociation, giving it new facets; in the case of Iraq, they stretch the concept, blurring the notion of consociation. Examining Middle Eastern consociations through the lens of a behavioral approach revealed that neither sectoral nor imposed consociations contributed to the "spirit of consociation”. It is concluded that consociations in the West and in the East differ significantly at the institutional and behavioral level, so that even the use of adjectives cannot avoid serious assumptions in assigning them to the class of consociations.

Keywords

consociation, “consociation with adjectives”, Lebanon, Iraq, divided society

Acknowledgements

The reported study was funded by the Russian Foundation of Basic Research (RFBR) according to the research project № 20-011-00922 А.

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