Is consociational democracy more democratic than majoritarian democracy?

There are many different types of democracy, and as with all things in life there are positive and negative attributes. A positive factor of democracy is the pluralism and compromise; this means that the society is open to debates and negotiations which means that differences within the democratic society are shown therefore there is an acknowledgment of diversity. Another positive attribute of democracy is the freedom on speech, movement and expression within a society, as these make an individual grow. As with all things, there are positive and negative views regarding a certain subject. Fareed Zakaria, in his book ‘The future of freedom’, looks at freedom within a democracy. He strongly believes that some of the characteristics of democracy are not compatible within certain environments. He continues by stating that ‘if these features of democracy are applied in cultures not originally defined by liberty can lead to oppressive regimes such as tyranny…’ 

The Consociational theory was born as an explanation of the political stability of socially divided European democracies, where one would expect instability.

Arend Lijphart describes consociational democracy as a ‘government by elite cartel designed to turn a democracy with a fragment political culture into a stable democracy’.

The major themes of Arend Lijphart theory are that of grand coalition, proportionality, segmental autonomy and minority veto. In this section we will be looking at what I believe are the most important characteristics: the ground coalition and the executive power sharing. 

A grand coalition enables political leaders of all the segments of the plural society to jointly govern the country. 

Politics, supplies debates and conflicts between individuals, thus the stability of a separated society depends on whether the rivals are willing to compromise instead of a clash; therefore ground coalition is used to prevent cultural diversity to escalate into a conflict.

The economist Sir Arthur Lewis states that ‘all who are affected by a decision should have the chance to participate in making the decision, as to exclude losing groups from participation clearly violates the primary meaning of democracy’.

By looking at Sir Arthurs Lewis statement, we can accept the theory of grand coalition, and therefore consociatonal democracy can be said to be democratic. Arend Lijphart argues that the building of absolute majorities to be able to resolve upon crucial matters, is most likely to be impossible. In these kind of situations, or crises, the theory of grand coalition works extremely efficiently as a tool to create consensus and to speed up the process of decision making. After stating this, we need to consider that Lijphart model of grand coalition overlooks upon the environment of a plural society, and this is a response to existing preferences and incentives. One of the most important characteristics of a grand coalition is that it serves do reduce and then eliminate possible exclusions of ethnic minorities within the society.

Even so there are certain factors  of the grand coalition that do not match with the standards of democracy. In Switzerland, representatives of the major parties are not always the ones nominated by the actual party. Due to this factor, each party cannot hold the representative liable, isn’t this contrary to one of the most important characteristics of democracy?

When looking at the majoritarian model, it is possible to observe nine characteristics. One of the most important characteristics is the large amount of executive power. This, for example can be seen

materialized in a form of the one party bare majority cabinets. He asserts that the British one party and bare majority cabinet wields vast amount of political power to rule as the representative of and in the interest of a majority that is not in overwhelming proportions. Lijphart does not assert that the Westminster model works always without deviations. Even in Britain there were minority and coalition governments in the period from 1918 to 1980. Second important feature of the Westminster model is the fusion of power and cabinet dominance. The Cabinet and the Parliament are dependent upon each other. The majority in the parliament backs the cabinet and at the same time the cabinet is controlled by the Parliament and can even be voted out. It has to be said that not always the system works in such a way. While introducing major bills within the parliament, the British cabinets have frequently failed. 

We can notice, throught the majoritarian model that the main core of it revolves around majority rule and competition. In more simplistic terms, the party that terminates the campaign with the most votes should govern, whereas the minority should oppose. It can be said that the minorities will be excluded from decision making, although as Lijphart states In relatively homogeneous societies, where people are grouped around the political center, there is no problem with this principle. 

In majoritarian democracies, the opposition will have the possibility to become the majority once the next election campaign is underway. Liphart states, that within certain societies there might/will be strong differences within the religious, linguistic and ethnic opinions, "majority rule is not only undemocratic but also dangerous, because minorities that are continually denied access to power will feel excluded and discriminated against and will lose their allegiance to the regime".

Due to these factors within a society, there is a large possibility that eventually the majoritarian model will collapse, causing conflict between individuals and political crises.

In conclusion, is consociational democracy more democratic than majoritarian democracy? After having

assessed both the consociational and majoritarian models, understood the meaning of democracy and captured some of Arend Lijphart view, it is possible to give an answer. When looking back at the main theme of Liphart, the grand theory, we can see that he seeks to represent all groups of society, but the uncompetitive manner of decision making raises problems of accountability. Furthermore it is also a very slow-pace process. The concept of proportionality aims at a quite large amount of power and therefore will be achieved often at the expense of administrative efficiency. On the other hand it is possible that the short-term efficiency of majority rule may lead in plural society to a breakdown in the long run.

Even though both consociational and majoritarian democracy are similar in certain aspects and logically coherent I believe that mojoritarian democracy is more democratic that consociational democracy.