Crisis of the Consociational Democracy. The Case Study

• Authors: Jelonek A.
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

Based on empirical observations and theoretical assumptions Arendt Lijphart introduces the consensus and then consociational model of democracy. The argument for consociationalism is grounded in the assumption that democracy and majority rule might be found incompatible. The important fundamental assumption of Lijphart is that in the so called plural societies (deeply divided along racial, ethnic, religious or cultural lines), the stakes of politics are usually much higher than in homogenous societies. The consequent assumption is that political leaders of all significant segments of the plural society cooperate in a grand coalition to govern the country. Although such political behavior was recommended by Lijphart to the all plural societies as the optimal one, in the most cases the attempt to create the consociational model of democracy has appeared to be a total failure. In this paper the author tries to analyze one of such cases: of multi-ethnic and multi-racial Malaysia.

Keywords

EN

CONSOCIATIONAL DEMOCRACY; LIPHART A.; MALAYSIA

Discipline

• SOCIOLOGY: SOCIOLOGY

• Publisher: Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Studia Socjologiczne
• Year: 2005
• Issue: 1(176)
• Pages: 93-116
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Jelonek A.

• A. Jelonek, Uniwersytet Warszawski, Instytut Socjologii, ul. Karowa 18, 00-927 Warszawa, Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

05PLAAAA0024518