The aim of this article is to demonstrate the thesis that the stabilization of Nigeria’s complicated political situation is furthered by the functioning in that country of institutions based on two models of interethnic power‑sharing2 – consociationalism and centripetalism – and that the two are to some extent complementary in Nigerian practice, despite the fact that political theory sees the two as opposites of each other. The article begins with a short analysis of the political situation in Nigeria. This is followed by a presentation of the problem of defining the notion of political stability and an assessment of the same in the Nigerian context. The article then goes on to discuss the nature of centripetalism and consociationalism and of specific centripetal and consociational institutions involved in the stabilization of the political situation in Nigeria. The article ends with the author’s conclusions about the initial thesis.
This paper looks at the changing nature of political power-sharing in the Asia-Pacific region, characterised by the ethnically-plural democracies and semi-democracies, and it reviews several cases in terms of their institutional structures and mechanisms adopted for the purpose of political inclusion. The paper states that the classic consensual recommendations of parliamentary rule, proportional elections and ethnic parties have been abandoned in favour of more majoritarian and multiethnic models of governance. In this shift from one model of power-sharing to another, political inclusion in Southeast Asia then increasingly takes place informally, through centripetal rather than consociational means, via some key institutional mechanisms: oversized but not grand coalition governments; aggregative rather than segmental political parties; ethnically-mixed federal or other sub-national jurisdictional units; and majoritarian, vote-pooling political institutions. As a result, this “Asian model” of political inclusion stands in contrast and in many ways in opposition to the classic consensual recommendations.
This paper discusses the essence and key models of power-sharing. While power-sharing can be construed in a very broad way, a narrow understanding of it is analyzed in this paper. It refers to the phenomenon of the sharing of state power by different segments (e.g. ethnic groups and/or religious communities) of plural societies, especially multi-ethnic and/or multi-religious groups. There are two aims of this paper: 1) to explain how the concept of power-sharing in a multi-ethnic context is understood in the literature, and 2) to identify the main characteristics of the principal models of power-sharing (confessionalism, the Lewis Model, consociationalism, and centripetalism).
PL
Artykuł traktuje w zarysie o istocie i głównych modelach power-sharing. Choć powersharing może być pojmowane w sposób bardzo szeroki, tematyka tego artykułu dotyczy jego wąskiego rozumienia. Odnosi się ono do fenomenu dzielenia się władzą państwową przez różne segmenty (np. grupy etniczne lub wspólnoty religijne) społeczeństw pluralnych (podzielonych, sfragmentaryzowanych), w tym zwłaszcza wieloetnicznych i/lub wieloreligijnych. Głównym celem artykułu jest wyjaśnienie treści power-sharing we wskazanym wąskim rozumieniu i wytłumaczenie w zarysie jego głównych modeli (konfesjonalizm, model Lewisa, konsocjonalizm, centrypetalizm).
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