Repairing consensual democracy in divided societies

Abstract

Managing the societal divide is one of the most complex challenges in building stable political systems, especially in countries characterized by deep ethnic, sectarian or national pluralism. In this context, consensual democracy has emerged as an institutional model aimed at preventing majority domination and ensuring the participation of key components in power. This theory has been associated with the work of the Dutch political scientist Arend Liebhardt, who presented it as an alternative to majority democracy in divided societies. However, the practical application of this model in a number of post-conflict states has led to theoretical and institutional problems, most notably the freezing of sub-identities, the transformation of power-sharing into permanent quotas, and the weakening of the principle of democratic accountability. Accordingly, this article raises a central question: does the crisis of consensual democracy lie in its theoretical structure or in the mechanisms of its application? Can the model be fixed without abandoning it? The article seeks to review theoretical and critical trends related to consensual democracy, categorize the most prominent criticisms of it, and then present a proposed reform framework. Testing the hypothesis that the imbalance is related to the inertia of the mechanisms of consensus rather than to the essence of the idea.