The Architecture of Democracy: Constitutional Design, Conflict Management and Democracy

Abstract

The essence of democracy is that it is indigenous, and the practice over importing a model of democratic governance from outside virtually assures its non-democratic character, unless a very circumspect approach is adopted. Nor is there a clear theoretical consensus within the developed countries themselves. This chapter sets out the author's basic objections to the theory of consociationalism, and his reasons for preferring an incentives-based approach to encouraging accommodative behaviour over power-sharing.