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Proposals for power-sharing
constitutions remain controversial, as highlighted by current
debates in Iraq, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Sudan.
This book updates and refines the
theory of consociationalism, taking account of the flood of
contemporary innovations in power-sharing institutions that have
occurred worldwide. The book classifies and compares four types
of political institutions: the electoral system, parliamentary
or presidential executives, unitary or federal states, and the
structure and independence of the mass media. The study tests
the potential advantages and disadvantages of each of these
institutions for democratic governance. Cross-national
time-series data concerning trends in democracy are analyzed for
all countries worldwide since the early 1970s. Chapters are
enriched by comparing detailed case studies. The mixed-method
research design illuminates the underlying causal mechanisms by
examining historical developments and processes of institutional
change within particular nations and regions. The conclusion
draws together the results and the practical lessons for
policymakers.
Driving Democracy is designed for those interested in
international development, comparative politics, political
behavior and institutions, electoral studies and voting
behavior, political parties, public opinion, political
sociology, political psychology, sociology, and democratization.
Book Reviews:
Andrew Reynolds, University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill
"In Driving Democracy, Pippa Norris
has conducted the most systematic investigation of the effect of
power-sharing institutions since Lijphart's groundbreaking work
of the 1970s. The fact that she finds significant evidence to
support the thesis that power-sharing is better for new
democracies offers some hope to the most ragile divided
societies in the world today."
Caroline A. Hartzell. Driving Democracy: Do Power-Sharing
Institutions Work? By Pippa Norris. (Cambridge University Press,
2008.) Journal of Politics
2009 71(4) pg:1603 -1604.
Power-sharing institutions have been the
subject of considerable attention of late, with mediators
and policy makers pondering their utility for managing
conflict in divided societies ranging from Afghanistan to
Zimbabwe. In Driving Democracy Pippa Norris provides
a valuable contribution to the scholarly debate over which
types of institutions—power sharing or power
concentrating—are most appropriate for managing democratic
transitions and consolidation in societies characterized by
conflict. Employing a mixed research design that combines a
large-N dataset with qualitative case studies in order to
test which institutions ‘‘work’’ best, Norris establishes
that power-sharing regimes facilitate the development of
sustainable democracy. Although her study may not win over
power-sharing skeptics, it does raise the evidentiary bar
confronting them should they press
claims that power sharing is counterproductive.
Driving Democracy opens with a puzzle. Drawing on
the cases of Benin and Togo, countries which share a number
of social and economic characteristics and both of which
have experienced periods of military rule and repressive
one-party regimes, Norris observes that their political
roads began to diverge in the early 1990s. While Benin is
today considered a successful African democracy, Togo has a
hybrid regime characterized by some trappings of democracy
(flawed elections) in combination with human rights abuses.
What accounts for these divergent paths? Having discounted a
number of possible explanations, among them levels of
economic development
(both countries rank among the world’s poorest), ethnic
fractionalization (both are multiethnic plural
societies), and international pressures, Norris concludes
that institutional arrangements hold the key to the puzzle.
Whereas the new constitution Togo introduced in the early
1990s established a powerconcentrating regime, the
constitution Benin adopted at that time incorporated a
number of power-sharing institutions. Although she fails to
ask another important question—why Benin adopted a
powersharing constitution and Togo did not—Norris’s puzzle
highlights the potential that different types of
institutional arrangements can have for processes of
democratization.
Norris conceptualizes power-sharing and powerconcentrating
regimes on the basis of four formal
institutional features—the type of electoral system, the
horizontal concentration of powers in the type of executive,
the vertical centralization of power in unitary or federal
states, and the structure and independence of the mass
media.
Four detailed chapters provide descriptions of the
power-sharing and power-concentrating characteristics of
each institution and summarize the arguments for and against
their democracy-enhancing and conflict reducing effects.
Employing cross-sectional timeseries data for 191 countries
for the period from 1973 to 2004, Norris tests the effects
of each institution on various indicators of levels of
democracy. In each instance she finds that it is the
power-sharing rather than the power-concentrating versions
of these institutions—e.g., proportional representation
electoral systems rather than majoritarian systems, federal
rather than unitary states—that are associated with higher
levels of democracy. The chapter on federalism and
decentralization is particularly well developed, with
attention given to classifying different types of
decentralization (administrative, fiscal, and political) and
constitutions (federal, unitary, and mixed unions) in order
better to operationalize vertical forms of power sharing.
The chapter on the fourth estate, on the other hand, strikes
a somewhat odd note in that Norris never makes quite clear
how the media fit her definition of a power-sharing
institution as one which gives ‘‘multiple political elites a
stake in the decision-making process’’ (23).
Working within the framework of consociational
theory, Norris notes at the outset of the book that she
seeks to focus on the capacity of institutional reforms to
facilitate democratic consolidation and to generate lasting
peace settlements in states emerging from civil wars.
Although the book thoroughly addresses the first of these
issues, it misses the mark where the latter is concerned.
First, the empirical tests the book employs are not designed
to examine the impact that institutions have on the duration
of the peace. A focus on levels of democracy, while
appropriate for exploring the impact institutional reforms
have on democratic consolidation, says little about the
success those reforms have in stabilizing the peace
following civil conflict. In light of the increasing number
of scholars who claim that introducing democratic
institutions, particularly elections, in the immediate
postconflict environment is likely to destabilize the peace,
it would be of interest to examine the impact
power-sharing and power-concentrating regimes have in this
context. Doing so, however, requires
the use of a different dependent variable. Second, as Norris
herself notes in passing, additional types of power-sharing
institutions may also be central to formulating a durable
peace. Rules that call for the government and former armed
adversaries to share military power, for example, arguably
play as important a role in the construction of negotiated
peace settlements now as the formal constitutional rules on
which Norris focuses. Studies whose goal it is to examine
the impact of power-sharing institutions on settlement
stability increasingly take these less traditional forms of
power-sharing institutions into account.
Do power-sharing institutions work? The unambiguous
answer provided by this book is ‘‘yes’’—they
work to consolidate democracy. Students of consociational
theory will find much to admire in this
book. Although it sticks to a formal and traditional
conception of institutions that play a role in the
management of conflict, it deftly synthesizes the core
assumptions and claims of consociational theory and
identifies the limitations of previous research that has
sought to test the performance of consociational
arrangements on democracy. The scope of the book, combined
with its methodological rigor, ensure that it will stand as
an important contribution to the empirical study of
democracy.
Caroline A. Hartzell, Gettysburg College |
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