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rfmcdonaldIn his second post on the Lebanese political system, Jonathan Edelstein suggests that consociationalism. A concept developed by Arend Lijphart, the term "consociationalism" refers to political systems where power is shared " between segments of society joined together by a common citizenship but divided by ethnicity, language, religion, or other factors. Some rights are given, therefore, to communities rather than to individuals, resulting in over- or under-representation for individuals from some areas of society." In that post's comments, Tony from Across the Bay argued that consociationalism represented the best alternative for the Lebanese, certainly better than a uniformly repressive non-sectarian Lebanese state.
He, and Jonathan, may have a point. The problem with consociationalism generally and the pre-1975 Lebanese system specifically is that it didn't allow for the growth of intermediate classes, as community authorities jockeyed for power and sought to prevent any diminuation or complication. This was demonstrated most spectacularly, in Lebanon, in the multisided civil war that wrecked the country. This problem is common to states organized on consociational principles--the plight of Christian Malays in Malaysia, for instance.
Will the communities of consociationalism, which exist purely on the basis of highly specific ethnic and religious identifications, recognize the legitimacy of secular communities, of communities composed of individuals which aren't interested in enforcing and sanctifying tradition? Even relatively enlightened American Christians argue that secular communities lack any positive identity, any cohesion apart from the shared guilty pleasures of license. Even relatively enlightened American Christians seem reluctant to imagine that secular-tending people are anything but lost members of their Christian flocks, that they might be secular-tending for specific reasons. (Witness the chorus of American Christians who have proclaimed for the past generation that in Europe, yes, any day now there will be a massive Christian revival, you just wait and see, they're all really Christians!)
It doesn't help matters that secular communities tend not to be ideologically coherent. That's the whole point of non-ideological secularism: It's a natural process of individuals who decide, for whatever reasons, that they don't want to follow their native environment's traditions to the hilt, or not at all. They're aggregates, not communities, and they likely can't function as meaningful communities on the pattern of the Ottoman millet. They're not directly comparable.
More, even if these ethnic and religious communities do accept the idea that secular communities as are legitimate as their own, how likely will they be to allow their members to defect at will? The one critical problem with consociationalism is that it gives "traditional" authorities--referring to traditions which they, oddly enough, just happen to control--state-recognized power over their memberships. What possible incentive is there for these traditional communal authorities to allow their memberships to seep away, whether to other ethnoreligious communities or--perhaps more likely--secular communities? Especially given how consociationalism is frequently proposed as a solution for those polities where numbers--absolute figures, relative proportions--are of central importance, consociationalism seems to me to have a built-in bias against the rights of individuals to self-determination.
We see this in Iraq, where the salutary collapse of the Ba'athist tyranny has been followed by a resurgence of traditional authorities eager to enforce the strictest plausible interpretations of religious law on their nominal subjects. We see this in Ontario, where Muslim conservatives want to make a non-homicidal version of shari'a law practically inescapable for those Muslims unable to resist their self-proclaimed traditional leaderships (1, 2). We see this in India, where the Hindutva movement is eager to gain the Indian state's recognition of what the movement sees to be the religiously-mandated inquities of Indian society. We've seen this, in fact, most everywhere that a current tyranny has been justified by the tyrants themselves on the grounds that the current state of affairs is sanctified by tradition.
I'm not sure if, at least in certain contexts, favouring consociationalism isn't tantamount to a racist acceptance of second-class rights for some, preferably though not exclusively in faraway countries of which we know little and care less. Aren't human rights universal?
He, and Jonathan, may have a point. The problem with consociationalism generally and the pre-1975 Lebanese system specifically is that it didn't allow for the growth of intermediate classes, as community authorities jockeyed for power and sought to prevent any diminuation or complication. This was demonstrated most spectacularly, in Lebanon, in the multisided civil war that wrecked the country. This problem is common to states organized on consociational principles--the plight of Christian Malays in Malaysia, for instance.
Will the communities of consociationalism, which exist purely on the basis of highly specific ethnic and religious identifications, recognize the legitimacy of secular communities, of communities composed of individuals which aren't interested in enforcing and sanctifying tradition? Even relatively enlightened American Christians argue that secular communities lack any positive identity, any cohesion apart from the shared guilty pleasures of license. Even relatively enlightened American Christians seem reluctant to imagine that secular-tending people are anything but lost members of their Christian flocks, that they might be secular-tending for specific reasons. (Witness the chorus of American Christians who have proclaimed for the past generation that in Europe, yes, any day now there will be a massive Christian revival, you just wait and see, they're all really Christians!)
It doesn't help matters that secular communities tend not to be ideologically coherent. That's the whole point of non-ideological secularism: It's a natural process of individuals who decide, for whatever reasons, that they don't want to follow their native environment's traditions to the hilt, or not at all. They're aggregates, not communities, and they likely can't function as meaningful communities on the pattern of the Ottoman millet. They're not directly comparable.
More, even if these ethnic and religious communities do accept the idea that secular communities as are legitimate as their own, how likely will they be to allow their members to defect at will? The one critical problem with consociationalism is that it gives "traditional" authorities--referring to traditions which they, oddly enough, just happen to control--state-recognized power over their memberships. What possible incentive is there for these traditional communal authorities to allow their memberships to seep away, whether to other ethnoreligious communities or--perhaps more likely--secular communities? Especially given how consociationalism is frequently proposed as a solution for those polities where numbers--absolute figures, relative proportions--are of central importance, consociationalism seems to me to have a built-in bias against the rights of individuals to self-determination.
We see this in Iraq, where the salutary collapse of the Ba'athist tyranny has been followed by a resurgence of traditional authorities eager to enforce the strictest plausible interpretations of religious law on their nominal subjects. We see this in Ontario, where Muslim conservatives want to make a non-homicidal version of shari'a law practically inescapable for those Muslims unable to resist their self-proclaimed traditional leaderships (1, 2). We see this in India, where the Hindutva movement is eager to gain the Indian state's recognition of what the movement sees to be the religiously-mandated inquities of Indian society. We've seen this, in fact, most everywhere that a current tyranny has been justified by the tyrants themselves on the grounds that the current state of affairs is sanctified by tradition.
I'm not sure if, at least in certain contexts, favouring consociationalism isn't tantamount to a racist acceptance of second-class rights for some, preferably though not exclusively in faraway countries of which we know little and care less. Aren't human rights universal?
