Complex Power Sharing

1. Complex Power Sharing Key Sources: • The Cambridge Carnegie Project on Resolving Self-Determination Disputes Using Complex Power-Sharing [www.intstudies.cam.ac.uk/research/cps/] • Institutional Design of Conflict Settlements[www.stefanwolff.com/working-papers.htm]

2. Complex Power Sharing • Self-governance PLUS further mechanisms for the accommodation of ethnic diversity in divided societies advocated by: • liberal consociationalism • integrationism • power dividing • Result of the implementation of a self-governance regime whose success as a conflict settlement device requires a relatively complex institutional structure that cannot be reduced to autonomy/(ethno-)federalism, (traditional) models of power sharing or power dividing.

3. Institutional Design in Divided Societies • Structure and organisation of the state as a whole: • symmetry and asymmetry in institutional design; • distribution and separation of powers; and • coordination mechanisms. • Composition and powers of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government and the relationship between them : • the nature of the government system and the choice of the electoral system; • power sharing; and • legal entrenchment. • Relationship between individual citizens, identity groups and the state: • human and minority rights provisions; and • recognition and protection of identities.

4. Main Institutional Arrangements Recommended by Different Theories of Conflict Resolution

5. Main Institutional Arrangements Recommended by Different Theories of Conflict Resolution

6. Parliamentary vs. Presidential Systems

7. Power Sharing Institutions

8. Human and Minority Rights Provisions [1] The UK does not have a single constitutional text, in accordance with the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty.

9. Some Tentative Conclusions • Complex power sharing in practice combines regimes of territorial self-governance with a variety of other macro-level techniques of conflict resolution • power sharing and power dividing • and a range of ‘supplementary’ mechanisms • specific electoral systems • human and minority rights legislation • coordination and arbitration mechanisms

10. Some Tentative Conclusions • None of the three theories of conflict resolution fully capture the current practice of complex power sharing, BUT • liberal consociationalism is most open to incorporation of elements of integrationist power sharing and power dividing • judicial entrenchment and enforcement mechanisms; • universally applicable and enforceable human rights legislation; • vertical division of power; • preferential electoral systems

11. Some Tentative Conclusions • Complex power sharing practice MAY eventually lead to a synthesis of existing theories in a complex power sharing framework, BUT there is as yet not enough real-world evidence about how stable such regimes can be under varying conditions. • Examples examined here indicate that some cases have proven relatively stable over time (i.e., over ten years): • Belgium, Brussels, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Crimea, Gagauzia, and South Tyrol • Others are too short-lived to provide reliable data about their long-term stability: • Macedonia, Northern Ireland