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Deadly ethnic conflictand the imperative ofpower sharing: Could aconsociational federalismhold in Rwanda?Raphael Chijioke Njoku (PhD) aa Departments of History and Pan-AfricanStudies , University of Louisville , Kentucky, USAPublished online: 04 Aug 2006.

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Deadly Ethnic Conflict and the Imperativeof Power Sharing: Could a Consociational

Federalism Hold in Rwanda?

RAPHAEL CHIJ IOKE NJOKU

Principles of consociationalism and federalism have been successfully

adopted by the strategic elites in a number of countries, including

some in Africa, turning their once volatile politics into a more amicable

order. It is proposed that the best hope for a less conflictual politics in

Rwanda resides in an elite disposition towards political accommodation

and the adoption of the non-majoritarian political arrangements associ-

ated with consociational federalism. This agenda is discussed in light of

both the structural dimensions of consociationalism and federalism and,

more briefly, of relevant African examples of their utilisation. Appli-

cation of appropriately configured consociational and federal arrange-

ments is presented as an imperative in such a deeply divided polity,

where power commands monopolistic access to available resources

and where those in power often employ violence and exclusion to safe-

guard their interests.

I N T R O D U C T I O N

The power sharing approach to ethnic conflicts is based on a record that attests

that in the vast majority of cases the unilateral imposition of radical and often

violent responses such as population transfer, partition, ethnic cleansing and

genocide have failed to provide solutions. Appraising its peaceful precepts,

Joseph Rudolph Jr. and Robert Thompson stress that the consensus approach

to ethnic politics is rather more rewarding than alternative approaches that

usually bring about ‘separation as a goal and political violence as a

Raphael Chijioke Njoku (PhD), Assistant Professor in the Departments of History and Pan-AfricanStudies, University of Louisville, Kentucky, USA.

Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, Vol.43, No.1, March 2005, pp.82–101ISSN 1466-2043 print=1743-9094 onlineDOI: 10.1080=14662040500054487 # 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd.

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means’.1 With the advantages of hindsight indicating its efficacy in more than

21 countries worldwide, Dutch political scientist Arend Lijphart maintains

that consociational democracy is the most viable structural model of politics

for multiethnic societies.2

Rwanda, with a legacy of deadly ethnic conflicts, provides timely remin-

ders that a winner-takes-all political game in such contexts produces only cat-

astrophic consequences. This paper explores the potential of a consociational

federalism – that is, a combination of power sharing principles and constitu-

tionally guaranteed rights to autonomy – as the behavioural and structural

basis for future pathways to democracy and peace in this restive Central

African country. It argues that to prepare the ground for a more peaceful

future in Rwanda, the various competing groups – Hutu, Tutsi, Twa, the army,

politicians, Northern and Southern regions, Muslims and the various Christian

denominations – must seek and find accommodation in the decision-making

process of their country. To encourage such accommodation it is suggested

that institutional arrangements for conflict regulation via power sharing be

inaugurated, thereby concurring with Herman Bakvis that ‘political structures

can play an important role in defining or promoting consociational arrange-

ments, even if such structures were originally the result of social forces’.3

Among other cases of reference, this assertion is buttressed by the moder-

ating impact of federal arrangements in Nigeria and Ethiopia, and the relevance

of consociationalism to the peaceful and stable transition from apartheid to

democratic South Africa.4 The intention is not to propose the adoption of

any specific institutional model or power sharing formula for Rwanda.

Rather, the object is to explore the institutional bases of conflict regulation

theory both in the light of the past experiences of other African countries that

have successfully managed their politics with minimal or limited violent con-

frontations and with Rwanda’s past and present problems in mind. As Jurg

Steiner and Robert Dorff assert, ‘analyzing consociationalism and federalism

from a structural perspective is a legitimate enterprise’.5 This paper seeks to

build on the implications of this point to suggest the potential relevance of con-

sociational federalism initially as a practical basis for consensual stability,

additionally offering the possibility of future democratisation in Rwanda.

C O N S O C I A T I O N A L I S M , F E D E R A L I S M A N D P O W E R S H A R I N G :

E X P L O R I N G T H E O R Y A N D E X P E R I E N C E

For conceptual clarity, ‘consociationalism’ and ‘federalism’ are most appro-

priately viewed as distinctive forms of political organisation, yet also as

approaches with overlapping rules, sharing both conceptual underpinnings

and many structural elements. Both concepts are simply employed here as

COULD A CONSOCIATIONAL FEDERALISM HOLD IN RWANDA? 83

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expressions of non-majoritarian forms of democracy as opposed to either

majoritarian democracy or to non-democratic political systems that sometimes

employ some elements of consociationalism in their elite politics.6

Lijphart has identified eight features of non-majoritarian democracy:

(1) executive power sharing; (2) balanced executive–legislative relations;

(3) strong bicameralism; (4) multiparty system; (5) multidimensional party

system; (6) proportional representation; (7) federalism and decentralisation;

and (8) a written constitution and minority veto.7 From this list, Lijphart

has highlighted four as the crucial elements of a consociation: (a) proportion-

ality – that is an appropriate degree of representation for every group in

the decision-making process or in the executive in a multi-party structure.

(b) grand coalition – that is, the guaranteed participation of the representatives

of all groups in the government of a country. (c) decentralisation – that is, a

high degree of autonomy for each component unit, and (d) ‘mutual’ or

minority veto – that is, a constitutional safeguard for the minority against

majoritarian domination. Overall, grand coalition (participation) and segmen-

ted autonomy (decentralisation) provide the major frameworks on which a

consociation depends.8

A grand coalition cabinet in a parliamentary system, for instance, helps in

the accommodation of smaller groups which may be ignored if the legislature

were to be formed solely on the outcome of majoritarian elections. In a

consociation, territorially based autonomy gives protection to geographically

contiguous minority groups and allows them control over their local affairs.

Where, however, the ethnic groups are intermixed, autonomy might ‘take

a non-territorial form or a combination of territorial and non-territorial

forms’.9 Proportionality, which may be based on a predetermined ratio to

counteract problems related to very large disparities in size between associat-

ing communal groups, is accepted widely as the most obvious standard of fair

distribution and representation for ethnic minorities. It might, therefore, either

be based directly on the population size of each group, or on a formula that

would allow for a more equal number of representatives for all groups, regard-

less of their size. Additionally, a minority veto in power sharing arrangements

is indispensable both as a mechanism for confidence building and as security

against possible majority control of the executive.10

Federalism shares its emphasis on non-majoritarian principles with conso-

ciationalism. ‘If we add a few characteristics of the concept of federalism, we

arrive at the concept of consociationalism’ and vice versa.11 Indeed, as Ivo

Duchachek asserts, consociationalism is the cradle of federalism. As ‘a politi-

cal device for establishing viable institutions and flexible [inter-state] relation-

ships’, federalism promotes bicameralism and rigid constitutions, regional

autonomy, and proportional representation, among other devolutionary strat-

egies for promoting democratic stability in divided polities.12 In Nigeria,

84 COMMONWEALTH & COMPARATIVE POLITICS

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Ethiopia, South Africa, among other plural societies, federal structures have

helped in ameliorating ethnic differences.13 Federal systems can be adjusted

to structure incentives for desired forms of political behaviour of one kind

or another.14 For example, the Nigerian federal structure has been revised

several times to meet increasing demand for political autonomy as well as

to break ethnic cohesion through increase in the number of sub-states and

local government councils. As Michael Burgess asserts, federal systems

‘have had to cope with both old and new affiliations – war, want, growth,

and speed’, and have consistently done so with notable success.15 Ethiopia’s

and Nigeria’s systems have further revealed that federalism can reform the

electoral system, disperse and diffuse the problem of a concentration of con-

flict at the centre, and unmake legislative majorities by offering minorities

autonomy in the form of separate territories.16 Generally, new sub-states

created under federalism provide alternative and new arenas in which intraeth-

nic rather than inter-ethnic conflict might occur. Additionally, federalism

creates incentives for inter-ethnic cooperation – by way of enhancement of

some political parties at the expense of others. Federalism also encourages

alignments based on interests other than ethnicity – creating opportunities

for new actors to emerge, reducing disparities between groups, and creating

opportunities for groups not previously well represented in the several civil

services.17 The end result is the creation of new structures for electoral reason-

ing for both voters and party leaders.18 Thus, contrary to the notion that

fundamental conflicts in segmented politics cannot be solved by consti-

tution-writing and constitutional engineering, Donald Horowitz stresses that

rules can restructure the political system and cause changes in the game

where there is some determination to obey the rules.19

Lijphart also offers a number of hypothetical conclusions, which can serve

as a shorthand way of elucidating how such a hybrid ‘consociational federal-

ism’ operates. First, a ‘consociation is also a federation if segmented auton-

omy is instituted on a territorial basis’. Second, there must be a central/

regional division of power as well as constitutional autonomy and decentrali-

sation. Third, a written constitution, bicameralism and minority over-rep-

resentation in the federal chamber are necessary conditions.20 Conversely, a

federation qualifies as a consociation if it meets all four principles of conso-

ciational democracy – segmental autonomy, grand coalition at the central

level of government, minority veto and proportionality. Also there must be

a high degree of decentralisation and autonomy for component units. In

terms of the numbers of such component units, stability is best served ‘if

the federation consists of relatively many and relatively small units’.21

In both federalism and consociationalism coalescent elites provide incen-

tives for political cooperation in deeply fragmented countries aiming to

preserve political stability.22 In this light, Vincent Ostrom concludes that


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‘an exercise of power[-sharing] with others implies both responsibility and

a willingness to take account of the interest of others in what can be called

“patterns of social accountability”’.23

U N D E R S T A N D I N G R W A N D A N P O L I T I C S : T H E I M P E R A T I V E O F

P O W E R S H A R I N G

The recurrence of ethnic conflict and genocide in Rwandan politics is best

situated in a wider context of African political culture in which competitors

can disregard rules and in which one’s political adversaries may be annihi-

lated. Claude Ake blames this dangerous trend on the pitfalls of state

control of national resources and the consequentially high premium placed

on the control of state power in Africa:

In statist economies, political competition tends to be a fight until death,

notably because of the increasing premium being placed on the control of

state power. In Africa this has become the master key to almost every-

thing. Because of its extraordinary importance, the struggle to control

the state becomes very intense – one might say, Hobbesian. Since the

stakes are so high, the competitors do everything to win. . . . The tendency

is to annihilate political opponents instead of merely defeating them.24

Corroborating Ake’s summation, Michael Schatzberg observes that political

power in Sub-Saharan Africa often has more to do with consumption than

with transformation. ‘Power concerns the capacity to consume, or the

ability “to eat”’ as often encountered in local idioms and discourses. ‘One

is powerful if one can “eat”; the more one eats, the more powerful one

becomes’.25

In Rwanda, the historical evolution of this dysfunctional notion of power

engendered by an all-or-nothing political culture has been the focus of many

recent studies.26 These studies explain that modern Rwanda, with its popu-

lation comprising the majority Hutu (85 per cent), and the minority Tutsi

(14 per cent) and Twa (one per cent), has evolved as a terrain for heated,

increasingly desperate and often violent, individual and group competition

as the political economy has become more sophisticated and complex. In

the colonial period, the Tutsi enjoyed special advantages based on their privi-

leged access to mission education and their control over church leadership,

leading communally to exceptional job mobility and other entrepreneurial

advantages to the envy and resentment of the Hutu.27 By the 1930s, the

Tutsi’s privileged access to Western education, and to the church had also

led to their dominance in the colonial civil service, adding significantly to

the envy of the majority Hutu. ‘In this way, wealth became equated with


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power and power became increasingly associated with being Tutsi. The term

Hutu evolved into a label connoting social inferiority’.28 For the Hutu, the

structural marginalisation of the community, resulting from their unequal pro-

spects for access to Western education, to Christianity, to the cash economy, to

modern bureaucracy and to other European-style institutions of privilege

established under colonialism, became deeply entrenched in the colonial era.29

Consequently, the emergent Hutu elite of the late colonial period strongly

held the belief ‘that a Hutu could never expect to reap the same socioeconomic

dividends as his counterpart Tutsi’, unless the Tutsi problem was eliminated.30

Therefore, in 1959, the new Hutu elite quickly moved to seize and direct the

transfer of power from colonial rule in what was called a ‘social revolution’

(les evenements). In Mamdani’s parlance, this was when the Hutu victims

of yesteryear became killers.31 The attempt by the Tutsi party, the Union

Nationale Rwandaise (UNAR) to crush the revolutionaries resulted in the

loss of hundreds of Tutsi lives. The massive movement of about 130,000

Tutsi refugees to the neighbouring countries of Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda

and the Democratic Republic of Congo (former Zaire) opened a new

chapter in a region in which creating refugees had become, as it remains, a

viable instrument of political exclusion. The loss of the UNAR meant the

dawn of Hutu majoritarian tyranny in Rwanda.32

In the wake of the decolonisation of Africa in the 1960s, the major con-

cerns of the Belgian colonial officials in particular, and the United Nations

in general, for both Rwanda and Burundi were how to halt the tide of ethnic

cleansing and bring about a culture of political accommodation and power

sharing. The Belgians instituted a transitional power sharing arrangement in

which both the Hutu and Tutsi elites governed Rwanda until its independence

in July 1962.33

After independence, the idea of power sharing broke down because in

Rwanda democracy had a jealous father in the form of the leadership provided

by Gregoire Kayibanda (1962–73), the first President of independent Rwanda.

Rather than sharing power with their Tutsi protagonists, the Hutu elite resorted

to ‘a policy of systematic discrimination, especially in arenas that permitted

upward mobility, namely modern education, jobs and politics’.34 In this

dynamics of political exclusion and oppression resides the politics of intoler-

ance in Rwanda with intra-ethnic, inter-ethnic and inter-regional dimensions.

In 1973, President Kayibanda, a southern Hutu, was overthrown in a mili-

tary coup led by Major-General Juvenal Habyarimana, a fellow Hutu from the

northern prefectures.35 The succeeding regime altogether failed to eschew

nepotism and intolerance of the opposition despite its pledges to resolve

these vexing issues. Habyarimana’s quota system policy, under which a pre-

determined number of posts and resources were allocated to each competing

group, was actually as discriminatory against Hutus from southern Rwanda as


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against Tutsis.36 The President’s northern Bashiru Hutu kinsmen hijacked the

Rwandan state through its one-party system, the Mouvement Revolutionnnaire

National pour le Developpement (MRND).37 Like his predecessor, Habyari-

mana ignored the refugee question, despite pressures from local and inter-

national mediators. These refugees, popularly known as the ‘59ers’ in

Uganda, formed the core of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) rebels who

invaded Rwanda in the 1990s.38

Sustained pressure from Hutu moderates and international mediators

brought about the institution of a quasi-power sharing government in April

1992 with a plan for a transition to democratic governance as endorsed by

the Arusha Peace Accord of August 1993.39 But the Hutu hardliners,

opposed to all peace initiatives, continued to spread fear about a possible

Tutsi takeover of Rwanda. Eventually the purported involvement of the

Tutsi-led RPF in the death of Rwandan dictator Habyarimana in 1994

sparked the genocide tinderbox that has left Rwanda a broken society.40

The RPF led by Paul Kagame dislodged the Hutu oligarchy in July 1994

and declared a new ‘independence’.41 Kagame and his political cohorts

pledged to institute a new political structure based on national reconciliation,

‘decentralization of government and popular participation in the affairs of the

country’, as the cardinal ‘principles of its policies’.42 A new government of

national unity was established which included prominent Hutus like Pasteur

Bizimungu as President and Faustin Twagiramungu as Prime Minister,

among other moderates who joined the RPF.43

After a decade, post-genocide Rwanda is still struggling to secure the

necessary foundations for peace, reconciliation and cooperation that will

ensure that the ugly events of the past never recur. To the contrary, the cycle

of structural killings, exclusions, humiliation and inequality have continued

as the RPF implements its policy of decentralisation by coopting only

leaders loyal to the RPF ideology. Many moderates in the government have

been forced into exile by Tutsi hardliners.44 The regime has continued to

condone the ethnic domination and nepotism which have remained the bane

of modern African politics. Multipartyism, which should serve as forum for

pluralism, was suspended in 1995 under the rationale that it tends ‘to

promote divisions’.45 The statistics show that by 2000 Tutsi RPF loyalists

held the entire key Armed Forces Commands. In 2002, seven out of ten ambas-

sadorial positions; ten out of 12 permanent secretarial appointments and nine

out of the 12 administrative prefectures in Rwanda were under Tutsi leader-

ship.46 Before the 25 August 2003 national elections, attacks against the

militia supporters of the old regime (the Interahamwe) and other political

opponents were escalated. Well before this election it was obvious that the

incumbent President Paul Kagame was heading for a ‘landslide victory’ on

the basis of these tactics of exclusion and intimidation. Conversely, while


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Rwanda is being denied ways to express its pluralism, political opponents of

the incumbent regime, who may have other ulterior motives, have found the

justification to resort to insurgent actions against the RPF.

As Rwanda continues to search for nationalist ideologies to bridge the

socioeconomic and political crevices, variously and visibly manifested in

forms of social distrust, widespread poverty and mental anguish for the surviv-

ing relatives of the genocide victims, one wonders whether Rwanda’s crisis

cannot be more appropriately and more positively addressed through a

genuine opening of the political system. It is, however, also important

quickly to state that the adoption of a power sharing model as a strategy to

peace is not going to bring about an automatically enduring calm in

Rwandan politics. As Maarten Jans has observed, states with potent formulas

for dealing with diversity in a democratic context (such as The Netherlands,

Belgium, Canada and Switzerland) have continued to be confronted by both

intra-group and inter-group frictions.47 It should hardly be surprising, there-

fore, that the path to democracy in post-genocide Rwanda poses difficult

challenges which will continue to recur into the foreseeable future. The

historically entrenched nature and the complexity of its internal conflicts

make regulation and accommodation particularly difficult. The addition of

a political economy dimension in which individuals and groups see one

another as predators increases the difficulties inherent in regulating such a

deep-seated set of problems.

Nonetheless, the first step in the right direction for Rwanda is to reduce the

high stakes of political power tied to resource control, and to adopt electoral,

representational and decision-making formulae that guarantee a stake in these

processes for every competing group in the system. Writing on West African

politics over four decades ago, Sir Arthur Lewis stated that ‘The surest way to

kill the idea of democracy in a plural society is to adopt the Anglo-American

system of first-past-the-post’.48 This wisdom influenced the resolve of the

South African political elite to end the apartheid regime of white minority

rule and establish a consociational democracy. The government of President

F.W. De Klerk reached a number of compromises with both the African

National Congress (ANC) – the black majority political party – and the

radical Inkatha Freedom Fighters under Mangosuthu Buthelezi, whom

Horowitz has described as ‘an avowed consociationalist’. Among the major

initial understandings between the competing political elites in South Africa

was the idea of a government of national unity with all parties incorporated

into a power sharing arrangement.49

As a basic tenet of consociational democracy, it is argued that politics in a

divided society fundamentally requires inter-elite cooperation in forging com-

promises and the accommodation of all significant groups in the decision-

making process for system stability.50 In Rwanda, politics has always been


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a ‘zero-sum’ game. Enforced marginalisation of out-of-power ethnic commu-

nities has combined with either military dictatorships or an electoral process

that allows victors exclusive access to all the spoils of office to produce a

dangerous system in which excluded groups are inclined to fight until death

because losers reap only humiliation. Genocide is widely conceived as an

instrument for the permanent marginalisation of opponents and as a means

for guaranteeing group survival for the perpetrators. This form of ‘graveyard

politics’ therefore throws into stark relevance the urgent need for a consocia-

tional federalism in the light of the ongoing, but also enduringly unsatisfactory

and inherently unstable, transitions in Rwanda.

P R O S P E C T S F O R I N S T A L L I N G A C O N S O C I A T I O N A L

F E D E R A L I S M I N R W A N D A

As a norm, Lijphart has identified nine factors that make consociational engin-

eering easier. In reality, these conditions are rarely fulfilled in their entirety in

most political communities. They ‘are helpful, but neither indispensable nor

sufficient in and of themselves to account for the success of consociational

democracy’. They are not ‘unique to consociational democracy, as they can

also be present in nonconsociational democracies’.51 To examine the pro-

spects of building consociational federalism in Rwanda, the structural

elements identified as helpful in working out a power sharing formula in a

plural society will be highlighted and then discussed in relation to their

degree of relevance and applicability to the Rwandan case.

First, according to Lijphart, consociation building is easier in a polity where

no overwhelming majority ethnic group exists. This is because a common

agreement is more quickly reached between equal parties. Negotiation

between markedly unequal parties, as in Rwanda, is more complex because

the majority would naturally ask for a bigger share. Second, where the com-

peting ethnic groups are geographically concentrated, as in much of Ethiopia,

the institution of consociation presents less of a problem. The concentration

of ethnic groups in clearly defined areas, among other things, facilitates

arrangements for group autonomy in the form of federalism.52

Third, conditions favourable to accommodation are maximised when

ethnic groups are of the same size, facilitating balance in power sharing and

representational equality.53 Fourth, where few competing groups exist, nego-

tiation among them will be less difficult and complicated. Fifth, a relatively

small population in a country further makes the decision-making process

less complicated. Sixth, a common enemy to the nation state (which might

be either external or internal or both) would tend to induce cooperation

among the elite to ensure their collective security. Seventh, the presence of


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an overarching (national) loyalty tends to reduce the strength of competing

ethnic loyalties and to encourage cohesion. Eighth, the absence of large socio-

economic differences among ethnic groups is also considered to be a favour-

able condition. Often, groups with bigger economic potential see the poorer

groups as parasites. Finally, but not least, prior traditions of compromise

and accommodation hold an extra promise for consociational consensus

building. If there is a track record of past compromises, hope is reinforced

for subsequent cooperative relationships.54

Prima facie, the favourable conditions for power sharing in Rwanda out-

weigh the unfavourable ones, even though there should be no clear-cut opti-

mism about the implications of this point. First, the small population of

Rwanda, about 7–8 million, offers prospects for success. According to conso-

ciational theory, a small population makes the decision-making process in a

consociation less complicated.55 Second, Rwanda’s involvement in the

Congolese war, and the widening circle of regional insecurity in the Great

Lakes Region has placed the troubled nation under continuing threat of

attacks from the territories of its immediate neighbours, notably Uganda

and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (CDR). This on-going threat

provides an extra incentive for the Rwandese elites to seek cooperation and

peace.56 Strange as it may seem, the absence of such national threats often

tends to reduce elite willingness to seek peace. For instance, after the resump-

tion of the Congo war in 1999, the people rallied together to secure Rwanda’s

territory for cell and sector elections organised in March of that year. Security

was restored through the involvement and ‘mobilization of the Hutu political

leaders, the participation of local communities in the fight against insurgents

and the recruitment and deployment of predominantly Hutu ex-FAR

[Rwandan National Army – Forces Armees Rwandalaises] soldiers within

RPF units in the Northwest of the country’.57 Inter-elite cooperation in

Rwanda should potentially be even more attractive because it is not only

the excluded Hutu but also the ruling Tutsi elites that are currently living

under the danger of a preemptive or revanchist attack from their political

opponents within. As Ignatius Mugabo aptly asserts, ‘the failure of the Tutsi

leaders to solve the political problem of Rwanda and establish a democratic

state plays dangerously into the hands of the Hutu extremists who are

waiting for the total collapse of the Tutsi rule so as to use it as a rallying

point to regain power’.58

Third, unlike Nigeria with about 250 ethnic groups, Rwanda has only two

major communal groups – the Hutu and the Tutsi. Although the Twa in

Rwanda, like the Ogoni minority group in Nigeria,59 have been rendered invis-

ible over recent decades, their more overt consideration and direct involve-

ment in the present search for a more inclusive power equation should be

facilitated by their small size. Consociational theory supposes that negotiation


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will be much easier between few groups. Fourth, in postcolonial Rwanda the

socioeconomic differences existing between the two dominant ethnic groups

have been partially reduced during the lengthy Hutu control of power and

national resources since independence.

On the negative side, the present Rwandese society lacks the strong sense

of overarching (national) loyalty which Lijphart perceives as a favourable

condition for power sharing. This limited patriotism may be largely attributed

to the endless threats of genocidal onslaught that have engendered widespread

despair, hatred and social distrust among the country’s communal groups. The

army, the police and political parties – which ordinarily should protect

common values and guard the lives of all citizens – have all in the past

decades proved ready instruments of genocide. As Reyntjens aptly sums it

up, the manner ‘in which the Rwandan and Burundian armies misbehave’ in

the Great Lakes region ‘constantly reinforces the “Bantu” vs. “Hamite” bipo-

larization and contributes to an ethnogenesis that contains the seeds of future

confrontation which will prove difficult to manage’.60

Also, the huge size of the Hutu community (85 per cent), in relation to its

Tutsi (14 per cent) and Twa (one per cent) counterparts, poses a daunting chal-

lenge to those seeking a consensual power sharing formula in Rwanda.61

Additionally, the overwhelming Christian majority (about 95 per cent) in

Rwanda is insensitive to the interests of the relatively small but not insignif-

icant Muslim community, constituting about four per cent of the country’s

population. Consociational theory supposes that the appropriate balance in

power sharing arrangements is most easily worked out among ethnic groups

of the same size. Additionally, the various ethnic groups are not geographi-

cally concentrated; they are rather intermingled. This geopolitical structure

stemmed from Rwanda’s complex historical processes of ethnicisation pre-

mised on indigenous socioeconomic structures that also exhibited significantly

overlapping patterns of inter-communal population distribution.62

Notwithstanding its geopolitical peculiarities, a consociational approach

to power sharing could potentially be adapted to suit a special case like

Rwanda, building on its facilitating conditions and allowing for the problems

posed by the negative factors discussed above. This implies that, given will-

ingness to cooperate among elites, the seeming obstacles to power sharing

in Rwanda – absence of overarching loyalty and no prior record of elite

accommodation, gross disparity in size of ethnic groups, and their geographi-

cal dispersion and mixture – can be overcome with innovative constitutional

and electoral engineering.63

A possible solution to the overwhelming size of the Hutu community as a

challenge to successful consociational engineering is the option of proportion-

ality and/or minority over-representation in both the legislature and the execu-

tive. Clearly, a high degree of sensitivity is required in producing an


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acceptable representational formula. While minority over-representation

would give the Tutsi and Twa a sense of security, it would also tend to

reduce the willingness of the Hutu to join a power sharing system with the

necessary degree of commitment. Nonetheless, the idea of a consociation is

neither that majority groups will totally cease to dominate political offices

nor that minority groups should have no rights to aspire to the highest

offices in a country. Rather, it is important that no group should rule

without a collective understanding of the need for some degree of represen-

tational flexibility. One can see, for example, the relevance to Rwanda of

the Nigerian system in which all the sub-states are granted a parity of represen-

tations in the Upper House (Senate) – that is, a system of deliberate under-

representation for the majority – as a special demonstration of commitment

by the majority.64 In stark contrast, what has been witnessed in post-genocide

Rwanda over the past decade is blatant Tutsi domination of political offices.

This trend is not conducive to the quest for reconciliation because it brings

back the vexing memories of injustices the majority Hutu suffered in pre-

colonial and colonial Rwanda. As a solution, Rwanda minimally needs a

formula of ‘proportional’ representation in the constitution of both the

legislature and the executive on the basis of which fair compromises can be

reached between the competing groups.

The second big challenge to possibilities for power sharing in Rwanda

remains the intermixture of ethnic groups in their different geographical

locations. Although the Hutu inhabit most of the north, and most Tutsi are

located in the southwest, none of these regions are completely homogenous

in their ethnic composition. While this intermixture of ethnic groups poses a

problem to the institutionalisation of territorial autonomy, it also problematises

uniform standards for policy implementation. In a consociation, decisions are

overtly taken with regard to group affiliations. As a solution, Rwanda may have

to consider routes to community autonomy based on both territorial and non-

territorial arrangements, in which case membership of a particular communal

grouping could be variably and flexibly defined either in terms of residence or

in terms of voluntary affiliation according to the ethnic composition of, and

inter-group balance within, specific areas and regions.65

This implies that the existing 12 administrative prefectures and communes

in Rwanda with their varying mixtures of ethnic and religious groups, in the

form of the Hutu, Tutsi, Twa, the various Christian denominations and

Moslems, will need some imaginative constitutional restructuring as a basis

for effective decisional decentralisation, as well as to guarantee appropriate

degrees of autonomy and self-definition. A similarly complex population

structure in some parts of Ethiopia led to the establishment of 14 regional

states with substantial devolution of power in 1992. These sub-states were

further subdivided into 66 zones and 550 special wards (or districts), with


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Harare and Addis Ababa accorded special status because of their multiethnic

populations.66 Lijphart recommends that it is important to allow the inter-

mixed groups to find self-definition or ‘self-determination’, by allowing the

citizens within such populations the freedom to attach themselves to the

ethnic or religious community of their choice. Multiparty coalition govern-

ment and cultural councils with guaranteed representational quotas could

serve as possible institutional bases for self-definition. Self-determination is

also potentially likely to be helpful in determining the most generally accep-

table ratio for deciding the degree of proportionality in parliamentary

representation. Homogeneity of each group forges solidarity within. Self-

definition also accords the individuals the right to choose between neutrality

and attachment to a particular group. Above all, ‘self-definition gives equal

chances not only to all ethnic or other segments, large or small, in plural

societies but also to groups and individuals who explicitly reject the idea

that society should be organized on a segmented basis’.67

On paper, the Nigerian local government system, the grassroots level of

Nigeria’s three-tier federal systems, which has been accorded substantial

control of local affairs including the power to impose taxes, looks promising

as a model for self-determination in Rwanda. Among other things, the 1976

local government reform in Nigeria aimed to make government services

responsive to local needs by devolving power to local representative bodies;

to facilitate the exercise of grassroots democratic self-government; and to

provide a channel of communication between local communities and govern-

ment (both state and federal).68 Another obvious route to underlining the

advantages of self-determination for Rwanda’s communal groupings is to

establish, and to entrench, a degree of shared power (without full power

sharing) at the highest levels of the national executive.69

Overall, therefore, it is suggested that, carefully designed and carefully

implemented, the overlapping structures of consociational federalism hold

real promise for the resurgence of political life and for building social and pol-

itical capital within a resurgent Rwanda. The expectation is that from an initial

basis of genuine inter-elite cooperation confidence building will be induced,

from which a new patriotism could emerge, and sturdy norms of reciprocity

can be entrenched over time, allowing socio-political capital gradually to

accumulate.70

C O N C L U S I O N S

Democratic consociational federalism is proposed as a pathway to conflict

moderation in Rwanda’s restive polity, and has been presented above as an

imperative. This model of power sharing would see the various competing


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groups – Hutu, Tutsi, Twa, the army, politicians, the various Christian

denominations and Muslims – adequately and securely represented in the

decision-making process of their country. Besides the participation of all

significant groups in government, guarantees of a high degree of autonomy

for the groups, the entrenchment of minority veto rights and the secure

establishment of a multiparty system must be part of the new arrangements,

following precedents variously established in Ethiopia, Nigeria and South

Africa. In this regard, the RPF should, as an immediate priority, reconsider

its decision during the 2003 general elections to suspend the opposition

party, the Mouvement Democratique Republicain (MDR), for what it per-

ceived as ‘propagating divisive ideology’.71 Such measures fan the embers

of ethnic conflict, while obstructing the emergence of legitimate institutional

arenas for expressing pluralism. Importantly, and more generally, the appetite

for the present Tutsi ruling elite to avenge the Hutu atrocities of 1994 and, as

part of that agenda, its continuing predilection to engage in the harassment of

the opposition must be curbed if there is to be any possibility for a movement

towards a more consensual politics. It may be recalled that the demonstrated

readiness of the ANC leaders to forgive the atrocities committed by the

preceding white regimes became the greatest contribution to peace and state

restructuring in South Africa.72

Could a consociational federalism hold in Rwanda? The immediate key to

a positive answer to this question lies in the emergence of a more positive

disposition among the country’s strategic elites towards the inauguration of

a more consensual and accommodative politics in Rwanda. Elite ‘accommo-

dation lies at the heart of any true consociational arrangement; it is the factor

which is both necessary and, in combination with certain facilitating factors,

sufficient to integrate a divided society, and it can only be described in

behavioural terms, such as “the will to cooperate”, “compromise”, or “fear

of system collapse”’.73 Given the emergence of an elite consensus on the

desirability of a politics of accommodation, this paper has argued that suffi-

cient facilitating factors and elements exist in Rwanda to allow a system of

consociational federalism to be established, and, once established, to begin

progressively to build inter-communal confidence and, therefore, ultimately

to hold over time.

The answer to the subtly different question – could a democratic consocia-

tional federalism hold in Rwanda? – can also be answered with the same

degree of cautious optimism. Nevertheless, it is important to remain aware

that relationships between consociational arrangements and democratisation

are far from unidirectional. Robert Pinkney, for example, rightly critiques

the elite-based rationales utilised in explaining cases of political stability

obtained via a consociational pact as too narrow to offer general explanations

for successful transitions to democracy. There may be cases, he contends,


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‘where one group takes control of the political system from another, as in the

American Revolution, rather than having to compromise with other groups of

comparable strength, and then absorbs other groups into the democratic

process’.74 Similarly, Karl Lynn and Philippe Schmitter consider elite politi-

cal compromises and the establishment of democratic prerequisites to be

mutually exclusive exercises.75 Clearly, therefore, it is important to stress

that democracy may be based on and established for reasons other than

those of group reconciliation.

On the other hand, one may also legitimately argue that the future of

democracy in Africa’s most deeply divided plural societies resides at least

initially with the disposition of the ruling elite to power sharing. In the

Rwandan case, in particular, it is only the deliberately inclusive negotiation

and the overtly consensual inauguration of such consociational arrangements

and federal structures that would have sufficient moderating potential to bring

about even initial possibilities for the peaceful accommodation of Rwanda’s

hostile groups. In turn, such accommodation would provide a necessary

prerequisite for communal confidence building and, therefore, for any future

democratic development. As Sir Arthur Lewis presciently observed over

four decades ago, Africa’s deeply divided societies are so politically conscious

that no one powerful group can successfully dictate terms of political

cooperation for others. Thus, with a note of finality, Lewis advised that

African states must embrace non-majoritarian democracy because each of

Africa’s ‘numerous and politically conscious groups’ are determined to

control their separate destinies.76 This understanding, however belatedly,

must reach the ears of Africa’s political leaders in order to achieve peaceful

coexistence and democratic stability in the Black people’s continent.

NOTES

While all errors and misinterpretations are mine, I wish to thank Thomas Mackay, John McLeod,Filip Reyntjens, Obi Aginam, Tim Kelsall, Steve Fabian and the editors and anonymous reviewersfor Commonwealth and Comparative Politics for their invaluable comments on earlier versions ofthis paper.

1. J.R. Rudolph, Jr. and R.J. Thompson, Ethnoterritorial Politics, Policy and the Western World(London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1989), 224. See also D. Rothschild, ‘Ethnicity andConflict Resolution’, World Politics, 22/4 (July 1970), 597–616.

2. See A. Lijphart, Democracies: Patterns of Majoritarian and Consensus Government inTwenty-one Countries (Yale: Yale University Press, 1984); idem, ‘Non-Majoritarian Democ-racy: A Comparison of Federal and Consociational Theories’, Publius: The Journal of Fed-eralism, 15/2 (1985), 3–15; idem, ‘The Power Sharing Approach’, in J.V. Montville, Conflictand Peace Making in Multiethnic Societies (Massachusetts: Lexington Books, 1990), 492–9;and idem, ‘Self-Determination Versus Predetermination of Ethnic Minorities in PowerSharing Systems’, in W. Kymlicka (ed.), The Rights of Minority Cultures (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1995), 275–85.


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3. H. Bakvis, ‘Structure and Process in Federal and Consociational Arrangements’, Publius: TheJournal of Federalism, 15/2 (Spring 1985), 57.

4. For Nigeria, see L.A. Jinadu, ‘Federalism. The Consociational State, and Ethnic Conflict inNigeria’, Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 15/2 (Spring 1985), 71–112 and R.C.Njoku, ‘Consociationalism: Its Relevance for Nigeria’, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics,5/2 (Summer 1999), 1–35. For Ethiopia, see K. Mengisteab, ‘New Approaches to State Build-ing in Africa: The Case of Ethiopia’s Ethnic-Based Federalism’, African Studies Review, 40/3(Dec. 1997), 111–32. For South Africa, see A. Lijphart, Power Sharing in South Africa(Berkeley: University of California Institute of International Studies, 1985); idem, The Poli-tics of Accommodation, Pluralism and Democracy in the Netherlands (Berkeley: Universityof California, 1975).

5. J. Steiner and R.H. Dorff, ‘Structure and Process in Consociationalism and Federalism’,Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 15/12 (Spring 1985), 50.

6. D.J. Elazar, ‘Introduction, Federalism and Consociationalism: A Symposium’, Publius:The Journal of Federalism, 15/2 (1985), 1–2; Arend Lijphart, ‘Consociation and Federation:Conceptual and Empirical Links’, Canadian Journal of Political Science, 12/3 (Sept. 1979),499–515; idem, ‘Federalism, Confederal, and Consociational Options for the South AfricanPlural Society’, in R.I. Rotberg and John Barrat (eds.), Conflict and Compromise in SouthAfrica (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Books, 1980), 51–75; idem, ‘Non-MajoritarianDemocracy’, 3.

7. Lijphart, ‘Non-Majoritarian Democracy’, 3.8. See Lijphart, ‘Ethnic Minorities’, 277; idem, ‘Definition, Evidence, and Policy’, 425; idem,

‘Power Sharing Approach’, 494; idem, ‘Non-Majoritarian Democracy’, 5; and alsoA. Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1977), 1.

9. See Lijphart, ‘Ethnic Minorities’, 278–83; see also idem, ‘Power Sharing Approach’, 494–5and R. Lapidoth, ‘Ways of Sharing Power: Federalism, Decentralization and Conflict Man-agement in Multicultural Societies’, Forum of Federations: An International Network of Fed-eralism (2002), 23–4.

10. Lijphart, ‘Ethnic Minorities’, 279.11. Lijphart, ‘Non-Majoritarian Democracy’, 3–4.12. A.-G. Gagnon (ed.), ‘The Political Uses of Federalism’, in M. Burgess and A.-G. Gagnon,

Comparative Federalism and Federation: Competing Traditions and Future Directions(New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993), 15. See also M. Freeman, ‘Democracy and Dyna-mite: The People’s Right to Self-Determination’, Political Studies, 44/4 (1996), 751–2;Elazar, ‘Federalism and Consociationalism Regimes’, 20. Extolling the innovative principlesof Uganda’s electoral law of 1971, M. Bogaards asserts that ‘constituency pooling’ or ‘votepooling’ is ‘a related but distinct way of promoting cross-cutting cleavages in the partysystem’. According to Bogaards, ‘vote-pooling occurs when in a heterogeneous society pol-itical leaders seek support outside their own group in order to win elections and votersexchange votes across group boundaries’. See M. Bogaards, ‘Electoral Choices forDivided Societies: Multi-ethnic Parties and Constituency Pooling in Africa’, Commonwealthand Comparative Politics, 41/3 (March 2003), 59–61.

13. See for instance D. Welsh, ‘Federalism and the Divided Society: A South African Perspec-tive’, in De Villiers (ed.), Evaluating Federal Systems, 243–50; and J. Butler, R. Elphieland D. Welsh, Democratic Liberalism in South Africa: Its History and Prospects (Middle-town, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1987).

14. D.L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: California University Press, 1985), 601.15. M. Burgess (ed.), Federalism and Federation in Western Europe (London, Croom Helm,

1986), 144.16. For Ethiopia see W. Engedayehu, ‘Ethiopia: Democracy and the Politics of Ethnicity’, Africa

Today, 40/2 (1993), 29–52. For Nigeria see B.J. Dudley, ‘Federalism and the Balance ofPower in Nigeria’, Journal of Commonwealth Studies, 4/2 (October 1966), 16–29; Jinadu,‘Ethnic Conflict in Nigeria’, 71–100; J.B. Ejobowah, ‘Political Recognition of Ethnic Plur-alism: Lessons from Nigeria’, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 6/3 (Autumn 2000), 1–18.


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17. Horowitz, Groups in Conflict, 597, 612–13.18. Ibid., 613.19. Ibid., 601. See also I.D. Duchacek, ‘Consociational Cradle of Federalism’, Publius: The

Journal of Federalism, 15/2 (Spring 1985), 37, 47.20. Lijphart, ‘Non-Majoritarian Democracy’, 5.21. Ibid.; Lijphart, ‘Power Sharing Approach’, 494. Lijphart has dropped the sixth element,

which supposed that only federations in plural societies could be consociations, in a recentreply to a critique by Bogaards. See A. Lijphart, ‘Definitions, Evidence, and Policy: AResponse to Matthijs Bogaards’ Critique’, Journal of Theoretical Politics, 12/4 (2000),425–31; M. Bogaards, ‘The Uneasy Relationship between Empirical and Normative Typesin Consociational Theory’, Journal of Theoretical Politics, 12/4 (2000), 395–423.

22. A. Pappalardo, ‘The Conditions for Consociational Democracy: A Logical and EmpiricalCritique’, European Journal of Political Research, 9/4 (1981), 365; B. Barry, ‘PoliticalAccommodation and Consociational Democracy’, British Journal of Political Science, 5/4(Oct. 1975), 477–505.

23. V. Ostrom, The Meaning of Democracy and the Vulnerability of Democracies: A Response toTocqueville’s Challenge (Ann Arbor: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 287. The emphasisis the author’s.

24. C. Ake, ‘Explanatory Notes on the Political Economy of Africa’, Journal of Modern AfricanStudies, 14/1 (March 1976), 11.

25. M.G. Schatzberg, Political Legitimacy in Middle Africa: Father, Family, Food (Bloomingtonand Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2001), 40–41

26. See P. Uvin, Aiding Violence: The Development Enterprise in Rwanda (West Hartford, Con-necticut: Kumarian Press, 1998), 13–14; C. Newbury, The Cohesion of Oppression: Client-ship and Ethnicity in Rwanda: 1860–1960 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988),12; J. Kakwenzire and D. Kamukana, ‘The Development and Consolidation of ExtremistForces in Rwanda’, in A. Suhrke (ed.), The Path of a Genocide (New Brunswick andLondon: Transaction Publishers, 1999), 61–92; A.J. Kuperman, The Limits of HumanitarianIntervention: Genocide in Rwanda (Washington DC: Brookings Institutional Press, 2001),5–14, 15–23; M. Barnet, Eyewitness to a Genocide (Ithaca & London: Cornell UniversityPress, 2002), 1–22; C.P. Scherrer, Genocide and Crisis in Central Africa: Conflict Roots,Mass Violence and Regional War (Westport, CT & London: Praeger, 2002), 15–64.

27. See for instance J.J.P. Maquet, The Premise of Inequality in Rwanda: A Study of PoliticalRelations in Central African Kingdom (London: Published for the International African Insti-tute by Oxford University Press, 1961); A. Segal, Massacre in Rwanda (London: FabianSociety, 1964); Uvin, Aiding Violence; and Jones, Peacemaking.

28. S. Fabian, ‘Implanting the Idea: The Role of the Media in the Rwandan Genocide of 1994’(Unpublished BA Dissertation, University of Victoria, April 2001), 5–6. See also B.D.Jones, Peacemaking in Rwanda: The Dynamics of Failure (London: Lynne Rienner Publish-ers, 2001), 17; Newbury, Cohesion of Oppression, 51; R. Lemarchand, Rwanda and Burundi(London: Pall Mall, 1970), 20–21; C.C. Taylor, Sacrifice as Terror: The Rwandan Genocideof 1994 (Oxford & New York: Berg, 1999), 32, 68.

29. See L. Kuper, The Pity of it All: Polarization of Racial and Ethnic Relations (Minneapolis:University of Minnesota, 1977), 170; Uvin, Aiding Violence, 13. See also K. Maier, Intothe House of the Ancestors: Inside the New Africa (New York: John Wiley and Sons Publish-ers, 1998), 161; G. Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis: History of Genocide (New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 1997), 12.

30. S.B. Isabirye and K.M. Mahmoudi, ‘Tribal Conflicts in Africa: A Case Study of Rwanda andBurundi’, Ufahamu: Journal of the African Activist Association, 27/1–3 (1999), 68. See alsoJones, Peacemaking, 19 and Prunier, Rwanda Crisis, 50.

31. See M. Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide inRwanda (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2003).

32. See Prunier, Rwanda Crisis, 51; A. Akodjenou, ‘Lessons Learned from the RwandaEmergency’, A Workshop held at the Chateau des Penthes, Geneva, 15–17 May 1995, 1;Uvin, Aiding Violence, 19; Jones, Peacemaking, 20.


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33. See United Nations, General Assembly, ‘Questions of the Future of Ruanda-Urundi: InterimReport of the United Nations Commission’, UN Doc. A/4706, and Addendum, UN Doc. A/4706/Add. I, 8 March 1961 (New York 1961); Report of the United Nations Commission forRuanda-Urundi, 1962, UN Doc. A/5126 (New York: 1962). See also R. Lemarchand, ‘Mana-ging Transition Anarchies: Rwanda, Burundi, and South Africa’, Journal of Modern AfricanStudies, 32/4 (Dec. 1994), 581–604

34. Isabirye and Mahmoudi, ‘Rwanda and Burundi’, 72–3; see also Uvin, Aiding Violence, 30–31.35. See J.S. Abrams, ‘Burundi: Anatomy of an Ethnic Conflict’, Survival, 37 (Spring 1995),

147–8; S. van Hoyweghen, ‘The Disintegration of the Catholic Church of Rwanda:A Study of the Fragmentation of the Political and Religious Authority’, African Affairs,95/380 (July 1996), 382; Isabirye and Mahmoudi, ‘Rwanda and Burundi’, 72–4;Lemarchand, Rwanda and Burundi, 198–222.

36. Jones, Peacemaking, 25; van Hoyweghen, ‘Catholic Church of Rwanda’, 383; Isabirye andMahmoudi, ‘Rwanda and Burundi’, 72–4.

37. Jones, Peacemaking, 25–6; Akodjenou, ‘Rwanda Emergency’, 1–2.38. Rwanda’s economic crisis was induced mainly by a fall in the world coffee price (coffee is the

country’s main source of foreign earning), see Jones, Peacemaking, 21; and van Hoyweghen,‘Catholic Church of Rwanda’, 384–5.

39. See Jones, Peacemaking, 28–41.40. Much has been written specifically on the 1994 genocide, making it unnecessary to add

further comment in this paper. For instance see F. Keane, Season of Blood: A RwandanJourney (New York: Viking, 1995); E.L. Nyankanzi, Genocide: Rwanda and Burundi(Rochester, Vermont: Schenkman Books, 1998); Taylor, Rwandan Genocide of 1994;J. Pottier, Re-imagining Rwanda: Conflict, Survival and Disinformation in the Late Twenti-eth-century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); C. Ritter, J.K. Roth andW. Whiteworth, Genocide in Rwanda: Complicity of the Church? (St. Paul, MN: Aegis inassociation with Paragon House, 2004).

41. See B.D. Jones, ‘The Arusha Peace Process’, in H. Adelman and A. Suhrke (eds.), The Path ofGenocide: The Rwanda Crisis from Uganda to Zaire (New Brunswick & London: Trans-action Publishers, 1995), 131–251; Uvin, Aiding Violence; Isabirye and Mahmoudi,‘Rwanda and Burundi’, 79–80.

42. International Crisis Group, ‘“Consensual Democracy” in Post-Genocide Rwanda: Evaluatingthe March 2001 District Elections’, ICG Africa Report No. 34 (Nairobi/Brussels: 9 Oct.2001), 1.

43. I.T. Mugabo, ‘The Road to Peace in the Great Lakes Region of Africa: The Need for an Inte-grated Approach’, Tokyo: The United Nations University (UNU/IC (Spring 2000) retrievedvia http://www.iyoco.org/ignatiusmugabo3.htm, 14.

44. The manner in which the 2001 district election was organized further reveals that the presentTutsi-led regime in Kigali is only willing to allow political competition and power sharing onits own terms. See F. Reyntjens, ‘Rwanda: Ten Years on: From Genocide to Dictatorship’,African Affairs, 103/411 (2004), 117; Mugabo, ‘Road to Peace’, 14–15.

45. See F. Misser, Vers un nouveau Rwanda? Entretiens avec Paul Kagame (Bruxelles: LucPire/Karthala, 1995), 134; Mugabo, ‘Road to Peace’, 14.

46. See Reyntjens, ‘Rwanda, Ten Years on’, 187; ‘Annexe 2 – Institutions au Rwanda’, inF. Reyntjens and S. Marysse (eds.), L’ Afrique des Grands Lacs, Annuira 2001–2002(Paris: L’Harmattan, 2002).

47. M.T. Jans, ‘Theory and Experiences of Ethnonational Conflict Regulation: Their Relevanceto the Georgian–Abkhazian Conflict’ (Mimeograph: Vrije University Brussels, August1998), 1–7.

48. W.A. Lewis, Politics in West Africa (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), 71.49. See D.L. Horowitz, A Democratic South Africa? Constitutional Engineering in a Divided

Society (University of California Press, 1991), 8. See also S.I. Lindberg, ‘The DemocraticQualities of Competitive Elections: Participation, Competition and Legitimacy in Africa’,Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 42/1 (March 2004), 61–105; Lijphart, PowerSharing in South Africa; and Welsh, ‘A South African Perspective’, 243–50.


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50. J. Steiner, Review: ‘The Consociational Theory and Beyond’, Comparative Politics, 13/3(April 1981), 346. See also Lijphart, Politics of Accommodation, 181–95; and H. Bakvis,‘Structure and Process in Federal and Consociational Arrangements’, Publius: The Journalof Federalism, 15/2 (Spring 1985), 62.

51. M.P.C.M. van Schendelen, ‘The Views of Arend Lijphart and Collected Criticism’, Acta Poli-tica, 86/1 (1984), 26, 33. See also Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies, ch.4; idem, ‘PowerSharing Approach’, 498; S.M. Halpern, ‘The Disorderly Universe of Consociational Democ-racy’, West European Politics, 9/2 (April 1986), 182–3; Bert Pijneburg, ‘Pillarized and Con-sociational-Democratic Belgium: The Views of Huyse’, Acta Politica, 84/1 (1971), 1;K. Deschouwer, ‘From Consociation to Federation: How the Belgian Parties Won’, inK. Deschouwer and K.R. Luther (eds.), Party Elites in Divided Societies (London: Routledge,1999), 74–107.

52. See Papparlardo, ‘Conditions for Consociational Democracy’, 366–7; Lijphart, ‘PowerSharing Approach’, 497–9.

53. Papparlardo, ‘Conditions for Consociational Democracy’, 375.54. Lijphart, ‘Power Sharing Approach’, 497–9; Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies, 82–3;

Papparlardo, ‘Conditions for Consociational Democracy’, 384–5.55. See for instance Wilfred Swenden, ‘Asymmetric Federalism and Coalition Building in

Belgium’, Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 32/3 (Summer 2002), 68.56. See D.M. Payne and T. Dagne, ‘Rwanda: Seven Years after the Genocide’, Mediterranean

Quarterly, 13/1 (2002), 38–43. For Rwanda’s involvement in the ongoing wars in theGreat Lakes Region, see Amnesty International Report, ‘Escalating Repression against Pol-itical Opposition’ (New York, 20 April 2003); Reyntjens, ‘Rwanda: Ten Years on’, 117.

57. See ICG, Africa Report No. 34, 8; F. Reyntjens, ‘The Region after the Genocide’, received viafile://G:\Rwanda%20CHAPTER%2020.htm. 25/06/2003.

58. Mugabo, ‘Road to Peace’, 14; See F. Reyntjens, Political Evolution in Rwanda and Burundi,1998–1999 (Uppsala, The Nordic African Institute, 1999), 1–27; M. Mamdani, ‘WhyRwanda Trumpeted its Zaire Role’, Mail and Guardian, 8 Aug. 1987; David Rieff, ‘Real-politik in Congo: Should Zaire’s Fate Have Been Subordinate to the Fate of the RwandanRefugees?’ The Nation, 265/1 (7 July 1997), 16.

59. For an emotional view on the Ogoni issue see K. Saro-Wiwa, Genocide in Nigeria: The OgoniTragedy (Port Harcourt: Saros International Publishers, 1992). For a dispassionate analysissee C. Welch Jr., ‘The Ogoni and Self-Determination: Increasing Violence in Nigeria’, TheJournal of Modern African Studies, 33/4 (1995), 635–9; S. Crayford, ‘The Ogoni Uprising:Oil, Human Rights, and a Democratic Alternative in Nigeria’, Africa Today, 43/2 (1996),183–9; W. Soyinka, ‘The National Question in Africa: Internal Imperatives’, Developmentand Change, 27/3 (1996), 279–300.

60. F. Reyntjens, Chronique Politique du Rwanda et du Burundi, 2000–2001: L’Afrique desGrands Lacs. Annuaire 2000–2001 [Political Chronicle of Rwanda and Burundi, 2000–2001: Africa of the Great Lakes. Directory 2000–2001] (Mimeograph 2002), See alsoJones, Peacemaking, 27–52; Akodjenou, ‘Rwanda Emergency’, 1–5.

61. See Akodjenou, ‘Rwanda Emergency’, 1. See also P. Gourevitch, We Wish to Inform You thatTomorrow We will be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda (New York: Picador,1999), 57.

62. In pre-colonial Rwanda, the possession of cattle originally served as a mark of success andclass distinction as well as ethnic identity. See, for instance, A.J. Kuperman, ‘Rwanda inRetrospect’, Foreign Affairs, 79/1 (Jan./Feb. 2000), 94–118

63. This optimism is contrary to the views held by classical social scientists (including Marxists)that successful democracy is an impossible task in multicultural societies. See for example,J.S. Mill, Considerations on Representative Government (New York: Liberal Arts Press,1958), 230.

64. Pijneburg, ‘Democratic Belgium’, 1, 57–71. For a recent study on the Belgian arrangement,see Swenden, ‘Coalition Building in Belgium’, 67–87.

65. See Lijphart, ‘Ethnic Minorities’, 278–83; idem, ‘Power Sharing Approach’, 494.


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66. Ethiopia: Transitional Government Proclamation No. 7/1992 (Addis Ababa: GovernmentPrinter, 1999).

67. Lijphart, ‘Ethnic Minorities’, 285; idem, ‘Power Sharing Approach’, 492–9.68. A.E.C. Ogunna, A Handbook on Local Government in Nigeria (Owerri, Nigeria: Versatile

Publishers, 1996), 1–7.69. See Lijphart, ‘Power Sharing Approach’, 502–3.70. For a similar discussion along this line of thought, see D.A. Lake and D. Rothschild, ‘Contain-

ing Fear: The Origins and Management of Ethnic Conflict’, International Security, 21/2 (Fall1996), pp.41–75.

71. See Amnesty International Report, ‘Escalating Repression against Political Opposition’(New York: International Press Release, 23 April 2003); ‘We will come after you, KagameTells Interahamwe’, The East African Newspaper (Nairobi), 21 April 2003; andI. Mukamuhirwa and F. Nsanzuwera, ‘Open Letter to Rwanda: Justice for Rwandans’,Issue: A Journal of Opinion, 26/1 (1998), 2–4.

72. In South Africa, the ANC’s ability and willingness to co-opt key social groups by drawingthem into transactional relationships has been described by Lindberg as ‘faithful compro-mise’. Lindberg, ‘The Democratic Qualities’, 140.

73. Bakvis, ‘Federal and Consociational Arrangements’, 62.74. R. Pinkney, Democracy in the Third World (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1993), 24.75. K.T. Lynn and P.C. Schmitter, ‘Modes of Transition in Latin America, Southern and Eastern

Europe’, International Social Science Journal, 43/128 (May 1991), 269–84.76. Lewis, Politics in West Africa, 51. See also Lijphart, ‘Ethnic Minorities’, 278.


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