A search for the behavioral roots of consociationalism: the case of Kenya

Abstract

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Contemporary approaches have increasingly focused on the structural elements of consociational theory thereby revealing a neglect of crucial behavioral components. This study calls for a renewed emphasis on the behavioral elements of the theory and argues that these are critical for the initiation and consolidation of a consociational system and for a comprehensive understanding of consociationalism. An essential corollary of this argument is that in the absence of behavioral components of the theory, the four main structural components of consociationalism do not necessarily lead to genuine power-sharing. This study makes a distinction between the behavioral and structural elements of consociational theory through a comparison of Lijphart's early and most recent works. It defends this argument theoretically but the main focus is the case of Kenya, where certain aspects of consociationalism were recently introduced. My main argument is that genuine power-sharing in Kenya has failed to take place because the behavioral components of consociationalism were relatively absent. Moreover, the purely structural principles of consociationalism, like that of government by grand coalition, have largely failed to encourage behavioral consociationalism among political elites of Kenya. In sum, the Kenyan case suggests that relatively stronger structural components of consociationalism combined with much weaker behavioral components weaken consensual decision-making.