Inclusion, dispersion, and constraint: powersharing in the world's states, 1975-2010

Abstract

Political powersharing arrangements serve three purposes: to give all relevant groups access to the most important political decisions; to partition the policy process, thereby granting groups autonomy in their own homeland and on issues of special concern; and to constrain political power-holders from abusing their authority at the expense of any group. We introduce a new global dataset on a broad range of political powersharing institutions, 1975-2010. As posited theoretically, we show that political powersharing statistically disaggregate into three component types: inclusive, dispersive, and constraining institutions. Existing literature associates powersharing with democracy as well as with civil conflict resolution. We find differences between the types of political powersharing institutions correlated with electoral democracy and those prevalent in post-conflict states. Inclusive powersharing institutions are common in post-conflict states but least strongly associated with electoral democracy. Conversely, constraining institutions, which are comparatively rare in states with current or recent civil conflicts, are highly correlated with electoral democracy.