JVF Conference Papers
The consociational model of democracy, although long recognized by political scientists as a possible solution to the problems of democracy in divided societies, as not gained wide recognition among historians.
In failing to recognize non-majoritarian democratic alternatives, historians risk overlooking or misinterpreting important political developments. Simultaneously, greater consideration of consociationalism’s history promises a better understanding of its development, successes, and failures. An application of consociational theory to Imperial Austria in the late-19th and early-20th centuries reveals that political system to be an unrecognized precursor to 20th-century consociationalism.
