Power-Sharing versus Border-Crossing in Ethnically Divided Societies
(2000) Designing Democratic Institutions — ISBN: [0-8147-9773-3], p. 296-320, published
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- Abstract
- It is a pleasure to comment on such an instructive and gloomy paper.1 Its instructiveness was particularly pleasurable, because it helped me see in a completely new light whatever I knew about the subject, not, as it happens, by virtue of any expertise I might possess in political theory, but rather by virtue of having lived for most of my life in what can plausibly be characterized (see below) as a severely divided society: Belgium. Less predictably, the paper's gloominess too was a source of pleasure as I prepared this comment, not at all because I enjoy learning that things go wrong, let alone understanding that they are bound to go wrong, but – quite the contrary – because the little I knew and understood about the subject implied, I thought, that I had some good news for the author. For his paper's central message I understood as follows: while we can get a pretty definite image of the coherent constitutional package needed by a severely divided multiethnic society, there are deep-seated reasons that such societies will adopt instead incoherent hybrids, which will do them no good. The good news will take the form of an argument to the effect that this grim message needs to be drastically qualified. Unsurprisingly (coming from a philosopher), it will rest on two small exercises in conceptual clarification, the crucial relevance of which will be illustrated by my reading of Belgium's constitutional development and debate.
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Van Parijs, P. (2000). Power-Sharing versus Border-Crossing in Ethnically Divided Societies. In Steven Macedo & Ian Shapiro (eds) (ed.), Designing Democratic Institutions (p. p. 296-320). NYU Press. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/87390