Consociationalism and corruption : an exploration of the consociational system's susceptibility to corruption.

Abstract

Countries whose societies are fragmented, and which are in the process of transitioning to democracies, face the question of which political system best manages social conflict. Among those political systems that deal with conflict resolution in fragmented societies is consociationalism. This thesis argues that consociational political systems are prone to corruption, but, that specific factors in addition to the consociational arrangement itself activate the potential for corruption. An initial regression was conducted to establish the general relationship between consociationalism and corruption. A sample of 13 non-consociational countries was compared to 13 consociational ones. The regression test included consociationalism, political rights and civil liberties as independent variables. Corruption was the dependent variable. Results showed a significant relationship between consociational political systems and corruption. In addition, an increase in political rights was associated with a decrease in corruption. On the other hand, an increase in civil liberties was associated with an increase in corruption. These quantitative results were complemented by a qualitative case study of Lebanon's experience with consociationalism. The case study highlights how political corruption in Lebanon's consociational system has been aggravated by patterns of patron-client relationships that have long been present in Lebanese society.