The introduction of consociational power sharing as a post-war political system has become one
of the international community´s preferred post-conflict devices. In situations where warring
polities are internally divided by ethnic religious linguistic or national identity
consociationalism guarantees the inclusion of all groups in the political process and prevents
a 'tyranny of the majority over one or more minorities. However if international actors keep
intervening in the political process the advantages of consociationalism are turned upside
down. In this exceptional book Adis Merdzanovic develops a theoretical and empirical approach
to understanding consociational democracies that include external intervention. Using the case
of Bosnia and Herzegovina where the consociational Dayton Peace Agreement ended the three-year
war between Serbs Croats and Bosniaks twenty years ago it elaborates on the different
approaches used in the past and gives practical recommendations for future state-building
exercises by the international community.
