Embracing Democracy: The Development of Arend Lijphart’s Consociational Model in Burundi

DOI

10.2991/978-2-494069-31-2_399How to use a DOI?

Keywords

consociational democracy; Burundi; domestic conflicts; the Arusha Accords

Abstract

Burundi was mired in domestic conflicts when it gained independence in the 1960s. Now, though still poverty-stricken, Burundi has engineered a democratic political institution that ensures general stability within its borders. Beginning in the late 1980s, the country underwent a series of reforms in order to resolve its complicated and intense conflicts. The peacebuilding process culminated in the signing of the Arusha Accords in 2000, when Lijphart’s consociational democracy was applied to bring peace. Albeit small-scale turmoil during national elections, Burundi experienced a period of relatively stable development in this century compared to the pre-Arusha period. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of consociational democracy remains controversial. Certain scholars believe that the consociational model did not eliminate the root causes of conflicts. This paper, on the other hand, justifies the effectiveness of consociational democracy as a peacebuilding mechanism. Denying common beliefs, this paper also recognizes that Burundi’s conflicts involve not only the ethnic cleavage but also political actors such as parties, government, rebels etc., and proves that consociationalism eliminated factors that cause unharmony in domestic political arena. Finally, the paper identifies economic development as a crucial complement to institutional reform and the ultimate goal of consociationalism.

Copyright

© 2022 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Yuzhou Li
PY  - 2022
DA  - 2022/12/29
TI  - Embracing Democracy: The Development of Arend Lijphart’s Consociational Model in Burundi
BT  - Proceedings of the 2022 6th International Seminar on Education, Management and Social Sciences (ISEMSS 2022)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 3397
EP  - 3408
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-494069-31-2_399
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-494069-31-2_399
ID  - Li2022
ER  -