My talk for the Middle East and Mediterranean Studies Programme at King’s College London focuses on consociationalism as a theory managing in particular violent conflict in divided societies. I argue that this strategy of conflict management has two broad dimensions that have emerged most clearly in its liberal consociational version-power sharing and self-governance. Beginning with a discussion of power-sharing and subsequently turning to self-governance I examine the conceptual links between them systematically and illustrate my analysis with empirical examples. Engaging with critics of both power sharing and self-governance, I offer a conditional theoretical and empirical defence of liberal consociationalism thus also contributing further to the development of liberal consociational theory and practice.
