The Role of Government in Managing Intercultural Relations

• Author: Hugh T. Miller,Dragan M. Staniševski
• DOI: 10.1177/0095399709339012
• Published date: 01 September 2009
• Date: 01 September 2009

Administration & Society
Volume 41 Number 5
September 2009 551-575
© 2009 SAGE Publications
10.1177/0095399709339012
The Role of Government
http://aas.sagepub.com
hosted at
in Managing Intercultural
http://online.sagepub.com
Relations
Multicultural Discourse and the Politics
of Culture Recognition in Macedonia
Dragan M. Staniševski
Mississippi State University
Hugh T. Miller
Florida Atlantic University
When intercultural tensions flare up, governments typically must engage the
conflict one way or another. This article questions the possible role of gov-
ernment in transforming these difficult social–cultural–political conflicts into
democratic moments. Three theoretical approaches to democracy compete
for status in the realm of multicultural politics: majoritarian, consociational,
and deliberative democracy. The multicultural features of these three theo-
retical models are compared in the context of one divided society, Macedonia,
a place where the government has been assigned a new role: to implement a
policy regarding multicultural inclusion. Since the so-called Framework
Agreement of 2001 has been in effect, interethnic conflict in Macedonia has
not been the overheated political problem it was at the inception of the
Agreement, even though cultural groups remain divided, anxieties continue,
and policy processes are mostly top–down.
Keywords:
multicultural discourse; politics of culture recognition; government;
democracy; Macedonia
The cultural diversity that characterizes many societies brings multi-
tudes of social challenges and opportunities that can have important
implications for public policy and administration (Chilosi, 2002; Denhardt,
1999; Esman, 1997; Kymlicka & Norman, 2000; Smith & Stephenson,
Authors’ Note: Please address correspondence to Dragan M. Staniševski, Department of
Political Science and Public Administration, Mississippi State University, P. O. Box PC,
Mississippi State, MS 39762; e-mail: dstanisevski@ps.msstate.edu.
551

---

552 Administration & Society
2005). In many societies intercultural tensions are simply too explosive for
governments to ignore.
We examine three democratic approaches to multicultural problem solv-
ing: majoritarian, consociational, and deliberative. These three theoretical
models are contrasted in the case of Macedonia, which provides an oppor-
tunity to see how government involvement in the social management of
intercultural conflicts has unfolded in practice. The government of
Macedonia was forced by circumstances to engage in the development of a
policy for multicultural inclusion, the Framework Agreement, assuming a
role in reforming the intercultural relations in Macedonia. We examine the
implementation of the Framework Agreement, which ended the interethnic
conflict in 2001 in Macedonia. The Framework Agreement introduced ele-
ments of consociational democracy, encouraged linguistic and cultural
recognition of minority communities, and attempted to enhance citizen
engagement in public discourses. We do not here attempt to assess the
Framework Agreement as a failure or a success, but rather seek to draw
lessons from the Macedonian experience as we attempt to reframe ethnic
tension as a moment for democratic process rather than a moment for vio-
lent conflict.
Below, we theorize the possible role of government in managing intercul-
tural interactions, connecting theories of public recognition (Gutmann,
1994; Taylor, 1994) with theories of deliberative democracy (Barber, 1984;
Benhabib, 1996; Dryzek, 2000; Fox & Miller, 1995; Habermas, 1984, 1994;
Miller & Fox, 2007; Young, 2000). We first present two dominant models of
democracy: (a) majoritarian democracy and (b) consociational democracy.
Then, (c) the deliberative model of democracy is presented as another way
of extending multicultural democracy. Case material on the role of govern-
ment in Macedonia in managing intercultural interactions follows, and is
interpreted with an eye on the government’s range of interventions.
Majoritarian Democracy
The core argument of majoritarian democracy (Dahl, 1989; Rae, 1969;
Spitz, 1984) is that in a democratic society, in which individuals have a
personal prerogative to determine and express their preferences, majority
rule is necessary. It is advocated as the most practical expression of “the
will of the people.” Majority rule is viewed as superior to either rule of the
minority or the right of the minority to block the policy process (Dahl,
1989).

---

Staniševski, Miller / Role of Government in Managing Intercultural Relations 553
Majoritarian democracy relies on methodological individualism, the
vote-counting, preference-expressing extension of the Enlightenment’s
autonomous individual. Although there might be certain fundamental cul-
tural and national values that define the character of the nation (e.g.,
Huntington, 2004), majoritarian democracy maximizes the possibility for
individual self-determination (Dahl, 1989, p. 138; Schuck, 2003). In
democracies, personal choices are protected by the state as a matter of
individual rights. The state guarantees the right of free speech and of asso-
ciation, which allow like-minded individuals to organize and aggregate
their preferences via interest groups, should they so choose (Dahl, 1998;
Young, 2000, p. 19). The liberal individualism of majoritarian democracy
implies that the government should not advance any particular conception
of how much and what kinds of diversity are socially optimal (Schuck,
2003, p. 27).
However, the aggregation of individual preferences in this manner leads
to the establishment of policy majorities that dominate the policy processes
(for this critique see Lowi, 1979, or Pateman, 1970). The classic problem
of majoritarian democracy, then, is that it marginalizes cultural minorities
(Aristotle, 1998; De Tocqueville, 1835-1840/2000). Aggregation of indi-
vidual preferences easily allows dominant cultural majorities to isolate
minority voices and puts pressure on minorities for assimilation in the
majority culture. The shorthand label for this demur is tyranny of the
majority (Boxill, 1998; Guinier, 1994; Young, 2000). Even if minority cul-
tures are represented within parliamentary bodies, which is not the case in
many democratic nations, the majority can continuously outvote the minor-
ity representatives. Consociational democracy is an approach that shows
promise in mitigating this aspect of majoritarianism.
Consociational Democracy
Consociational democracy advocates have been sharp critics of majori-
tarian democracy (Lijphart, 1977, 1984; O’Leary, 1989; Reynolds, 2000).
They lament the nearly inevitable domination of the majority in the aggre-
gative model of liberal democracy, which may exacerbate social cleavages.
Instead, proponents of consociational democracy call for power sharing and
cooperation among the leaders of major cultural groups (Lijphart, 1977,
p. 106; Lijphart, 2000, p. 228). “The essential characteristic of consocia-
tional democracy,” Lijphart (1969) remarked, “is not so much any particu-
lar institutional arrangement as the deliberate joint effort by the elites to

---

554 Administration & Society
stabilize the system” (p. 231).1 Consociational democracy promises to
enhance stability in culturally fragmented societies (Lijphart, 1969, p. 211;
Lijphart 1977, p. 106; for a discussion see Andeweg, 2000).
Lijphart (1977, p. 25) presents four main characteristics of consocia-
tional democracies: (a) rule of a grand coalition of leaders of all significant
cultural segments; (b) the mutual veto rule (i.e., the ability of any cultural
segment to halt a governmental initiative); (c) proportionality as a principle
in political representation, including civil service appointments and alloca-
tion of public funds; and (d) a high degree of autonomy for each segment
to run its own internal affairs. Common affairs—issues of interest to all
cultural subgroups—should be governed consensually within the ruling
grand coalitions or councils. In running their particular affairs, cultural
groups should have a segmental autonomy, which could be constituted ter-
ritorially or through functional autonomy in specific policy areas, such as
education (Lijphart, 1977, p. 41).
Consociational democracy, an elegantly coherent challenge to majori-
tarianism, carries with it certain features that need airing. For Dahl (1989,
p. 156), a particularly important limitation of consociational models is that
minority vetoes could privilege the status quo and could become a tool for
“minority tyranny” (Dahl, 1989, p. 156).2 Another prominent feature is the
overall emphasis on elite negotiations (Lijphart, 1977, 1984), which can lead
to clubbish exclusivity (Skelcher, Mathur, & Smith, 2005). In his earlier
models, Lijphart (1969) explicitly asserted that “consociational democracy
means government by elite cartel [italics added] designed to turn a democ-
racy with a fragmented political culture into a stable democracy” (p. 216).
He later softened this argument, noting that consociational democracy is not
incompatible with some forms of participatory democracy, such as
Mansbridge’s (1980) “unitary democracy” (Lijphart, 1999, p. 293). Indeed,
although in theory consociational democracy models conventionally empha-
size the need for coalescent elite behavior, in practice consociational agree-
ments often explicitly include provisions for citizen engagement. (For
examples, see Lijphart, 1977, and O’Leary, 1989, 1999; for elaboration and...