There is a big and essential difference between democratic consensus, by which is meant a form of general agreement on the principles, foundations and rules of democratic evolution, and consensual democracy to which some culturally divided countries turn when various religious, sectarian or ethnic affiliations become an obstacle to the development of a democratic order. Democratic consensus takes place between political parties, socio-political forces and political and ideological groups and trends and involves differences over positions and programmes chosen by their advocates with their own free will and not over the primary identities that they are born with. We might liken this consensus to the concrete foundations that are built into the ground in order to support any structure to be constructed on top of them. When we set about building that structure we are entitled to differ over virtually every detail apart from the specifications and requirements of the foundation, because differences over the foundation prelude the immediate collapse of any structure we build on top of it. Democratic systems of government do not differ in essence. Everything in a democratic polity is open to dispute except the agreed upon fundamental components of the state. These cannot change from one election to the next. An electorate cannot vote in a theocracy in one electoral season and a secular order in the following season. Once the constituent elements of the democratic state are agreed upon they cannot be changed, not even by a large majority. The fixed general agreement over the features of the state also applies to the fundamental principles of the socio-political order on which the governmental system is based and the chief factors that regulate the relationship between its constituent parts, whether between the government and the opposition or between opposition forces themselves. This is what known as the rules of the game. There is no essential difference between political, cultural and intellectual competition and competition in any other field of life. There can be no systematic competitive activity without fixed rules regulating the competitors' actions and behaviour and to which the competitors return whenever necessary. If two sides do not agree on a set of rules of play, the most basic condition for systematic competition is missing. The result is a free-for-all. The same applies if one side approves one set of rules while the other side uses another. Accordingly, it is difficult to advance towards unrestricted political competition in the absence of a general consensus or agreement on some of the most important constituent elements of the state. This general consensus is of pivotal importance in a democratic order in particular. There is no place for it in an autocracy, for example, as it is the generally the autocrat who imposes the system of rule of his choice on others. Consensus is, by definition, one of the most important democratic activities. In fact, one can describe it as the underlying activity of any practice that rightfully merits the label of democracy. This is because, firstly, it is attained through dialogue that cannot thrive and bear fruit unless all sides are truly committed to democracy and, secondly, because democracy that is not founded on a consensus is unattainable or destined to immediate failure. Democracy is not practised in the air. It plays out on the ground in a particular place. If that ground is not steady, it will upset everyone and everything on it. The most dangerous threat to any process of democratic development is if some or all of the parties involved imagine that democracy is a race without rules or criteria and that the people can choose which rival they prefer irrespective of any regulatory framework and determine what is immutable or alterable for any particular period. This is why the parties to a democratic consensus agree on a set of binding principles and rules. This is the only way to ensure the health and perpetuity of the democratic process and to avert the dangers that could lead to its failure, regardless of who wins or loses in the elections. There are many examples of this type of democracy in the world. The democracies of the US, France, the UK and Turkey, to cite a few, are founded on systems of government agreed upon by all concerned and that take the central civic state as their central frame of reference. Consensual democracy, by contrast, emerged as democratic systems of government spread outside of Europe to Asia, Africa and Latin America, and due to the failures of non-democratic regimes in those parts of the world as well as to the considerable economic growth and the evolution of political cultures in those societies. Yet, these developments occurred in societies characterised by sharp divisions and it soon became necessary to give serious thought to producing political solutions that would help ensure the realisation of democracy in a manner that would, simultaneously, ensure the highest possible degree of political stability. In some societies, thinking turned to formulas for regional autonomy or federalism, so that the majority and the non-homogenous minority would have equitable chances to have a say in government. Such solutions resulted in the realisation of a form of consensus between the constituent components of society. Examples are to be found in Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Canada and Holland. In the Arab world, Lebanon stands out as a model for this type of democracy. Consensual democracy presumes agreement on certain procedural arrangements intended to ensure the equitable political representation of different identities in a given society, including small minority identities. Practised for the most part in countries that are not demographically homogeneous, it confers the right to consensual self-government on fundamental matters pertaining to separate groups that make up a state polity, the distinction between which is generally based on ethnic or linguistic origin. Such distinctions become more acute the more a group or groups within a given society fear that their identity is jeopardised by other groups, or by assimilation into the larger demographic majority, or that their rights as individuals or as a community are threatened. The more such fears and concerns take hold among the members of a particular group, the greater are the tendencies to converge politically and vie with their counterparts in society. In some cases, the sense of distinct identity can become chauvinistic, sometimes to such zealous proportions that the individual feels torn between this distinct communal identity and his identity as a citizen of a particular nation. When rival zealotries reach the clashing point, generally because the narrower racist or discriminatory outlook prevails over the sense of shared national identity, peoples barricade themselves politically and socially along ethnic, linguistic or other divides. In cases where mutual fear and distrust becomes so great and hope breaks down in their continued amalgamation within a single, cohesive national identity in which all pursue collectively a set of common aspirations, one solution is a form of confederacy in which decisions are taken unanimously and in which each group or community has veto power on crucial matters. The Lebanese model is an example of the application of this type of democratic arrangement in a country that lacked the soil capable of incorporating its various ethnic and sectarian groups into a single cohesive whole due to the absence of a democratic culture that gives prevalence to the spirit of cultural, political and religious diversity, plurality and mutual acceptance within the framework of the civil state. In spite of the success that some countries in Europe and North America had in applying the democratic consensus model, the prospects for such a model are not very good in the Third World in general, and in countries of the Arab region in particular. This is due, in part, to the many religious, sectarian, tribal and regional divides in these countries, and in part to a prevailing political culture that has yet to embrace the concept and principles of the citizen's state. That these thus lack a democratic culture based on the acceptance of diversity, and are therefore plagued by conflicting ethnic, sectarian and other loyalties, paved the way to the “Lebanonisation” of government or to the “ethnification” of government (as occurred in Iraq). Apart from the fact that such arrangements can ultimately lead to the disintegration and collapse of the state, they are not commensurate to the realisation of the aims and spirit of the concept of democratic consensus. The writer is an expert at the Bahrain Institute for Political Development.
