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6 Ind. J. Const. Design 1 (2020)

handle is hein.journals/indjcstd6 and id is 1 raw text is: Minority Vetoes in Consociational Legislatures: Ultimately Weaponized? DEVIN F.J. HAYMOND* In societies emerging from or at risk for conflict, dividing power among rival groups-called power-sharing-can be an appropriate arrangement to maintaining peace. But how can groups, who are often emerging from violent conflict, trust sharing a government with rival groups that were just recently shooting at them? A potential solution is the minority veto, which is allows minority groups to block the government from harming those groups' vital interests. But what sorts of change blocking mechanisms constitute a minority veto? Who gets the veto power, and when can they be used? Do minority vetoes function as effective incentives for ensuring consensus-based support and the protection of minority interests, or are they merely political weapons that logjam governmental actions? This Paper outlines the advantages and disadvantages of various minority veto design options in the context of consociational power-sharing arrangements, and inspects the formal legislative minority veto mechanisms in Northern Ireland, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Macedonia. Minority vetoes can successfully protect minority groups' vital interests, but vetoes must be designed effectively in the consociational arrangement in order to avoid the veto's weaponization, political deadlock, and increased tensions. INTRODUCTION Power-sharing is seen as a critical political strategy for dealing with protracted conflicts: rival groups are more likely to accept peace when they are given a share of the power.1 Consociationalism, often equated with power-sharing more generally,2 is a theory of institutional design for deeply divided societies pioneered by Arend Lijphart in the 1970s. The aim of consociational power-sharing is to promote and incentivize consensus-based intergroup cooperation by dividing power among rival identity groups. Consociationalism has four * Juris Doctor Candidate, 2020, Indiana University Maurer School of Law; Bachelor of Arts, 2017, Indiana University. 1 See generally BARBARA WALTER, COMMITTING TO PEACE: THE SUCCESSFUL SETTLEMENT OF CIVIL WARS (2002). 2 For the purposes of this Paper, the tenns consociationalism and power-sharing are used both together and interchangeably. 1

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