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Comment: Federation, Consociation, Corporatism—An Addendum to Arend Lijphart*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Kenneth D. McRae
Kenneth D. McRae
Affiliation:
Carleton University
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Extract

Arend Lijphart has launched a stimulating line of inquiry by calling attention to certain affinities between consociational democracy and federalism (above, pages 499–515), but in my opinion the analysis can become still more interesting if we introduce a third element to the comparison. I refer to the rapidly burgeoning literature of the past five years around the phenomena that have been variously and rather tentatively labelled as “neo-corporatism,” “societal corporatism” or “liberal corporatism.” The purpose of this brief note is not to evaluate nor even to summarize that literature, but to draw attention to certain points of contact between the patterns that it describes and the consociational and federal models discussed above. In making this tripartite comparison we may be led to examine more carefully the significance of alternative sites or arenas for making policy and resolving conflicts, and the different patterns and strategies of bargaining appropriate to different sites.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , September 1979 , pp. 517 - 522
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1979

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References

1 On the terminology, see Lehmbruch, G., “Liberal Corporatism and Party Government,” Comparative Political Studies 10 (1977), 92CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This article is part of an entire issue devoted to corporatism.

2 “Modes of Interest Intermediation and Models of Societal Change in Western Europe,” Comparative Political Studies 10 (1977), 9Google Scholar. In this version the phrase “interest intermediation” replaces his earlier term “interest representation.” Cf. Schmitter, , “Still the Century of Corporatism?” in Pike, F. B. and Stritch, T. (eds.), The New Corporatism: Social-Political Structures in the Iberian World (Notre Dame and London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1974), 93–94Google Scholar.

3 Schmitter, “Modes,” 8–12.

4 Lehmbruch, “Liberal Corporatism,” 94.

5 Ibid., 96–97.

6 Schmitter, “Still the Century of Corporatism?” 99.

7 Lehmbruch, “Liberal Corporatism,” 101.

8 For an overview, see Schmitter, Philippe, “Interest Intermediation and Regime Governability in Contemporary Western Europe,” paper presented at the American Political Science Association Annual Meeting,Washington, 1977Google Scholar, especially footnote 1, to be published in S. Berger (ed.), Organizing Interests in West Europe (New York and London: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).

9 “Consociational Democracy, Class Conflict, and the New Corporatism” (paper presented at the International Political Science Association Round Table on Political Integration,Jerusalem, 1974), 7–8Google Scholar.

10 Schmitter's definition, which sees syndicalism as an alternative mode of interest intermediation to corporatism and pluralism, stresses nonrecognition of interest groups by the state and the resolution of conflicts autonomously, without the interference of the state. Cf. “Modes,” 9–10.

11 See above, pp. 507–08, and also Friedrich, C. J., “The Politics of Language and Corporate Federalism,” in Savard, J. G. and Vigneault, R. (eds.), Les Etats multilingues: problimes et solutions (Quebec: Presses de l'universite Laval, 1975), 227–42Google Scholar.