4
Power-Sharing and Power-Dividing Institutions: Forms and Functions
The dependent variable of this study centers on four varieties of institutions intended to
share or divide power among former combatants at the conclusion of civil war. These
institutions, which are associated with the political, military, territorial, or economic bases of
state power, have the potential to play an important role in stabilizing the peace through their
substantive and symbolic effects. Power-sharing and power-dividing mechanisms are
substantively important because they ensure that no single collectivity has the potential to
monopolize state power and thus use the reins of state power to harm the interests of their former
enemies. The symbolic significance of these institutions is the indication of conciliatory intent
apparent in a commitment to arrangements based on principles of mutual recognition and
cooperation. We outline the different potential components of each of these institutions below.
Political Power-Sharing and Power-Dividing Institutions
Political power-sharing institutions specify the distribution of political power across
groups in a divided society. Generally speaking, political power may be shared or divided
among groups in three different ways. First, parties may agree on a system of electoral
proportional representation (PR). PR rules share in common the goal of minimizing the disparity
between a party’s share of national votes and the number of parliamentary seats it occupies
(Reilly and Reynolds 1999). Mozambique’s 1992 peace settlement makes use of this device by
providing for an “electoral system based on the principle of proportional representation for
election to the Assembly” as well as the establishment, in consultation with the country’s
political parties, of a minimum percentage of nationwide votes not less than five percent or more
than twenty percent for a party to obtain a seat in the Assembly.
Convention