Consensus Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines consensus as “general agreement: unanimity,” or “the judgment arrived at by most of those concerned.” Consensus may be used broadly to describe decisions reached in a spirit of compromise, regardless of what process is followed. More significant for political science, consensus denotes a specific decision rule whereby all participating agents possess veto rights over the collective outcome; the purpose is to ensure decisions that are genuinely supported by all members of a community. Consensus decision is designed as an alternative to majority rule, which permits the views or interests of the majority to override those of minorities. Whether consensus decision rules in practice produce more just outcomes than majority rule is debated.

Small groups often decide informally by consensus; consensus decision is formalized in some religious communities, including the Quakers; in Anglo-American law, jury verdicts must be unanimous. The practice in some ancient republics of voting by acclamation created the appearance of unanimity while veiling real divisions. Some contemporary anarchists insist that anything short of unanimous consent by all individuals to collective decisions violates personal autonomy.

None of these are adequate models for consensus decision making in large modern territorial states or federations. Most consensus theorists reject individual veto rights as impractical in large political communities and instead allocate veto powers to a relatively small number of corporate agents. The veto-bearing agents might be organized economic interests; religious, linguistic, or ethnic communities; or, in a federal system, states or provinces with their own peculiar history and traditions.

The most thorough advocate of the consensus model of government was John C. Calhoun of South Carolina (1782–1850). In A Disquisition on Government (1851), Calhoun argued that over time majority rule will inevitably produce entrenched, geographically concentrated majorities and minorities, and that the majority would systematically violate the rights and interests of the minority. Calhoun’s proposed solution was to arm each significant interest with veto rights: to “give to each division or interest . . . either a concurrent voice in making and executing the laws, or a veto on their execution.” He denied that this would produce deadlock or anarchy, claiming instead that it would force all interests to cooperate in the common good. Calhoun’s principal successor among twentieth–century political scientists is Arend Lijphart, whose theory of consociational democracy bears a close though not exact resemblance to Calhoun’s model.

Institutions practicing consensus decision have existed in the past and continue to exist today. The U.S. Articles of Confederation (1781–1788) enabled a single state to block decisions supported by all others. The United Nations Security Council allocates permanent veto rights to a handful of privileged powers. The 1998 Northern Ireland settlement grants the two largest parliamentary groups, the Nationalists and the Unionists, veto rights over decisions. Consensus decision was seriously advocated, though not implemented, for post-apartheid South Africa. The European Union operates according to a complicated and shifting blend of unanimity requirements and qualified majority rule.

Advocates of consensus decision claim that it prevents majority tyranny while encouraging minorities to wield veto rights with restraint and in a spirit of accommodation. Critics of consensus decision contend that it risks deadlock on urgent matters, entails arbitrary definitions of who or what is entitled to veto rights, and favors groups privileged by the status quo over those with a stake in change.

Bibliography:

Calhoun, John C. A Disquisition on Government. Columbia: General Assembly of the State of South Carolina, 1851.
Horowitz, Donald L. “The Northern Ireland Agreement: Clear, Consociational, and Risky.” In Northern Ireland and the Divided World, edited by John McGarry. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Lijphart, Arend. Democracies: Patterns of Majoritarian and Consensus Government in Twenty-one Countries. New Haven:Yale University Press, 1984.
McGarry, John, and Brendan O’Leary. The Northern Ireland Conflict: Consociational Engagements. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Pinder, John, and Simon Usherwood. The European Union: A Very Short Introduction, 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Rae, Douglas. “The Limits of Consensual Decision.” The American Political Science Review 69, no. 4 (1975): 1270–1294.
Read, James H. Majority Rule versus Consensus: The Political Thought of John C. Calhoun. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009.
Schwartzberg, Melissa. “Shouts, Murmurs, and Votes: Acclamation and Aggregation in Ancient Greece.” Journal of Political Philosophy (2010). Online publication date: 1-Apr-2010.
Wolff, Robert Paul. In Defense of Anarchism. New York: Harper and Row, 1970.