Post-conflict societies invariably experience great difficulty in making their new democratic power-sharing institutions work. In Northern Ireland, the system for power sharing prescribed in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement has repeatedly broken down. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, the system prescribed under the Dayton Accord of 1995 depends for its survival on the presence of a substantial international peacekeeping force.

From Power Sharing to Democracy examines the theoretical underpinnings of power sharing as a means of achieving sustainable democratic governance. Contributors examine key areas, including Afghanistan, Cyprus, Kosovo, Macedonia, and South Africa, where power-sharing constitutions and political institutions have been employed or proposed. They provide an in-depth exploration of consociationalism, under which the previously warring ethnic communities are guaranteed a proportionate share of political offices and protection of their vital interests, and federalism, which provides for substantial territorial autonomy in cases where the communities are territorially segregated.

Contributors include Tozun Bahcheli (University of Western Ontario), Florian Bieber (Central European University, Budapest), Matthijs Bogaards (International University Bremen), Reeta Chowdhari Tremblay (Concordia University), Landon E. Hancock (George Mason University), Kristin Henrard (University of Groningen), Patrick J. O'Halloran (Canadian Armed Forces), Brendan O'Leary (University of Pennsylvania), John McGarry (Queen's University), Gordon Peake (International Police Association, New York), Ian S. Spears (University of Guelph), Steven I. Wilkinson (Duke University), and Stefan Wolff (University of Bath).