In his public lecture, Professor Jon Fraenkel, from Victoria’s School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations, will explore lessons that can be learned from the constitutional changes that have occurred since the 1990s in divided societies such as South Africa, Bosnia, Fiji, Northern Ireland and Iraq.
There are two major schools of thought about how to resolve differences between polarised groups, Professor Fraenkel says. One is to adopt a proportional representation system, together with power sharing and protection for minorities, and the other is to establish a more centralised state with a preferential voting system in the hope that this will favour the moderates.
“I’ll be looking at the pros and cons of both sides but also at the way failures to achieve desired results has led to the promotion of authoritarian responses,” says Professor Fraenkel.
“Some of the major transitions since the 1990s have fostered enormous involvement and control by external powers—in Bosnia after 1995 and Iraq after 2003 international authorities set out to rebuild the state from scratch. Where constitutional design processes are externally controlled like that, it’s often a recipe for trouble.
“Ultimately the price for getting it wrong may also be military intervention, as in Fiji in 2006 or Egypt in 2013.
The critical questions as regards constitutional design, says Professor Fraenkel, are who does it, who benefits and what are the long-term repercussions.
“There’s often a risk that, despite the good intentions of those trying to overcome ethnic differences, they may actually entrench them.
“There are a lot of snake oil salesmen around selling different ‘quick fix’ solutions to patch up situations of ethnic conflict, but many of these proposed remedies don’t really work. Scholars need to examine these failures carefully, as well as the success stories, and indeed the cases where conflict diminishes irrespective of the institutional architecture.”
Professor Fraenkel’s research interests include the politics of the Pacific Islands region, institutional design in divided societies, electoral systems, political economy and the economic history of Oceania. He is The Economist’s Pacific Islands correspondent.
Lecture details
What: Constitutional engineering in divided societies: lessons from around the globe
When: Tuesday 3 March, 6pm
Where: Lecture Theatre HMLT205, Level 2, Hugh Mackenzie Building, Kelburn Parade
RSVP by Friday 27 February. Phone 04-463 6700 or email rsvp@vuw.ac.nz with ‘Fraenkel’ in the subject line.