Inclusion , Dispersion , and Constraint : Powersharing in the World ’ s States , 1975 – 2010 KAARE

Arrangements for sharing political power serve three purposes: to give all relevant groups access to important political decisions; to partition the policy process, thereby granting groups relevant autonomy; and to constrain holders of political power from abusing authority. A new global dataset of political power sharing institutions, 1975–2010, is introduced here, disaggregated these along three institutional dimensions: inclusive, dispersive, and constraining. Existing literature associates power sharing with democracy and civil conflict resolution. Unlike the existing literature, this dataset shows inclusive institutions are common in post-conflict states, though least strongly associated with electoral democracy. Conversely, constraining institutions, though comparatively rare in states with current or recent civil conflicts, are highly correlated with electoral democracy.