The Doctoral School of Political Science, Public Policy, and International Relations
cordially invites you to a public lecture of the
7th Annual Doctoral Conference
by
GERALD SCHNEIDER
(University of Konstanz)
“Peace through Power-Sharing? A Critical Assessment”
27 April, 2012 - Friday
11:30-12:30
Popper room (CEU)
Reception to follow
About the lecture
Advocates of power sharing maintain since a long time that inclusive institutions help to appease divided societies. The international community has more recently started to propagate it as a conflict management tool that helps to pacify war-torn states. The author will take stock of this literature and evaluate the effectiveness of inclusive institutions as an ex ante and an ex post conflict management tool. The lecture will show based on global analyses that
i) the pacifying effect of power sharing depends on the form of ethnic or religious diversity characterizing a state,
ii) conflicts which ended without a clear winner are more likely to adopt power sharing institutions, but that these rules do not make these post-conflict societies more peaceful and
iii) that power sharing provisions in mediated peace agreements render states, by contrast, more peaceful.
The lecture will discuss based on these mixed findings why international "constitutional engineers" continue to propagate power sharing rules that are not adequate for a particular country.
About the lecturer
Gerald Schneider, born in 1962 in Zürich, is Professor of International Politics and Executive Editor of “European Union Politics”. He defended his doctoral thesis at the University of Zurich in 1991, worked as post-doc at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) for two years and was an assistant professor (1992 – 1995) at the Institut universitaire de hautes études internationales in Geneva. Before joining the faculty at Konstanz in 1997, he was a Professor of Political Science at the University of Stuttgart (1996-1997) and Program Director at the University of Berne (1994 – 1997).
For more information on the Annual Doctoral Conference please go to the event’s website at
