The authors of this volume challenge conventional notions about Habsburg and Czechoslovak politics, arguing that they were more democratic than they often appear. They use the consociational model of democracy as a means of combining political science and history. The theory, associated with Arend Lijphart, asserts that consociationalism guarantees minorities a say in government and helps preserve democracy in societies that experience deep ideological, cultural, or ethnic divisions. Consociationalism enables the main segments to be isolated organizationally from each other, thus avoiding conflict but affording the leaders opportunities to make compromises for the good of the whole.
Consociationalism has proven its worth as a model for describing contemporary democracies and diagnosing their ills. By exploring the institutions and practices of the Habsburg Monarchy before 1918 and the Czechoslovak First Republic, Howe, Lorman, and Miller prove the value of the consociational theory in analyzing the past. They hold that a multitude of parties, frequent cabinet changes, and reliance on cabinets of experts do not necessarily signal flawed democracies. In fact, they are features of consociationalism. This volume challenges historians and social scientists to view the Austrian half of the Habsburg Monarchy before 1918 as evolving toward consociational democracy and the Czechoslovak First Republic as a fully consociational state.

Philip J. Howe is a professor of political science at Adrian College in Adrian, MI.Thomas A. Lorman is an associate professor of history in the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at the University College London.Daniel E. Miller is an emeritus professor of history at the University of West Florida in Pensacola.

List of Tables
List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
Foreword
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1 -Consociationalism and Consensus Democracy in Theory and Practice
Chapter 2 - Imperial Austria’s Proto-consociational Legacy
Chapter 3 - Czechoslovakia as a Consociational Democracy
Chapter 4 - The Consociational Model and Interwar Slovakia
Conclusion
Bibliography
About the Authors