Majority rule is the most common form of democracy across the globe and is especially predominant in western nation states. Majority rule can be explained as "a majoritarian system seeks to find the 'best' single representative for a territorially defined community." (Irvine, 1988) Yet "defining the 'best' representative to mean 'the one preferred by more than half the electorate' rather than 'most preferred'," (Irvine, 1988). Typically, a divided society can develop instability and or conflict in general, but where majority rule is the political system it causes a more intense situation for the society as more often than not a particular group, the minority, is left out of the same political process. This creates tension and instability within the state, which can even lead to an outbreak of violence. This essay will explore how majority rule can introduce instability into a society and how this instability can cause violence as well as a possible way in which the instability does not always occur through majority rule. A key part of the majoritarian system is where the people decide on who their ruling elite are, often through their voting power, and for them to have the power to change the ruling elite. Therefore, the minority will not always be restricted to stay as the minority all of the time. It is then in the best interest of the majority to protect the rights of the minority as power may one day shift to the minority and therefore leaving them unprotected by their own doing. Yet this is only true in societies which do not have deep seated cleavages which can cause a strict divide between societies meaning that a minority is held constant, as well as the majority. This means that the majority no longer seeks to protect the rights of the minority and therefore tyrannise the minority.
Majority rule assumes that there are free and fair and elections, and with these elections the winner, winner being the representative which received at least half the vote, takes all. A majoritarian society will repeatedly create antagonism because there is essentially only one 'winner' in this system. This means that that the society which is already divided are now competing, with each other, for control over political institutions and access to resources for their group These resources can be monetary and economic in a form of investment into the group and the area in which they are prevalent, helping to bring them into the global economy. This creates antagonism between the varying groups aspiring for control of these institutions. More often than not the competing groups are not equal in size. Therefore, the smaller of the two or more groups, the minority group are usually excluded from the political process and institutions permanently under majority rule. There have been many cases in which this has occurred; one case of this is Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland used majority rule in the earlier years of when the country was founded, 1921-72. Approximately 65% of the population was Protestant Unionist and the rest were Catholic Nationalist; every election during this period of time was won by one political party, the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). They dominated Northern Irelands political institutions and represented only one of the two groups interests, the Protestant British Unionists. As a result, they excluded the Catholic Irish Nationalist community from the political process. "It was seen as imperative that Catholics should never be allowed into positions of power and influence." (Day, 2007). This again shows how far the majority group would use their power, as a result of majority rule, to keep the minority out of it.
Instability within divided societies can occur due to a cleavage and the instability depends on the intensity of the cleavage. There are many cleavages which can divide a society; ethnic, religious, regional, linguistic and many others. The way that these cleavages are politicised can cause and or increase the intensity of antagonism between the groups in the, already, divided societies. The way in which they are politicised can even be the difference between how a political system, majoritarian or other, can either infuriate instability or maintain it. "Conflict in Sri Lanka is a result of the politicisation of ethnic differences by the Sinhala elites in a quest for power" (Imtiyaz, 2008). Sri Lanka used a majoritarian system and in doing so a minority group, the Tamils, was excluded from power by the larger ethnic group, the Sinhalese.
The reason for conflict between the groups is another important factor in determining whether majority rule will create instability within the society. Normally conflicts within groups in a divided society are based on ethnicity and the groups rights. There are many examples of ethnic groups seeking rights for themselves; such as in America with the Black Lives Matter movement seeking rights for African Americans in the US. Ethnicity is commonly defined as a small group within society. Except it can also be explained as "A community of people who have the conviction that they have a common identity and common fate based on issues of origin, kinship ties, traditions, cultural uniqueness, a shared history and possibly a shared language." (Thompson, 2016). Another possible reason for conflict could be over territory; which could result in secession or partition from a nation state. As there is usually a historic attachment to the territory a group will claim and so when they are denied it; this would cause tension between these groups. As mentioned before minorities can be excluded from access to resources, be it economic land etc., and this then can be a reason for disputes in divided societies creating increased instability. Due to access to water, a resource, minority ethnic group the Iteso usually have larger ethnic groups such as the Karimojong settle in their historical lands in eastern Uganda to use their water. "Iteso feel that they are a targeted minority and are losing access to their traditional lands." (Young, 2011). A mix-up between the groups can also cause instability as the elites within their respective may misconstrue what a groups intention may be and as a result act in a way which can create instability in the society. "Misunderstanding is particularly likely of language and political culture divide the regions. 'What does Quebec want?' was a commonly heard query in English Canada in the 1960s." (Irvine, 1988) Ethnic conflicts based on group rights are often the most likely to lead to instability out of the mentioned types of conflicts. With all of these reasons a majoritarian electoral system will cause greater tension between groups in a society where there is a majority group in place.
How the groups are spread across the nation state can also affect the way in which majority rule can produce instability. If the groups live in specific regions and are not often in physical contact with opposing groups the tension is very much less likely to lead to violence unlike if the groups live intertwined a small region such as in a city, in Northern Ireland where approximately 3,700 people died due to the violence between 1969-98. Yet in other countries such as Spain where the Basque country in the north and the Catalonia region in the north-east of Spain are not in close proximity to Madrid, to an extent, the country has yet to have any violence occur from this instability caused by the majoritarian and federal system.
So far in this essay I have assumed majority rule means all power is centralised and that one or maybe more groups have been denied access to power. There is more than one type of majority rule; another type which could dissolve conflict, or any instability is devolution of power. This would make the reason for instability, that being the lack of access to power, redundant and so majority rule doesn't always necessarily lead to instability I divided societies. Within the UK, some Scottish people wish for independence. Westminster as a result has devolved a lot of power to the Scottish parliament to appease the levels of autonomy that some wish for to keep them within the UK. The powers devolved to Scotland include; housing, education, tourism, law and order etc. The devolution of power has seemed to appease enough Scottish people that in the referendum on independence of Scotland in 2014 the people voted against it. However, devolution itself isn't enough, the correct powers must be devolved to prevent any instability. If powers that the group do not believe are the key issues for their group are the only powers devolved to them it could still lead the country to instability, since nothing has essentially changed. In Sri Lanka, Indian mediators attempted to appease the Tamil minority by changing the constitution in 1987 so that powers including police powers and land from Sinhalese control to local councils. Even though this change in the constitution occurred, "Minister of External Affairs, Professor GL Peiris, said that the government would not be implementing the 13th amendment in its current form." (Colombage, 2014). The implementation of devolution isn't always easy or successful, especially in a deeply divided society such as Sri Lanka.
To conclude, majority rule will very regularly produce instability in divided societies. the level of instability will depend on how deep the divisions are between the groups in the society, the instability could lead to extremes such as violence or even a failed state. The level of instability has many factors in which it depends upon; including the reason for conflict, location of groups and what separates the groups. Majority rule does not always have to end up in instability, devolution of powers to other groups can help prevent any instability or at least minimalise it. Alternatives to majority rule as the political system include power sharing; Lijphart's classical consociationalism is a political system that is especially used in moderately divided societies. The success of the implementation of power sharing techniques like devolution, would certainly hinge on how deeply divided the society is.