Little Fish in Big Ponds: The Pathways to Inclusion for Micro‐Minorities in Power‐Sharing Societies

Emergent critique of consociations has focused on how micro‐minority ‘others’ are frequently excluded from the opportunities presented by power‐sharing systems, with dominant elites shutting them out. Therefore, a key question is: how do the political elites of micro‐minorities gain more meaningful inclusion by adopting or navigating the formal and informal institutions? Based on interviews, the paper compares micro‐minorities in four consociations – Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Lebanon and Northern Ireland – which differ regarding two variables: the presence of informal institutions and the position on the corporate‐liberal axis. We argue that while liberal rules put micro‐minority ‘others’ in a ‘better’ position on paper, the liberal‐corporate distinction is not enough to explain their ‘exclusion amid inclusion’. Only by understanding the relative formality‐informality of the consociational systems can a full picture be painted.