Centripetalism, Consociationalism and Cyprus: The “Adoptability” Question

Most assessments of power-sharing institutions focus on their functionality, that is, on their prospects for delivering peace, stability, and prosperity. This article focuses instead on the prior question of “adoptability,” that is, on whether particular power-sharing institutions can be accepted (agreed to) in the first place. While the adoptability question is scarcely touched on in the academic literature, it is just as important as the functionality question, as it hardly matters whether an institution is functional if it is not adoptable. The article examines the adoptability question through a close-up look at the negotiations in Cyprus. The evidence from there suggests that consociational power sharing is more likely to be adoptable than centripetal power sharing in contexts where agreement is needed.