Sectarian power-sharing

الطائفية السياسية

Position on confessional or sectarian political organisation: Lebanese-style consociational quotas, Iraqi muhasasa, Syrian Alawite-network governance, vs post-sectarian / civic-state framings. Relevant primarily to Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Bahrain; less so to Egypt or Saudi Arabia where the question does not structurally arise.

Scoring rubric

How positions are calibrated on this axis. The conventions guide the scorer; anchored examples show how known MENA actors land at -10, -5, 0, +5, +10.

Score the explicit position on confessional/sectarian power-sharing: defense of or push to reform the Taif Accord in Lebanon, the muhasasa system in Iraq, Alawite-network structures in Syria, Sunni-Shia balance in Bahrain. Parties in non-sectarian polities should score null.

-10

Maximum defense of sectarian quotas; existential framing.
-5

Defends current quotas but open to reform.
+0

Mixed; tactical positioning.
+5

Active reform agenda toward de-sectarianisation.
+10

Full secular-civic state; abolition of quota system explicit in platform.

Parties scored: 11
Mean: -4.45
Median: -6.00
Std dev: 3.11
Range: -7.0 → 4.0

Ranking

All parties scored on this axis, sorted from most Post-sectarian / civic state to most Consociational / quota system.

Consociational / quota system ← → Post-sectarian / civic state

-10-5+0+5+10

Score distribution

Histogram of scores across all 11 parties. Mean -4.45, median -6.00, σ 3.11. Multi-modal distributions point to genuine cleavages on this axis; unimodal narrow ones to consensus.

Consociational / quota system Post-sectarian / civic state

By country

Mean score per country.

Syria 1 party

-2.00
Iraq 4 parties

-3.50
Lebanon 6 parties

-5.50

Cross-axis correlations

How parties' scores on this axis covary with their scores on each other axis. Pearson r runs from −1 (perfect inverse) to +1 (perfect identity); 0 means independent. Computed across all parties scored on both axes (n shown per row). Strong correlations expose which axes are really measuring the same cleavage in the data; near-zero values are the ones with the most additional explanatory power.

Press freedom strongly positively correlated

+1.00 n=2
Gender equality strongly positively correlated

+1.00 n=3
Iran posture moderately inversely correlated

-0.46 n=7
Pan-Arab vs particularist weakly positively correlated

+0.30 n=11
Centralism vs federalism weakly inversely correlated

-0.28 n=11
Palestinian question weakly positively correlated

+0.24 n=11
Economic roughly independent

-0.17 n=11
Regime stance roughly independent

-0.15 n=11
West alignment roughly independent

-0.15 n=11
Liberal democracy roughly independent

+0.15 n=11
Social roughly independent

+0.14 n=11
Civil liberties roughly independent

+0.12 n=11
Traditionalism vs modernization roughly independent

+0.10 n=11
State & religion roughly independent

+0.08 n=11
Regional stance roughly independent

-0.00 n=11