Consociational State

Basic Information

A Consociational State is a state which has major splits along ethnic, religious, cultural, or linguistic lines in a way that keeps one group from dominating the others, but which has still a functioning government because the rulers consult with the leaders of each of the distinct groups.

Examples include Belgium, Switzerland, Lebanon, and the Netherlands.

Sources

Bibliography

1. Wikipedia entry

Game and Story Use

• A diverse nation like this will make for more complicated and interesting politics - which, in turn, will result in more adventure seeds.
  • The failure of such a state - as seen in the former Yugoslavia - can also be an interesting backdrop to all sorts of things, although outright warfare needn't be the absolute outcome if a peaceful breakup can be managed: the balkanisation, ethnic strife and general assorted conflict can also become significant issues long before final collapse.
• It gets even more interesting if the player characters originated from different factions within the nation.
• In fantasy and science fiction settings, the nation might even be divided among different species.