Many scholars of conflict resolution argue that intense ethnic conflicts in deeply fragmented societies are rarely resolved by orthodox democratic means such as pure majoritarianism, ordinary parliamentary opposition, political campaigning, and winning elections. Therefore, scholars have proposed the alternative “consociational” model, probably best defined by Lijphart in terms of “grand coalition”, “mutual veto”, “proportionality”, and “autonomy”. Lipjhart argues that through government by an élite cartel, a democracy with a fragmented political culture is stabilized. This model is used to deal with intense conflicts, both in the smaller developed European countries and the post-colonial plural societies of the Third World. This chapter explores the relevance of consociational conflict resolution for regime maintenance, to the first period of Malaysian ethnic politics, 1957–69.

The intense ethnic and societal cleavages in Malaysia have inclined many scholars to view consociational élite bargaining as the most useful theoretical approach to analysing regime maintenance in the Malaysian political system.