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|b The legislative authority enjoys a unique status and special importance in all of the various types of political systems. However, clear differences in the importance, status, nature, role, power and functions of legislature and their impact on the executive vary from one political system to another. This is especially true of the most common political systems: parliamentary and presidential systems. The uniqueness of the Lebanese system springs from the social constructs of the society, which, due to historical, geographical, religious and political factors, developed into a consociational society. Consociational societies can be defined as “fragmented but stable, and having a tradition of elite accommodation” (2). And, in the same context, consociational democracy means government by elite cartel designed to turn a democracy with a fragmented political culture into a stable democracy through gradual stages and based on the principle of elite accommodation. In line with this concept, the Lebanese system always enabled the political elites-leaders of the various political sects operating in Lebanon—to reach agreements (1). As a consociational model, Lebanese system attempts to ensure the inclusion of all segments of the society in order to enhance the welfare of the state as a whole. The Taif Agreement that brought an end to the Lebanese civil war, has been a striking example on consociationalism as a form of power sharing democracy. However, consociationalism (or the politics of accommodation) is a serious business that places heavy burdens on political leadership. Leaders must not only be willing to compromise and to cooperate, but they must also provide the political and legal means through which inter-subcultural differences can be reconciled. Among these means, according to Lijphart, are “the formula of government by grand coalition, a mutual veto or concurrent majority rule, the principle of proportional representation, and segmental autonomy(2). If such measures are implemented, “the decision making process, as well as the implementation of any given public policy, foreign or domestic, should emerge as the outcome of mutual agreement”(3). Here again the Taif Agreement emerges as the perfect example of implementing the political and legal means that gave Lebanon its unique consociational system in a parliamentary form.
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