there must be a multiple balance of power, but more importantly the subcultures must be stable. Michael Kerr, in his study of the role of external actors in power-sharing arrangements in Northern Ireland and Lebanon, adds to McGarry and O'Leary's list the condition that "the existence of positive external regulating pressures, from state to non-state actors, which provide the internal elites with sufficient incentives and motives for their acceptance of, and support for, consociation". Advantages In a consociational state, all groups, including minorities, are represented on the political and economic stages. Supporters of the consociationalism argue that it is a more realistic option in deeply divided societies than integrationist approaches to conflict management. Consociationalism and state-building While Lijphart's initial theory drew primarily from Western European democracies in its formulation of consociationalism, it has gained immense traction in post-conflict state-building contexts in the past decades. This development has been reflected in the expansion of the favourable conditions to external factors in the literature as well. Rather than internally constructed by state elites, these recent examples have been characterised by external facilitation, and at times imposition, through international actors. In the process, consociational arrangements have frequently been used to transform immediate violent conflict and solidify peace settlements in extremely fragile contexts of deeply divided societies. The volatile environments in which these recent examples have been implemented have exhibited the need for external interference not only for their initial implementation but also for their continued existence. As such, a range of international actors have assumed mediating and supporting roles to preserve power-sharing agreements in targeted states. Most prominently in Bosnia-Herzegovina, this has involved an "international regulating body" in the form of a High Representative who in one period frequently intervened in the domestic political affairs of the state to implement legislation on which domestic elites were reluctant to come to an agreement on. While the current results of consociational arrangements implemented in post-conflict state-building endeavours have been mixed, scholars such as O'Leary and McGarry maintain that they have often proven to be the most practical approach to ending immediate conflict and creating the necessary stability for peace-building to take place. Its utility has been seen in its transformative aspect, flexibility, and "realist" approach to existing identity formations that are difficult to incorporate in a majoritarian system. Criticisms Many criticisms have been levelled against this new deployment of consociationalism. It has been criticised as