Delivering a speech in June 1858, Abraham Lincoln—then the US Republican Party’s nominee for senator for the state of Illinois—spoke of how a ‘house divided against itself cannot stand.’ “I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free,” Lincoln proclaimed. His words were a direct assault on the institution of slavery, or more precisely, on those factions in government who vehemently advocated for its maintenance.

The house that Lincoln did eventually inherit as President in 1861 was indeed divided; over the next four years, America was torn asunder by a bloody civil war over the right of individual states to continue to hold slaves as human property. Lincoln’s ‘house divided’ concept is applicable to the current political impasse at Stormont. More broadly, it is also a useful starting point when considering the utility of the power-sharing arrangements that have been employed as tools in divided societies in ending violent conflict and providing stable institutions for democratic governance.

Power-sharing is the more common name given to consociationalism—a theoretical framework popularised by Dutch political scientist Arend Lijphart. Consociationalism is essentially an association of political elites, representing different ethnic, political, or religious groups, combining to govern a divided society.

The framework has four key components: grand coalition government; veto rights; proportionality; and community autonomy (depending on the specific arrangement). The implementation of consociationalism in divided societies like Ireland, Bosnia, and Lebanon, has been generally viewed as successful. Commentators have, in particular, held up the peace process in Northern Ireland as a triumph in consociationalism. Such an assessment, however, raises at least two important questions. What counts as success? And how is this success measured?

Certainly, that power-sharing in Northern Ireland and elsewhere has prevented the re-ignition of conflict is worthy of being counted as success. The presence of a stable government during the past decade has also allowed for positive developments in economic investment and tourism. But avoiding a return to armed conflict, developing the economy, and marketing Northern Ireland as an attractive tourist destination are only some of the issues in our much broader peace-building project. Indeed, despite much progress, the ‘big ticket’ issues, or the ‘red lines’ to use the language en vogue at Stormont, are still very present.

This brings us to the criticisms directed at consociationalism. Namely that empirically speaking, it does not work. There are two central criticisms here. The first is that in concentrating purely on the internal sharing of power between political elites, consociationalism, as a system, struggles to deal with the desire held by an ethnic group to secede from the state (e.g. the republican/nationalist ambition for Irish unity) or that another group has allegiance to another country or parent country (e.g. unionist desire for Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom).

As is the case in Northern Ireland, and increasingly more so in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum, opposing claims around identity and belonging have served to destabilise relations between the DUP and Sinn Féin. The exchange between Arlene Foster and Michelle O’Neill at a Conservative Party conference event this month is an example of this. When asked if Sinn Féin wanted legislation to make Northern Ireland look less British, O’Neill said that “the north isn’t British” to which Foster responded, “Northern Ireland is British.”

The second major criticism of consociationalism is that it deepens rather that eradicates the divisions between opposing ethnic groups. It has been acknowledged by critics that consociationalism places an excessive importance on group belonging and separateness from the ‘Other’ to the point where this begins to close down the space for alternative means of living and doing business in a divided society. Again, there is clear evidence of this in Northern Ireland. The vast differences between nationalists/republicans and unionists long pre-date the Good Friday Agreement and the implementation of power-sharing. However, as both the local Assembly elections in March of this year and the snap General Election in June demonstrated, the electorate in Northern Ireland is more divided than ever along ethnic lines with the DUP and Sinn Féin having solidified their positions as the primary representatives for their respective communities.

It is this reality that has made it significantly more difficult to reach agreement on the most troubling issues in health, education, and culture, not to mention those thorny questions around same-sex marriage, abortion, and legacy issues. Given the strength of their respective positions, any agreement has the possibility of either party losing face and support among hardline supporters.

Taking into account the limitations of consociationalism, it is difficult to envisage how any ‘deal’ (that’s assuming a deal can be reached) between the main parties at Stormont can be sustained long-term. Rather, it seems more likely that the divisions between the parties and the power-sharing system that upholds them will continue to ensure that ‘the big house on the hill’ remains firmly divided. And as Lincoln was acutely aware, a house divided against itself cannot stand. It therefore remains to be seen what, if any, imaginative ways might be found to prop up the institutions, and what the implications are for Northern Ireland in terms of the peace-process, Brexit, the past, and the demand for social change.