Contesting consociationalism in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Lebanon: exploring differences in protest frames

This paper contributes to theorizing how citizens articulate discontent with consociational politics in divided societies by offering a comparative analysis of protest frames across popular movements in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Lebanon. It first detects central differences in how protesters criticize the system, propose alternative politics, and construct collective identities. It then argues that these divergences in frames can be understood with reference to the territorial and political nature of divisions in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Lebanon, which pose different restrictions on framing choices. Simultaneously, it suggests we should be careful not to understand frames as determined by institutional frameworks.