CONSOCIATIONAL DEMOCRACY 219 far,but it may not be able to continue its successful consociational politics when the burdens on the system increase.Michael C.Hudson argues that the Lebanese political system is"attuned to incessant ad- justment among primordial groups rather than policy planning and execution."As a result,its"apparent stability..is deceptively precari- ous:social mobilization appears to be overloading the circuits of the Lebanese political system."In general,the size factor is important in this respect:the political burdens that large states have to shoulder tend to be disproportionately heavier than those of small countries. Ernest S.Griffith argues that "democracy is more likely to survive, other things being equal,in small states.Such states are more man- ageable....In particular,small states are more likely to escape the onerous burdens entailed by an active foreign policy.Lehmbruch states that the Swiss,Austrian,and Lebanese cases "show that the preservation of the inner equilibrium presupposes a reduction of ex- ternal demands to the political system."And he even goes so far as to conclude that the type of politics found in these three countries"seems to work in small states only. INTER-SUBCULTURAL RELATIONS AT THE MASS LEVEL The political cultures of the countries belonging to Almond's Conti- nental European type and to the consociational type are all fragmented, but the consociational countries have even clearer boundaries among their subcultures.Such distinct lines of cleavage appear to be con- ducive to consociational democracy and political stability.The explana- tion is that subcultures with widely divergent outlooks and interests may coexist without necessarily being in conflict;conflict arises only when they are in contact with each other.As Quincy Wright states: "Ideologies accepted by different groups within a society may be incon- sistent without creating tension;but if...the groups with incon- sistent ideologies are in close contact...the tension will be great. David Easton also endorses the thesis that good social fences may make good political neighbors,when he suggests a kind of voluntary apart- heid policy as the best solution for a divided society:"Greater success 26 Hudson,"A Case of Political Underdevelopment,"Journal of Politics,xxix(Novem- berI967),836. 27 Griffith,"Cultural Prerequisites to a Successfully Functioning Democracy,"Ameri. can Political Science Review,L (March 1956),102. 28 Lehmbruch,9. 2 Wright,"The Nature of Confict,"Western Political Ouarterly,Iv (June 1951),196