Abstract
In this chapter, we study under which conditions dyadic federations—a genus of multinational federalism composed of two major communities—have ‘succeeded’ (i.e. survived) and under which they have ‘failed’ (i.e. broken apart). Through a fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis of all democratic dyadic federations, past and present, we show that dyadic federations can succeed if geographical factors such as the territorial dispersion of the dominant groups play in its favour and when institutional arrangements (i.e. a proportional electoral system or a national party system) ensure fair political representation for both communities or prevent polities from being conceived in exclusively sub-national terms. In the absence of territorial dispersion, other institutional arrangements such as executive inclusiveness and an equal economic distribution between groups appear to be crucial in preventing the breakup. In general, dyadic federations that survive tend to do so for many years. By contrast, our analysis shows that a bipolar federal project is likely to fail in the absence of stabilising institutional arrangements (i.e. electoral proportionality and a national party system) and, more particularly, when economic resources are unequally distributed between communities and when these communities are clearly territorially separable. The duration of the union is, again, of importance because the dyadic federations that failed did so at their very beginning. Our results inform the literature on federalism, national diversity and democracy by showing that federalism can be a successful institutional arrangement for bipolar polities when its survival as a state is desired or without a viable alternative.
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Notes
- 1.
This chapter originally emerged from the Master’s thesis of Augustin Habra presented at the Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium. This much revised version has benefited from the insightful suggestions of Jérémy Dodeigne throughout the transformation to its current form. For their comments on earlier drafts, we would like to express our gratitude to Arjun Tremblay and Alain-G. Gagnon, as well as to the participants of the Conference on Federalism, Democracy and National Diversity in the Twenty-First Century held in Montréal, and notably Jan Erk for his subsequent suggestions. All remaining errors are our sole responsibility.
- 2.
These differences may be manifest or, at least, ‘imagined’ (Anderson 1983).
- 3.
Some conceived ‘dyadic federations’ exclusively as polities made of two communities and called federations with other smaller groups besides the two major ones ‘bipolar’ instead (Burgess 2006, 110–117). We use these terms interchangeably because both dyadic and bipolar federations share the major political stake that lies at the heart of this paper: the survival of their federal state despite a high potential for centrifugal pressures in their bipolar federal society.
- 4.
For example, Trinidad and Tobago is formally a unitary state, but we consider the creation of the semi-autonomous Tobago House of Assembly in 1980 as evidence of a federal accommodative mechanism.
- 5.
For example, the United Arab Republic of Egypt and Syria (1958–1971) was entirely dominated by Egypt. Similarly, the power-sharing mechanisms in the Federation of Ethiopia and Eritrea (1952–1962) were prevented from entering into force by Ethiopia.
- 6.
Examples of dyadic federations that were excluded because of their insufficient level of democratization are Burundi, Cameroun, the Federation of Pakistan, Rwanda and Yemen.
- 7.
For single case studies on Belgium, cf. Beaufays (1988), Reuchamps and Onclin (2009), Deschouwer (2012), Reuchamps (2013). On Bosnia and Herzegovina, cf. Bieber (2002, 2003), Keil (2016), Hulsey and Stjepanović (2017). On Canada, cf. Leslie (1988), Watts (2000), Gagnon (2006). On Cyprus, cf. Bryant (2011), Trimikliniotis and Bozkurt (2012), Salih (2013), Bahcheli and Noel (2013), Özgür et al. (2019). On Czechoslovakia, cf. Innes (1997). On the Federation of Malaysia, cf. Josey (2013). On Fiji, cf. Fraenkel (2006), Fraenkel and Grofman (2006). On Guyana, cf. Hinds (2011). On Northern Ireland, cf. Ruane and Todd (1996), Taylor (2009). On Saint-Kitts and Nevis, cf. Premdas (1998), Midgett (2005). On Senegambia, cf. Hughes (1992) and Richmond (1993). On Serbia and Montenegro, cf. Fraser (2003), Kim (2006). On Suriname, cf. Hoefte (2013). On Tanzania, cf. Nassor and Jose (2014), Cameron (2019). On Trinidad and Tobago, cf. Premdas (2002). For low-n comparisons on Belgium and Canada, cf. Karmis and Gagnon (1996), Erk and Gagnon (2000), Fournier and Reuchamps (2009), Reuchamps (2011), Reuchamps (2015). On Belgium and Bosnia and Herzegovina, cf. Stroschein (2003). On Czechoslovakia and Serbia and Montenegro, cf. Macek-Mackova (2011). On Fiji, Guyana and Malaysia, cf. Milne (1988). On Guyana and Suriname, cf. Singh (2008). On Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago, cf. Ryan (2002).
- 8.
This study also situates itself against the backdrop of a literature on state failure, which has largely been devoted to the comparative study of conflict and divided polities (Roeder and Rothchild 2005; Guelke 2012)—from an institutional (Hale 2004; Lijphart 2004) or a peace-building perspective (Lederach 1997; Oberschall 2007). Bipolar polities have hitherto received much less of such systematic attention.
- 9.
To be clear, the degree of nationalization of a party system is influenced by the electoral system and, in a divided society, by the territorial overlap of voting constituencies and the residing area of different societal groups. Nevertheless, it is ultimately the party’s decision on how it decides to seek support.
- 10.
- 11.
One should note that the distribution of economic resources involves both the de facto repartition of natural and economic wealth as well as the distribution of economic resources through the intermediary of national redistribution mechanisms (Gordon and Cullen 2012).
- 12.
The Gallagher Index or ‘least squares index’ calculates the degree of electoral proportionality by taking the square root of the half of the sum of all parties’ squared difference between their share of votes and share of seats for one election: \( \mathrm{Lsq}=\sqrt{\frac{1}{2}\sum \limits_{i=1}^n{\left(\%{\mathrm{Votes}}_i-\%{\mathrm{Seats}}_i\right)}^2}. \)
- 13.
For Belgium, Canada, Guyana, Saint-Kitts and Nevis, Serbia and Montenegro, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago, calculations were borrowed from Gallagher (2018). For Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czechoslovakia, Cyprus, Fiji, the Federation of Malaysia, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, Senegambia and Tanzania, calculations were made by the authors.
- 14.
We considered the number of years during which the case qualified for our three selection criteria, even though some cases remained together even longer. We did so because centrifugal dynamics might only come up when power-sharing agreements are entrenched and when states are democratic. Our findings remain robust, however, even when considering longer periods.
- 15.
- 16.
The Boolean operators used in this chapter are the logical AND (∗), the logical OR (+), the logical negation (~) and the logical implication (→).
- 17.
E.g., If A∗B∗C → D, and if A∗B∗~C → D, then A∗B → D and the formula can be reduced.
- 18.
E.g., If A∗B∗C + A∗B∗~C + ~A∗B∗C + ~A∗~B∗C → D, then A∗B + ~A∗C → D.
- 19.
For n fuzzy-sets, the total number of possible configurations is 2n. In this case, 26 = 64.
- 20.
An inclusiveness threshold of 0.67 has been chosen for a case to be included in the analysis. While this comes with some deviance in degree (depending on cases’ membership scores in the conditions), no row comprised deviance in kind (all cases were member of the same outcome) and all cases could be included in the analysis.
- 21.
The consistency of sufficiency does not reach 1.000 because of some deviance in degree (remember that these are fuzzy-sets).
- 22.
The minimisation process of solution 1.A relied on six, that of 1.B on seven and that of 1.C on six simplifying assumptions. They were based on the directional expectation that conditions (0,1,1,1,1,-) → outcome(1).
- 23.
The consistency of sufficiency does not reach 1.000 because of some deviance in degree.
- 24.
The minimisation process of solution 1.A relied on one and that of 1.B on two simplifying assumptions. They were based on the directional expectation that conditions (1,0,0,0,0,0) → outcome(0).
- 25.
The consistency of sufficiency does not reach 1.000 because of some deviance in degree.
- 26.
In some way, the Bosnian case confirms the importance of kin-state influence already underlined for Cyprus. Here, however, kin-state presence served stability since Serbia is one of the guarantors of the Dayton peace agreement, together with the external conditionality ensured by the European Union.
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Appendix
Appendix
Number of years that the cases remained intact as of today. S = succeeded, F = failed
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Niessen, C., Reuchamps, M., Stjepanović, D., Habra, A. (2020). When Have Dyadic Federations Succeeded and When Have They Failed? A Comparative Analysis of Bipolar Federalism Around the World. In: Gagnon, AG., Tremblay, A. (eds) Federalism and National Diversity in the 21st Century. Federalism and Internal Conflicts. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38419-7_3
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