This is the first comparative volume available on multinational federations, bringing together an international range of experts on federalism.
Multinational federations are federal states intended to provide a framework that can accommodate, manage and resolve some of the most intractable political conflicts of our time that emerge from identity politics: those that stem from competing national visions, whether within or between established states.
Featuring key experts in the field such as Michael Burgess, Alain Gagnon and Ronald Watts, this unique book draws on a wide geographical range of country studies including Belgium, Canada, India, Malaysia, Spain, Russia, Cyprus, India, Switzerland and the EU in order to illustrate the pivotal relationship between federalism and nationalism. In so doing, it addresses the practical relevance of federalism to the new political recognition of difference and diversity in the specific form of national minoritarianism.
Multinational Federations will be of strong interest to students and researchers of federalism, democracy and nationalism.
Preface Contributors 1. Introduction: multinational federations, John Pinder 2. Democratic multinational federalism under scrutiny: healthy tensions and unresolved issues in Canada, Alain-G. Gagnon 3. Multinational federations: reflections on the Belgian state, Patrick Peeters 4. Federalism and competing nations in India, Harihar Bhattacharyya 5. Multinational federation: the case of Malaysia, Ismail Bakar 6. Federalisation in multinational Spain, Luis Moreno 7. Russia’s multinational federation: from constitutional to contract federalism and the ‘war of laws and sovereignties’, Cameron Ross 8. What is to be done? bicommunalism, federation and confederation in Cyprus, Michael Burgess 9. Federalism, nationality, statehood: the problem of the European Union, Murray Forsyth 10. Federation as a method of ethnic conflict regulation, John McGarry and Brendan O’Leary 11. India and Switzerland as multinational federations, Harihar Bhattacharyya 12. Multinational federations in comparative perspective, Ronald L. Watts
Biography
Michael Burgess, John Pinder
