Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science: Federal Institutions and the Societies They Govern: How Can Decentralized Governance Contribute to Peace ?

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

Increasingly, both policy-makers and scholars have turned to federalism-or decentralized governance-as a promising alternative for containing struggles between central governments and ethnic minority groups seeking self-determination. Federal institutions combine shared-rule with self-rule and may, therefore, represent a compromise between sub-national challengers and the central leadership of the state, which is often reluctant to give up territory or power. Indeed, some scholars have found empirically that federalism has a "peace-preserving" effect, arguing that it reduces the likelihood of conflict by providing sub-national groups with institutional channels for voicing their demands. But these findings have been disputed by others, who maintain that federalism is not "peace-preserving" at all but actually encourages conflict by providing such groups with resources for mobilization. Over the past decades, while some federations have been free from internal conflicts, others have gone through periods of significant, prolonged violence, and still others have experienced occasional uprisings. What explains these divergent theoretical conclusions and empirical outcomes? To answer this question, it is critical to ask not only whether, but also under which conditions, federalism can contribute to defusing intrastate conflicts. This study will argue that the growing body of research addressing similar puzzles falls short on two accounts. First, absent is a systematic comparison of peaceful and conflict-ridden cases across federal states. Second, some studies seem to suggest that there is one optimal mix of decentralization and centralization, while others acknowledge that there is no one-size-fits-all federal solution but leave this without further theorizing. This study argues that the degree to which federal institutions can contribute to defusing conflict depends on how these institutions interact with the underpinnings of the societies they govern. In particular, the study proposes to demonstrate how and why the "peace-preserving" effect of specific federal traits-fiscal decentralization, political decentralization, and political co-partisanship-are conditional on a society's income level and ethnic composition. The study's central argument consists of three hypotheses that specify how federal institutions interact with these characteristics of societies, which will be tested against alternative explanations. The methods include both a quantitative analysis of provinces in 23 federal states and a qualitative, comparative analysis of separatist mobilization in three provinces over time: Chechnya, Punjab, and Quebec. Testing and piecing out the causal mechanisms of these hypotheses will require significant data collection, including field research in Russia, India, and Canada. This study promises to enrich our understanding of how particular forms of governance affect the likelihood of intrastate conflicts, in particular self-determination conflicts. Drawing on research on ethnicity, political mobilization, civil wars, and political institutions, the study proposes to empirically demonstrate how federalism's "peace-preserving" effects are conditional on societal traits. Theoretically, the study has implications for our understanding of the relationship between institutions and society more broadly, as it sets out to systematically assess how institutional effects may vary from society to society. Beyond the scholarly implications, the broader societal impact of the study is that it promises to provide policy guidelines for the ways in which federal institutions can be tailored to specific societies to lessen the chances of intrastate conflicts. Policy-makers have explored federal solutions to the conflicts between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government, the Kosovo-Albanians and the Yugoslav government, and the Kurds and the Iraqi central authorities. Even though both policy-makers and scholars have come to view federal institutions as suitable for defusing conflicts in divided states, it is still unclear which factors contribute to the divergent track record of conflict in existing federations and how federalism's "peace-preserving" effects work. This study aims to directly address the issue of what sorts of institutions under which circumstances may reduce the possibility of intrastate conflicts. The investigators plan to share their findings with scholars and policy-makers both in the United States and abroad.