Intergovernmental Relations in Divided Societies

262 Pages·2022·6.248 MB·English

by  Yonatan T. Fessha, Karl Kössler, Francesco Palermo

COMPARATIVE TERRITORIAL POLITICS
Intergovernmental
Relations in
Divided Societies
Edited by Yonatan T. Fessha
Karl Kössler · Francesco Palermo
Comparative Territorial Politics
Series Editors
Agustina Giraudy, American University, Washington, USA
Arjan H. Schakel, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
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· ·
Yonatan T. Fessha Karl Kössler
Francesco Palermo
Editors
Intergovernmental
Relations in Divided
Societies
Editors
Yonatan T. Fessha Karl Kössler
University of the Western Cape Institute for Comparative Federalism
Cape Town, South Africa Eurac Research
Bolzano, Italy
Francesco Palermo
Institute for Comparative Federalism
University of Verona and Eurac
Research
Bolzano, Italy
Comparative Territorial Politics
ISBN 978-3-030-88784-1 ISBN 978-3-030-88785-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-88785-8
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Introduction
1. Why This Book: Filling the Research Gap
As we finalise this book, the horror of ethnic conflict is on display
worldwide. There are media reports of conflict in Ethiopia; in Europe,
uncertaintyloomslargeabouttheterritorialintegrityofcountriessuchas
Spain,theUnitedKingdomandBelgiumastheygrapplewiththenation-
alistic claims of groups and territories; similarly, India has again found
itselfembroiledincommunaltensionsfollowingthedecisionofthePres-
ident to abolish the special status of the states of Jammu and Kashmir
(Kaushik, 2019). These and many other countries use arrangements of
territorial autonomy1 to manage their divided societies.2 Yet although
granting territories with distinctive identity a degree of self-government
in the form of territorial autonomy might help address the challenges of
divided societies, what needs equal attention is the integration of these
territories into the legal and political framework of the state and, in
particular, their relations with the national government (Marko, 1995).
In order to link different levels of government to each other and
manage the balance between autonomy and integration, states typically
1FromAutonomousCommunitiesinSpain,cantonsinSwitzerland,andstatesinIndia
and Ethiopia to provinces in Canada and regions in Italy, territorial autonomies form an
important part of the institutional response that states have adopted to deal with the
challenges emanating from their divided societies.
2See Palermo (2015).
v
vi INTRODUCTION
establish a number of institutions and instruments that fall under the
heading of ‘intergovernmental relations’ (IGR). In divided societies, it
is even more essential than for others that mechanisms of IGR be effi-
cient and effective, given that intergovernmental conflicts in societies like
these are particularly likely to be pervasive and deeply rooted.
To be sure, IGR is a topical issue not only in the case of divided soci-
eties. Several factors have contributed to the growing importance, more
generally,ofhowrelationsbetweengovernmentlevelsareshapedthrough
legal and political instruments. First, the expansion of the welfare and
regulatory state in the twentieth century made modern governance so
complex that in a number of policy fields it is virtually impossible for
a single level of government to act alone (Palermo & Kössler, 2017,
p. 55). In fields such as environmental protection and social welfare, to
mention but two examples, efficient and effective IGR is indispensable
forsuccessfulpolicy-making.Secondly,economicintegration—withinone
and the same country and on a supranational scale—has created the need
for denser networks of IGR among multiple governmental levels. In this
regard, the European Union is an evident example, but similar trends
have also been observed for other parts of the world, including Canada
and Australia (Brown, 2002). Thirdly, globalisation in all its manifold
forms, including global governance for addressing globalised problems,
isanothersetoffactorswhichhascontributedtotheincreasingrelevance
of IGR.
The fact that these trends have entailed an increase of intergovern-
mental interaction in recent decades makes it surprising that ‘intergov-
ernmental relations remain largely opaque to the public, scholars, and
evensometimestopublicauthorities’(Poirier&Saunders,2015,p.442).
While it is true that comparative research on the politics and law of terri-
torial autonomy and federalism is beginning to focus on IGR, the bulk
of this literature deals mostly with the nature and dynamics of IGR,
providing accounts of existing instruments and procedures yet without
recognising their implications for identity politics or the implications
identity politics have for them in turn.
Put differently, comparative research so far has failed to address the
unique challenges of IGR in situations where subnational units have
distinctive identities. For instance, one recent comparative study lists
seven variables that may affect the form and operation of IGR, but iden-
tity politics are not among them (Parker, 2015). Another edited volume
INTRODUCTION vii
acknowledges to some extent the particularities of the distinctive iden-
tity of autonomous territories and the nature of their relations with the
national government, but it does so merely in few paragraphs, briefly
stating, with regard to Quebec and Catalonia, that such territories are
more likely to put up resistance to the centralisation which is often
a corollary of IGR (Poirier & Saunders, 2015). Yet another compar-
ative analysis (Bolleyer, 2009) comes close to the issue by examining
how ‘internal substate dynamics’ affect intergovernmental interaction.
However, the focus is on the effect of ‘the mode of decision making
within the subnational units’ on IGR rather than on identity politics.
In literature about arrangements of territorial autonomy, on the other
hand, much has been written over the last two decades about their rele-
vanceindealingwithcommunaltensions.3ButtheregulationofIGRand
itsoperationinpracticehasbeenneglectedsofar.Similarly,athirdstrand
ofenquiry,comparativeresearchondividedsocieties,hasuntilnowfailed
to give this issue the attention it deserves. The research has concentrated
onexploringthemostappropriateconstitutionaldesignforsuchsocieties
in order to manage internal conflicts—a topic that has become inextri-
cably linked with the so-called Lijphart-Horowitz debate or the broader
controversy between integrationists and accommodationists.4
It is apparent, then, that comparative research in the areas of IGR,
territorial autonomy and divided societies have left an obvious gap. This
edited volume seeks to contribute to filling it with a comparison of
the relevance and effectiveness of IGR in divided societies in nine case-
study countries where territorial autonomy is used to manage communal
tensions. Our starting point is the observation that the viability of any
formofterritorialautonomydependsnotonlyonthetextualprovisionsof
thelegalframeworkbutalsoonhowtheterritorialarrangementfunctions
in practice. In this regard, IGR between the governments of subnational
units with distinctive identity and their national counterparts is crucial
inasmuch ‘[e]xploring IGR allows one to read the subtext of federalism
as it is lived’ (Poirier & Saunders, 2015, p.11).
Awareness of this ‘subtext’ is particularly important in the case of
dividedsocieties,whereIGRisoftencomplicatedbyrivalnation-building
3See, for example, Ghai (2000); Colino & Moreno (2010).
4For excellent overviews of these two debates, see Choudhry (2008); McGarry,
O’Leary & Simeon (2008).
viii INTRODUCTION
projects and attendant contestation about the very nature of the state.
With autonomous territories emphasising diversity and the national
governmentinsistingonunity,relationsindividedsocietiesarethusmore
fraught than usual with tension, given that a durable balance between
autonomy and integration is more difficult to maintain. Autonomy may
indeed go a long way in addressing communal tensions, but equally
important are integrative institutions and procedures that provide the
glue to hold divided societies together.5 In this light, the overall objec-
tiveofoureditedvolumeistoexaminetheformandoperationofIGRin
countries where there are at least some subnational units with distinctive
identities.
2. Key Concepts: ‘Intergovernmental
Relations’ and ‘Divided Societies’
According to Bednar (2019), ‘All of the pushing and pulling, and the
variety of interpreters, mean that the boundaries are always being ques-
tioned’(p.33).Astheboundariesofauthorityarebynaturecontinuously
contested in relations between autonomous territories and the national
government, mechanisms of IGR are bound to be an essential means
of shaping and channelling these dynamics. Therefore, it comes as no
surprise that, as explained above, institutions and instruments of IGR
have become ubiquitous and increasingly relevant. With more and more
phenomena being subsumed under IGR as an umbrella term, it is essen-
tial for our book that we clarify what we take this notion to mean. What
phenomena do we include and exclude in our comparative analysis across
the nine case-study countries?
To begin with, we look at institutions (e.g. conferences) as well as
instruments (e.g. intergovernmental agreements) of IGR. Two themes
usually figure prominently in research on intergovernmental interaction.
One is that IGR is dominated by the executive, the other is that it
is predominantly about vertical interaction—and both are true. Legisla-
tive IGR is in most cases either non-existent or ineffective, and IGR is
mostly about institutions that bring together the national government
5ThisisnottosuggestthatIGRinstrumentscanbeusedonlyforintegration—theyare
also used to facilitate autonomy. In many cases, especially in more recent devolutionary
systems, IGR-related mechanisms and processes are used to define the actual scope of
autonomy.
INTRODUCTION ix
and constituent units. These institutions come in different forms: they
could be forums that bring together the leaders of national government
and the subnational units, or they could be sectoral structures that bring
together persons responsible for the relevant sector. However, that does
not represent the complex web of interactions through which IGR takes
place,whichiswhy‘IGR’inthisbookreferstoboththeverticalandhori-
zontal dimensions of interaction between governments. While relations
between autonomous territories with distinctive identity and the national
government certainly predominate in the country case studies (for good
reason), horizontal relations with other territories also play a role in the
management of divided societies.
In addition, despite a tendency for IGR to incline towards mech-
anisms involving executives (Palermo & Kössler, 2017, p. 253), this
volume refers not only to interaction between representatives of execu-
tive branches of government but to relations involving legislatures, albeit
(and justifiably so) to a lesser extent.
The examples of IGR featured in our comparative analysis refer to
different stages of the legislative cycle, that is, either the making of laws
or their implementation. In the former case, the extent and effective-
ness of IGR typically depend on factors such as ideological differences,
partisanpolarisation,regionaldiversity,thequestionoffundingandlevels
of politicisation (Hueglin & Fenna, 2015, pp. 240–41). Such a risk is
quite real because mechanisms in the law-making phase normally revolve
around senior civil servants, ministers or even heads of government, all
of whom might be tempted to let political posturing prevail over a more
compromise-oriented approach. In the implementation phase, however,
IGRislikelytobemoretechnicalinnatureandmainlyinvolvespecialised
civil servants from the various ministries at different government levels.
Finally, the country case studies assembled in this book take into
account both informal and formalised IGR. A general trend towards
formalisation has been observed recently in a number of countries and
attributed to quite different factors, such as a need for safeguards against
nationalgovernmentdomination(particularlyinfederalsystemsemerging
from an authoritarian past), compensation for a lack of trust in informal
mechanisms (particularly in divided societies) and efforts to counter the
frequent characterisation of IGR as lacking in democratic accountability
and transparency (Poirier & Saunders, 2015, pp. 488–489). Yet a trend
towards formalisation does not necessarily mean that informal interaction
bywayofunofficialmeetingsofpoliticians,phonecallsamongthem,and