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.

Contents

1. Introduction: Multinational Federations 2. Democratic Multinational Federalism under Scrutiny: Healthy Tensions and Unresolved Issues in Canada 3. Multinational Federations: Reflections on the Belgian State 4. Federalism and Competing Nations in India 5. Multinational Federation: The Case of Malaysia 6. Federalisation in Multinational Spain 7. Russia’s Multinational Federation: From Constitutional to Contract Federalism and the ‘War of Laws and Sovereignties’ 8. What Is To Be Done? Bicommunalism, Federation and Confederation in Cyprus 9. Federalism, Nationality, Statehood: The Problem of the European Union 10. Federation as a Method of Ethnic Conflict Regulation 11. India and Switzerland as Multinational Federations 12. Multinational Federations in Comparative Perspective