Divided We Stand: Institutional Sources of Ethnofederal State Survival and Collapse

Abstract

Federal states in which component regions are invested with distinct ethnic content are more likely to collapse when they contain acore ethnic region, a single ethnic region enjoying pronounced superiority in population. Dividing a dominant group into multiple federal regions reduces these dangers. A study of world casesfindsthat all ethnofederal states that have collapsed have possessed core ethnic regions. Thus, ethnofederalism, so long as it is instituted without a core ethnic region, may represent a viable way of avoiding the most deadly forms of conflict while maintaining state unity in ethnically divided countries.