National Causes

Abstract

Abstract This chapter analyses the causes of the extent of shared rule at the level of countries. It combines a paired comparison of the USA and Canada with a quantitative analysis of forty-two Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development/European Union countries plus Bosnia and Herzegovina. Shared rule is higher in ‘coming-together’ federations with extensive linguistic diversity and extended degrees of de- or non-centralization. The chapter also identifies two resulting tensions: that in ‘staying-together’ federations with high levels of self-rule, calls will inevitably arise for greater shared rule too; and that in systems with already high levels of shared rule, regional influence over state-wide decisions might not always work as intended and/or only to the profit of some regions, for instance those aligned with the state-wide majority or richer ones.