Archipelagos and Political Engineering: The Impact of Non-Contiguity on Devolution in Small States

Abstract

Political architecture differences have only seldom been explained in the political science literature by reference to physical factors like size and geography. Correcting this neglect while focusing on microstates and especially on archipelago geographies, this article aims at uncovering the impact of geographical non-contiguity on political institution-building. Three separate devices for power devolution - federalism, bicameralism and assembly quotas - perform as dependent variables, and the guiding hypothesis is, for each device, that the device is implemented among archipelagos to a higher extent than among contiguous entities. Although there are marked differences between devices, the findings in general support the belief that territorial non-contiguity is more likely to foster power devolution. The findings also survive controls that investigate the impact of contesting factors.