Nation building: Favouring multiculturalism through federalism?

Abstract

The paper analyses chances and paradoxes of federalism as a strategy to sustain nation building in multicultural societies, in particular those in post-ethnic war situations. The major hypothesis will be that there is no one-to-one relationship between federalism and communal peace, the latter being a condition sine qua non for nation building. The reasons lie in key challenges and paradoxes of federalism as a conflict-management device in the societies coming out of ethnic wars: Mistrust and intolerance intrinsically belong to identity conflicts; on the other hand, federalism as part and parcel of conflict transformation should be instrumental in building up trust and tolerance that are - paradoxically - a condition sine qua non for effective federal designs. Multicultural federalism can work only if it succeeds in democratically commanding a loyalty that would transcend cultural cleavages, i.e., if it democratically reconciles cultural and political pluralism. Such reconciliation is structurally unfeasible within a consequently liberal democratic set up. What constitutive principles and institutional set-up of the federal polity can sustain the viability of nation-building in multicultural societies? How can democratic reconciliation of political and cultural (ethnic, religious, linguistic) pluralism be achieved? - These are major issues of multicultural federalism. Consequently, federalism can democratically meet multicultural challenge only if it is not imposed and becomes an intrinsic part of democracy; i.e., if not only unity, but also diversity becomes a constitutive principle of democracy. If that is not the case, federalism fails to meet its major challenge: Not to radicalize the differences to which it was supposed to be a solution; notably, to address and accommodate structural causes of mistrust and intolerance in a given society (for instance, constitutional conflicts as per se ethnic conflicts). This is why multicultural federalism has an immanently built in paradox: Multicultural federalism starts with a low level of legitimacy due to the lack of trust and tolerance. Multicultural federalism has in fact to create its own preconditions.