The Institutional Basis of Secessionist Politics: Federalism and Secession in the United States

Anderson, Lawrence M.

doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.pubjof.a005025

Cited by 18 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…With institutions of decentralization, I refer to the sociopolitical organizations, norms, regulations, and operating procedures that shape the structures of decentralization. Several authors noted that the formation of these institutions can be crucial to understand the mechanism between decentralization and conflict prevention (Rode et al 2018;Sorens 2016;Anderson 2015;Bakke 2015;Lecours 2011;Hale 2004;Anderson 2004).…”

Section: Institutions Of Decentralizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decentralization and Conflict Prevention

Tan¹

2020

The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies

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Decentralization commonly refers to the release of power and authority from central government to lower tiers of government to make them administratively and financially less dependent on the central government. Decentralization can take up fiscal, administrative, and political forms, it could be arranged symmetrically or asymmetrically at subnational level, and it can occur both in federal and non-federal states. Decentralization is widely endorsed by international organizations and policymakers to mitigate inter-ethnic conflicts and secessionist movements. The idea is that by giving groups and regional authorities the control over their own political, social, and economic affairs, it is possible to undercut the conditions cultivating ethnic conflicts and secessionist tendencies. However, the theoretical and empirical studies fall short to verify if decentralization can indeed prevent conflicts. While some scholars argue that political decentralization or ethnofederalism can prevent conflicts and secessionist challenges, others argue that political decentralization can exacerbate such challenges. The mechanism between decentralization and conflict prevention is complex, and there remains many unknown in this relationship.

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Section: Institutions Of Decentralizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decentralization and Conflict Prevention

Tan¹

2020

The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies

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“…Early American federalism was strongly rooted in a state independence tradition that generated a discourse about states' rights, where the Union was conceptualised as a compact between separate entities that retained the exit option if their autonomy was threatened (Anderson 2004). Throughout that century, no major concern existed over the territorial integrity of the United States, which meant that, as opposed to the situation prevailing in Australia and Canada, there was no national unity-related political incentive to create a stand-alone federal equalisation programme.…”

Section: National Unitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There was, of course, a serious secessionist challenge in the mid-nineteenth century. Early American federalism was strongly rooted in a state independence tradition that generated a discourse about states’ rights, where the Union was conceptualised as a compact between separate entities that retained the exit option if their autonomy was threatened (Anderson 2004). Timing is crucial in politics (Pierson 2004), and mid-nineteenth-century solutions to secessionist threats did not generally involve the creation of national programmes of fiscal redistribution; these measures were much more coherent with the interventionist ideas of the 1930s and the post-World War II era.…”

Section: American Exceptionalism and Equalisation Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

Fiscal federalism and American exceptionalism: why is there no federal equalisation system in the United States?

Béland¹,

Lecours²

2014

J. Pub. Pol.

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This article addresses the absence of a federal equalisation programme in the United States, which is a significant aspect of “American exceptionalism”. Comparing the United States with Australia and Canada, we argue that three factors are relevant when accounting for this absence. On one hand, we turn to two societal factors to explain why there was never much political appetite for the creation of a stand-alone equalisation programme in the United States, namely the lack of a direct threat to the territorial integrity of the United States after 1865 and the comparative weakness of the idea of social citizenship in that country. On the other hand, our analysis shows that key institutional features of American political institutions, particularly strong bicameralism combined with the absence of formal party discipline, help illuminate why it would have been difficult to create an equalisation programme even if there had been some societal pressures to do so.

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“…From a comparative perspective, the Civil War can be regarded from multiple points of view: as a case of secession (e.g., Anderson 2004;Meadwell 1999), as a war (e.g., Stedman 1994), as a decisive episode in the international abolition of slavery (e.g., Drescher 1999;Blackburn 1988), or as a phase in a process of democratic transition and consolidation (e.g., Moore 1966). Each of these perspectives situates the Civil War in a larger class of phenomena.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sequence and strategy in the secession of the American South

Meadwell

Anderson

2008

Theor Soc

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Secession and the civil war that followed are often regarded as having exclusively structural determinants, expressed in political cleavages. From this point of view, these events are explained, variously, by the rise of abolitionism in the North or sectionalism in the Union or some cultural attribute of the South. This focus gets us part of the way in understanding the events that led to secession, the creation of a Southern Confederacy, and civil war, but this interpretation says too little about precisely how these events and processes played out. Secession occurred in time, sequentially and dynamically, with one state leading and other states following. This article offers a processual specification of the conditions of Southern secession and the creation of a Southern Confederacy. It does so by focusing on mobilization within the vanguard state, South Carolina, and the consequences of this activity for other Southern states.

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The Institutional Basis of Secessionist Politics: Federalism and Secession in the United States

Cited by 18 publications

References 0 publications

Decentralization and Conflict Prevention

Decentralization and Conflict Prevention

Fiscal federalism and American exceptionalism: why is there no federal equalisation system in the United States?

Sequence and strategy in the secession of the American South

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