Explaining Territorial Change in Federal Democracies: A Comparative Historical Institutionalist Approach
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9248.12118 |
| Author | Louise Tillin |
| Published date | 01 August 2015 |
| Date | 01 August 2015 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Explaining Territorial Change in Federal
Democracies: A Comparative Historical
Institutionalist Approach
Louise Tillin
King’s College London
This article builds a framework drawn from historical institutionalism to analyse changes to the territorial composition
of federal systems arising from the creation or admission of new sub-units. Despite the sustained interest among
political scientists in the effects of federal design on ethnic conflict, economic development and prospects for
democratic stability, there has been little sustained attempt to explain when and why territorial maps change over
time. A historical institutionalist framework draws attention to the ways in which constellations of internal borders
are underpinned by – and reproduce – patterns of power. The framework explains territorial change by studying the
multiple layers that structure political life in federal settings and which through their interactions produce change. The
article proceeds to explain territorial change in two countries with contrasting federal origins: India and the United
States. In so doing, it questions the tendency within comparative politics to treat both countries as places of exception.
Keywords: federalism; territorial change; historical institutionalism; India; United States
Despite the interest among political scientists in the effects of federal design on ethnic
conflict, economic development and the prospects for democratic stability,1there has been
little sustained attempt to explain when and why the territorial organisation of power
within federations changes over time through the creation or admission of new federal
sub-units such as states or provinces. Much scholarship about territorial change in federal
or multi-level governance structures has focused on vertical or intergovernmental relations.
This includes the redistribution of powers or responsibilities between levels of govern-
ment, and the redefinition of the status of culturally distinct sub-units such as Catalonia,
Quebec or Scotland. Such emphases reflect the continuing centrality of European and
North American cases in scholarship on comparative federalism where instances of the
creation or admission of new federal sub-units have been fewer in recent decades –
although not non-existent – than in newer federations such as India or Nigeria.
This article builds a historical institutionalist framework to analyse how and why changes
to the territorial composition of federal systems take place, and how institutional choices
in constitutional founding moments shape subsequent possibilities. It employs the frame-
work to explain changes to the territorial map of federalism in two countries with
contrasting federal origins: India and the United States. India has reorganised its state
borders on a handful of occasions: to create linguistic states in the 1950s and 1960s; to
create small states in the conflict-affected northeast; and to divide large Hindi-speaking
states in 2000. The US increased the size of its federal union as it expanded westwards and
admitted new territories. In comparing these cases, I build on recent scholarship in
comparative politics which has placed India at the heart of exercises of theory building
rather than treating it as a place of exception among democracies (Chatterjee and
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doi: 10.1111/1467-9248.12118
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2015 VOL 63, 626–641
© 2014 The Author. Political Studies © 2014 Political Studies Association
Katznelson, 2012; Stepan et al., 2011).2Furthermore, I respond to calls to bring American
federalism into closer conversation with comparativists (Weissert, 2011).
The processes that govern the creation or admission of new federal sub-units are more
than a matter of academic interest. Questions of how to design federal systems in order to
recognise demands by previously marginalised ethnic groups without introducing or
reifying new patterns of exclusion are urgent and often destabilising issues, especially in
newly emerging federal scenarios. The cases of Iraq and Nepal are examples of post-
conflict situations in which the design of federal sub-units – especially considering whether
they should follow ethnic lines – has been a major subject of contention, threatening to
derail constitutional negotiations.3However, most existing federations have seen revisions
to their borders after their initial founding moment, rather than enshrining one set of
arrangements in perpetuity. Therefore understanding how decision rules and institutional
arrangements embedded in different types of federal design permit and shape subsequent
trajectories of territorial change offers critical insights into the dynamics of federalism as an
ongoing project of negotiation and accommodation. The territorial design of federal
systems is rarely a one-stop process. Building in room for a limited degree of flexibility in
admitting new members can be an important element of a federal settlement going
forward. By developing a historical institutional approach to territorial change in existing
federal systems, we can derive lessons about sources of continuity and change in the
composition of sub-units which are instructive for those countries embarking on the path
to federalism.
Beyond questions of accommodation in multi-ethnic settings, the territorial structures of
federal systems are significant for other reasons too. The number and relative size of federal
sub-units has a bearing on the quality of democracy, especially on the extent of
malapportionment in legislatures (see Samuels and Snyder, 2001); on inter-regional redis-
tribution; and on administrative efficiencies of scale. Internal borders also obtain signifi-
cance in relation to potential changes to international borders. Since 1945, all states that
have emerged from the break-up of existing states – such as the former Soviet Union and
Yugoslavia – have adopted former internal borders as their new international borders
(Roeder, 2007; Zacher, 2001, pp. 234–5).4This article is not concerned with explaining
changes to international borders, but the fact that internal borders have tenacity beyond the
confines of their original setting further underscores the need for more attention to the
positioning of internal borders in the first place.
This article will show that different patterns of federal origins produce distinctive
institutional arrangements for intergovernmental relations which make some kinds of
territorial change more likely than others, and close off alternative trajectories. The contrast
between federal systems created by the aggregation of previously sovereign units, as
opposed to those created by the devolution of power by hitherto centralised polities, is
particularly salient. I will show that federations in which federal sub-units are represented
on an equal basis in an upper chamber – frequently the case in what Alfred Stepan (1999)
calls ‘coming together’ federal systems – reduce the flexibility of central governments to
create new states, because changes to the number of sub-units have strong implications for
the polity-wide distribution of power. By contrast, in ‘holding together’ federations with
weaker institutionalisation of ‘states’ rights’ at the federal level, changes to the territorial
TERRITORIAL CHANGE IN FEDERAL DEMOCRACIES 627
© 2014 The Author. Political Studies © 2014 Political Studies Association
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2015, 63(3)
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