Plurinational democracies, federalism and secession. A political theory approach
| Autor | Ferran Requejo |
| Cargo | Full Professor and Director of the Research Group on Political Theory (GRTP) at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) |
| Páginas | 62-80 |
PLURINATIONAL DEMOCRACIES, FEDERALISM AND SECESSION. A POLITICAL
THEORY APPROACH
Ferran Requejo*
Abstract
This article deals with the suitability of the main normative political theories related to political liberalism, federalism
and secession when they attempt to recognise and accommodate the national pluralism of plurinational democracies.
Firstly, after considering the partial normative character of political theories, I analyse the relationship between liberal
democratic theories (pragmatic, neutralists, perfectionists and value pluralists) and federal theories (monists, pluralists),
pointing out a number of possibilities and shortcomings they display in contexts of national pluralism. The reasons for
stressing the need for a ‘Hegelian turn’ in these theories is also highlighted (section 1). Secondly, after mentioning the
classical institutional solutions for accommodating plurinational societies, I analyse the suitability of federalism and
secession for achieving the political recognition and constitutional accommodation of national pluralism by means of
a number of conclusions drawn from analyses of comparative politics in federations and secession processes (sections
2 and 3).
Keywords: Plurinational democracies; federal theories; liberal democratic theories; secession; Hegel; Catalan
sovereignty process.
DEMOCRÀCIES PLURINACIONALS, FEDERALISME I SECESSIÓ. UN ENFOCAMENT DES DE
LA TEORIA POLÍTICA
Resum
Aquest article tracta sobre la idoneïtat de les principals teories polítiques normatives relacionades amb el liberalisme
polític, el federalisme i la secessió quan intenten reconèixer i donar cabuda al pluralisme nacional en el marc de
democràcies plurinacionals. En primer lloc, després de constatar el caràcter normatiu parcial d’aquestes teories
polítiques, analitzo la relació entre les teories democràtiques liberals (pragmàtiques, neutralistes, perfeccionistes i
teories que defensen el pluralisme de valors) i les teories federals (monistes, pluralistes), cosa que indica un seguit
de possibilitats i limitacions en contextos de pluralisme nacional. També es posen de relleu les raons per subratllar
la necessitat d’un “gir Hegelià” en aquestes teories (secció 1). En segon lloc, després d’esmentar les solucions
institucionals clàssiques per trobar un encaix a les societats plurinacionals, s’analitza la idoneïtat del federalisme i la
secessió com a vies per aconseguir el reconeixement polític i l’assumpció del pluralisme nacional, per mitjà d’una sèrie
de conclusions que són fruit de l’anàlisi de polítiques comparades en federacions i processos secessionistes (seccions
2 i 3).
Paraules clau: Democràcies plurinacionals; teories federals; teories democràtiques liberals; secessió; Hegel; procés
sobiranista.
* Ferran Requejo, Full Professor and Director of the Research Group on Political Theory (GRTP) at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF).
Membre of the Institut d’Estudis Catalans and the Consell Assessor per a la Transició Nacional (an advisory committee linked to
the Government of Catalonia). Political and Social Sciences Departament, Ramon Trias Fargas, 25-27. 08005 Barcelona. ferran.
requejo@upf.edu.
Article received on 28.04.17. Blind review: 09.05.17 and 15.05.17. Final version acceptance date: 02.06.2017
Recommended citation: Requejo i Coll, Ferran. “Plurinational democracies, federalism and secession. A political theory approach”.
Revista Catalana de Dret Públic, Issue 54 (June 2017), p. 62-80. DOI: 10.2436/rcdp.i54.2017.2975.
Ferran Requejo
Plurinational democracies, federalism and secession. A political theory approach
Revista Catalana de Dret Públic, Issue 54, 2017 63
Summary
1 Liberal democracies and pluralism
1.1 Epistemological and moral pluralism
1.2 Theories of democratic liberalism
1.3 Liberal democratic theories and national pluralism
1.4 The need for a Hegelian turn regarding national minorities and liberal democracies
2 Federalism. Political theory and institutional practices
2.1 Federal theories
2.2 Federal institutional practices
3 Secession. Political theory and institutional practices
3.1 Secession theories in liberal democracies
3.2 More secessionist processes in the near future?
References
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Plurinational democracies, federalism and secession. A political theory approach
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1 Liberal democracies and pluralism
1.1 Epistemological and moral pluralism
I would like to start by briey emphasising two basic facets of pluralism related to liberal-democratic
legitimacy. On the one hand, the conviction that there is no political theory, or even political tradition that may
attribute such legitimacy exclusively to itself. That is, the existence of an unavoidable normative pluralism
in present-day diverse democracies. On the other hand, the existence of an agonistic set of conceptions of
politics. This fact is especially relevant in those democracies endowed with a plurinational character, which
lies behind the analytical decits and aws of traditional liberalism and constitutionalism when they address
the political recognition and accommodation of national diversity.
Faced with this normative pluralism, the main political theories and their internal variants have tended to
choose particular elements and dimensions or a combination of them by means of a plurality of philosophical
approaches. In this way, each one of these theories tends to:
1) Give priority to a number of specic questions on political legitimacy.
2) Use a particular conceptual framework.
3) Concentrate on specic goods, values, interest and identities.
4) Propose specic solutions for questions that have been selected as most relevant in the political
sphere.
5) Interpret in a different way, marginalise, or fail completely to take into account the questions,
concepts, values and institutional references defended by rival theories.1
The absence of one single theory of democratic legitimacy situates us within normative pluralism. This is a
question that has been analysed, among other elds, in history and linguistics studies by Q. Skinner and J.
Pocock, among other authors. Language always structures that which we wish to emphasise on the basis of
certain rules situated beyond the simple wishes of the interlocutors.2 Understanding a political theory implies
understanding the key outstanding questions, and the speech acts that are used in any given context.3 Each
political tradition draws a veil of silence over a signicant part of the areas emphasised by other political
traditions. We nd ourselves faced with what are, in effect, partial theories that on the one hand underline,
and simultaneously foster, specic aspects of democratic legitimacy; but on the other hand, detract from or
even hide from view other aspects of this legitimacy when such aspects turn out to be alien to the ‘rules’
(Wittgenstein) of their particular narrative. One condition for making progress in knowledge of social factors
is knowing how to ask the right questions, and learning about the limits of what we know and the theories we
use to try to gain knowledge. This is where philosophy, somewhat paradoxically, can be very useful. This is
especially relevant, as we will see later, in the case of plurinational democracies.
1.2 Theories of democratic liberalism
The history of political liberalism has produced a number of competing theories. Liberal political theories
of a strictly individualistic nature are inclined to approach and resolve the normative questions selected by
1 In addition to this omission strategy, Charles Taylor has rightly pointed out Berlin’s stance against what we can call the redenition
strategy: ‘(to) try to nesse the clash between liberty and some other goals -solidarity, justice, social harmony, equality - by telling
ourselves that these other goals are internal to the denition of freedom, properly understood ...... This kind of fudging goes back to
Plato, at least... Conict is nessed by redenition’ (Taylor, 2001).
2 Specic contexts introduce normative, historical and institutional elements which are important in terms of legitimisation.
Walzer’s perceptive critique of the periodic need which liberal approaches have for communitarian critique could be extended to the
relationship of different liberal democratic theories in the sphere of political legitimacy. There is a kind of liberal ‘two-stroke engine’
in this sphere which goes from emphases which are aimed more at ‘procedural justice’ (neutralist theories) to others closer to liberal
values and virtues (perfectionist theories). See Walzer 1990. I have developed this point in; see especially the normative pyramid
with nine legitimising poles in present-day liberal democracies, in Requejo, 2005, chap. 1.
3 Skinner 1998; Pocock 1985, Searle 1995, chap. 1-5; Pitkin 1972, XII-XIV.
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means of the practical regulation of specic rights, institutions and processes in a different way from liberal
theories which combine the individual perspective with others of a collective nature. For example, the former
will tend to approach the issue of national and cultural minorities through a notion of homogeneous citizen-
ship, while the latter will be more inclined to introduce different principles of legitimisation and to pluralise
the institutional regulation of citizenship through national and cultural pluralism.
It is advisable to keep in mind this internal pluralism of liberal political theories both when one is dealing with
questions of a strictly normative nature and when one is analysing institutional and procedural questions.
This theoretical pluralism is largely unavoidable and makes any overall synthesis unlikely.4
Liberal theories can be classied according to the patterns displayed by different typologies. One may take
into account the type of agreement that the theories defend (pragmatic agreements versus moral agreements).
In the case of moral agreements, these may be distinguished according to the role that the theories establish
for institutions in relation to the promotion or not of moral values and conceptions regarding the good life
(neutralist theories versus perfectionist theories). A third pattern is whether liberal theories advocate a monist
perspective (those theories that focus on a fundamental value), a pluralist perspective that focuses on a
variety of values, but which are based on a permanent ranking of these same values (e.g. the lexicographical
priority of the principle of equal liberties in the work of J. Rawls), or a pluralist perspective without the
possibility of establishing such a permanent ranking (e.g. Berlin’s agonistic value pluralism).
By a similar token, liberal theories have maintained different strategies for legitimising the state: keeping
the peace (Hobbes), establishing institutions and ‘neutral’ practices with regard to the different ways of
life of its citizens (Rawls), or encouraging a set of values, virtues and political objectives, either through
weaker normative versions (Galston), strong normative versions (Raz) or pluralist versions (Berlin). These
different types of agreements and strategies constitute two basic types of liberal political theories: (the second
subdivided in four groups):
1) Liberal democratic theories based on pragmatic agreements.
2) Liberal democratic theories based on moral agreements:
2.1) Neutralist theories.
2.2) Theories of public purposes or weak perfectionist theories.
2.3) Strong perfectionist theories.
2.4) Value pluralist theories.
A) Pragmatic theories (Rorty, Gray).5 No normative agreement is possible because there is no objective
criterion to establish it rationally. The basic objective of a liberal society is to prevent internal violence
(Hobbes), to regulate conicts through institutions and procedures that respect individual freedom and
prevent despotic power. Specic agreements, of a pragmatic nature, should be forged by the actors who are
involved in each context.
B) Neutralist theories (Rawls).6 They aim to be a minimal moral and procedural form of liberalism which
permits the maximum inclusion and compatibility between different ideals of the good life. Based on a
strict separation between the spheres of justice and morality, they oppose any ‘perfectionist’ attempt to
identify ‘superior’ moral values or specic features of individuals’ character that must be promoted by public
institutions. Political liberalism is desirable precisely because it does not promote any specic way of life,
4 This is related to at least four aspects: 1) the emphasis on different features of individuality – life, freedom, development of
abilities, rationality, subjective satisfaction, etc.; 2) contextual situations of a national and cultural nature; 3) different interests
according to characteristics of class, territory or social group; 4) ambiguities and vagueness of the abstract language which give
different meanings to the main legitimising values.
5 Rorty, 1989; Gray, 2000.
6 Rawls, 1971, 1993.
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permitting a plurality of individual conceptions and developments of life projects. The justication for this
normative neutrality is based on: 1) a sceptical position with regard to the existence of a rational decision
between different ways of life, or 2) the acceptance of the fact that pluralism exists in contemporary societies,
or 3) a normative priority (e.g. of lexicographical nature) of the value of liberty which prevents the state
from imposing or promoting a specic way of life on its citizens. In general terms, there is a rejection of
moral coercion by public institutions. This implies the adoption of a more sceptical attitude with regard to
interventionist proposals by these institutions, for example, in the educational sphere. This is despite the fact
that neutralist theories sometimes claim to defend the neutrality of public institutions with regard to different
conceptions of good and with regard to the different ways of life that occur in society. However, the latter
appears to be truer than the former.7
C) Weak perfectionist theories (or of public purposes) (Galston).8 These theories defend the position that
all states, including liberal ones, possess a number of values and objectives that it is a priority to promote,
as well as several anti-values and objectives to be avoided. In other words, these theories maintain that no
institutional organisation is fully universal or normatively ‘neutral’. They all, it is said, promote specic
ways of life and discourage others. In fact, they state that a liberal state needs to establish the conditions for
its own stability and permanence. The ‘principles of justice’ are not sufcient (whatever they may be). To
this effect, these theories maintain that neutralist liberal authors also accept normative rules that go beyond
the instrumental and formal criteria they defend.
Political liberalism is characterised, on the one hand, by the defence of a series of (normatively non-neutral)
public purposes and, on the other hand, by a refusal to defend a xed set of specic styles and ways of life.
Its attractiveness does not lie in the absence of coercion, but in its minimisation with respect to other political
regimes. Insisting on ‘neutrality’ is only advantageous to the detriment of other liberal values.
Regarding values, these theories, together with equality and liberty, also defend excellence and virtue as
characteristics of political liberalism. Individual freedom, equality and rational dialogue are not sufcient
for the stability of a liberal society. Liberalism is not at odds with a weak sense of virtue or public virtues,
although it is at odds with a strong or ‘perfectionist’ version such as that of classical republicanism. In other
words, for this type of theory, liberal practices and institutions require a certain kind of citizen endowed with
some virtues and a specic character, which require the implementation of a weak form of perfectionism
by liberal public institutions. An implementation which is deemed to be advisable, as well as inevitable, for
any liberal project, and which is justied above all in instrumental terms: as a means for the preservation of
liberal societies and their institutions. Rather than putting limits on diversity, it establishes what is considered
unacceptable in social pluralism. Its aim, therefore, is to establish a weak form of substantive liberalism
(e.g. in the sphere of civic education), but of a purposive nature rather than a formal and procedural form of
liberalism.9
D) Strong perfectionist theories (J. Raz).10 Linked to the very beginnings of the republican tradition (Ar-
istotle), they defend an explicit connection with objectives and values regarding the good life (autonomy,
knowledge, virtue, responsibility, etc.). Liberalism is seen as a partisan political conception which defends
specic values and virtues and which establishes duties towards the community itself. It is a theory of being
good, rather than well-being. The liberal polity is based on a shared moral vision which promotes certain
7 A. Wolfe summarises it thus: ‘In theory, liberal proceduralism, because it is inclusive of different political world views, ought
to be less controversial than substantive liberalism, which defends one set of political goals against others. But in reality, liberal
proceduralism nds itself under attack from left, right and centre, as if the one thing that people who disagree over substantive ends
can all agree upon is that no set of rules can rise above the fray and look down disinterestedly upon those rules’ (Wolfe, 2009)
8 Galston, 1991.
9 Some of the ‘republican’ criticisms of political liberalism have focused on the vulnerability of the notion of ‘liberty as non-
interference’ and the ‘neutrality’ of public institutions. However, regardless of the plausibility of such criticisms of these notions, they
are more characteristic of some liberal versions than of liberalism itself. At times these criticisms still reect a ‘monist’ condence
with regard to rationality and morality: the idea that there is only one way to be rational and moral in any given situation, which can
be discovered, for example, through ‘deliberation’. I believe that this epistemological attitude and morality continue to reect either
an ‘ancient’, Greek or Roman, mentality, from which modern liberalism breaks, or a Kantian moral perspective which normally
only prescribes the existence of a correct form of conduct in a given situation. Neither attitude seems to be intellectually equipped to
confront the different types of pluralism of present-day societies.
10 Raz, 1986.
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ways of life that are considered good. It is unrealistic to try to combine an ethics of positive freedoms on an
individual scale with a policy of strict negative freedoms. It involves the establishment of a normative and
institutional framework in opposition to the centrifugal and corrosive forces of diversity. Here stricter limits
are imposed on what degree of diversity is considered acceptable, to the extent that its critics accuse it of no
longer being within the liberal paradigm due to the fact that it takes sides on controversial issues. These the-
ories could be ambivalent regarding the separation of the state and churches and the treatment of minorities.
Its differences with weak perfectionist theories are more a question of degree in relation to specic spheres
(education, religious freedom, political pluralism, etc.).
E) Value pluralist theories (I. Berlin).11 These theories focus on the fact that there is a multiplicity of values
in plural societies which cannot be reduced to a single principle, or a universal permanent combination of
values applicable to all individuals and all practical cases. In other words, to establish a universal and context
free hierarchy of values is impossible. This value pluralist approach asserts three things:
a) The irreducibility of goods and values. The goods and values of human life are radically diverse. It is
impossible to reduce some values to others or to derive some values from others, or to combine them all into
a single higher value or a permanent combination of values.
b) Agonism. Goods and values are often mutually incompatible. It is impossible to harmonise them into a
coherent whole. The moral struggle does not occur between good and evil but between good and good.
c) The incommensurability of goods and values. Conicts between different goods and values cannot be
decided in terms of interpersonal reasonability. There is no set of principles shared by all humans that is
capable of resolving this kind of conict. There is no universal hierarchy of values.
The most radical feature of value pluralism is the third one: incommensurability. This feature is formulated
in relation to values between cultures as well as within cultures themselves. However, this does not entail
adopting a sceptical or relativistic position in the moral sphere. Berlin maintains that values are objective
and that reason plays a role in moral conicts. However, ‘reasonable’ discrimination between values is
much more context-dependent, even on an individual scale, than moral, political or religious ‘rationalist’
conceptions assume. Faced with a specic situation of conicting values, there is no single ‘truth’, nor is
there one ‘correct’ moral position. Reason plays a role when prioritising and interpreting values in a given
situation, but this will often become an unavoidably controversial issue given the three aforementioned
characteristics of morality, especially the incommensurability of goods and values.
1.3 Liberal democratic theories and national pluralism
Regarding practical issues, pragmatic theories are usually sceptical with regard to the possibility of
establishing moral agreements between individuals with different normative conceptions. This is an approach
that maintains the perspective of actors that reach general agreements in the state polity. In the case of
plurinational polities, specic agreements will depend on the relative empirical power of these actors. The
criticisms that they have received from theories favourable to some kind of moral agreement are based on
the fact that: 1) there is no guarantee that simply appealing to the prudence of the actors will propitiate
cooperative positions between them, and 2) pragmatic conceptions encourage a permanent instability in
liberal institutions and practices because the latter depend on the specic power of the actors that reach real
agreements in specic contexts.
In contrast, the majority of the last four liberal theories maintain a basic approach that is predominantly moral
and rationalist with regard to political legitimacy. Most of these theories refer to an intellectual framework of
an individualistic, universalist and statist nature mostly inspired by some sort of Kantian moral individualism.
The last two kinds of theories (Raz, Berlin) have even accepted cultural pluralism not only as a reality that
needs to be managed in the least traumatic way possible, but as a key value of liberal-democratic legitimacy
of present-day societies.
11 Berlin, 1998a, 1998b, 1996. A brief analysis of Berlin’s value pluralist approach in Requejo, 2014.
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However, only recently has the national pluralism been included in some liberal theories. National pluralism,
when it is taken into account, tends to break with the usual interpretation of uniformising concepts of liberal
polities, such as the ‘equality of citizenship’ or ‘popular sovereignty’ maintained by traditional political
liberalism. It is a kind of pluralism, moreover, that leads one to approach political relations in ways that
pay greater attention to specic contexts. ‘Reective equilibrium’ (Rawls) is methodologically necessary,
but its scope is wider and includes more perspectives than the simple Rawlsian version which contrasts
moral intuitions and ethical principles. The normative and institutional challenges posed by plurinational
democracies ask questions that are normatively and institutionally more complex than those put forward by
uninational democracies. Here pluralism becomes more plural and contextual.
In recent years, a number of analyses have shown the biased and impoverished nature of traditional liberal
theories when they are applied to contexts with strong components of national pluralism; in other words,
when they are applied to plurinational democracies such as Belgium, Canada, the United Kingdom or Spain.
One might enquire into the theoretical roots of that partiality or bias – which is present in the interpretation of
the individualistic, universalist and procedural components of those roots. The generic question is what the
basic conceptual framework is to which the notion of pluralism present in the liberal theories described above
is linked. I believe that at least part of the intellectual difculties of liberal theories in plurinational contexts
is related to their philosophical foundations, which in many cases refer basically to Kantian approaches. In
the next section we ask whether a specic ‘Hegelian turn’ provides a number of philosophical foundations
that are more suitable to approach and regulate, in liberal terms, the kind of pluralism present in plurinational
contexts.12
1.4 The need for a Hegelian turn regarding national minorities and liberal democracies
In the sphere of knowledge, the medieval philosophers had already distinguished between cognitive
capacities: intellectus (understanding) and ratio (reason). The former was superior. It was regarded as being
of an intuitive nature and made it possible to attain the principles that ruled knowledge and moral action. In a
ash it brought us closer to God. The second capacity, reason, was more human. It was of a discursive nature
and brought us closer to more ephemeral and temporary knowledge. Later, the Enlightenment inverted the
hierarchy of these two capacities.
From this starting point, Kant grasped two things: that we think using categories that are unique to us, and
that we are condemned to think about things that we do not know and cannot know. Among the latter are
liberty and moral action. They, and not knowledge, constitute the highest point of human dignity for Kant.
Scientic knowledge is circumscribed to phenomena; beyond them there is no knowledge. But whether
we like it or not, we are compelled to think beyond them, to think without knowing. This is the sphere of
individual morality and regulatory ideas that never allows us to attain the ideal that we are pursuing, but
which allows us to orient ourselves and civilise to some extent the jungle of interests, values and identities
in which we live. This is the true conquest that liberal democracies have made.
However, practices appear to tell us that morality and politics always include social dimensions. Individuals
usually act in social networks in which they ght for achieving personal and political recognition. And
nobody has established more clearly than Hegel the human need for recognition. Thus, from the politics of
recognition inherent in Hegelian ethicity comes the need to introduce the perspective of moral collectivism
besides that of moral individualism in plurinational democracies.
From the perspective of moral collectivism, 1) national groups are seen as legitimate sources of rights and
moral claims; that is, they become legitimate actors through the normative links of their members to certain
12 It is well known that contemporary liberal philosophers have usually made few references to Hegelian philosophy. A search
through the works of Rawls, Galston and Raz reveals that, either there is simply no reference whatsoever (Raz), or that Hegel is
mentioned in very general terms, with no reference to any specic works (Galston), or that there are a number references, very few,
mainly in relation to Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (PhR) (Rawls). So, Hegel is only cited twice in A Theory of Justice (TJ), a general
citation and another referring to the PhR (private property, sections 182-187). In Political Liberalism (PL) there are also references
to the PhR (religious pluralism, section 270) and four fragments related to the theory of contract in Locke/Kant; while in Law of
Peoples there is a general reference to Hegel and others to the rejection of democracy in the PhR and in Hegelian ‘political writings’.
Finally, in Justice as Fairness there is a reference to the notion of reconciliation, another to the historical role of Christian Reform
as a phenomenon that precedes liberal rupture, and a nal reference to the civil society (sections 182-256), all referring to the PhR.
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values, institutions and collective projects; and 2) it emphasises that moral autonomy of individuals is not
necessarily the supreme or only liberal value; other values can take its place in specic contexts, such as
collective freedom and tolerance, along with individual autonomy. These would be two requirements for
establishing a successful constitutional and political accommodation of national pluralism in a liberal state
(in addition to the individualistic perspective).
The ‘liberal’ key of the recognition between majorities and minorities will be one that is reciprocal and
established on an equal footing. This makes it possible, from a perspective situated beyond moral individualism,
to tackle the relations between different national groups within the state. And this is possible despite the
statist emphasis inherent in Hegelian thought.13 This is, in a manner of speaking, the establishment of an a
posteriori social contract, whose legitimacy is no longer purely and simply ‘moral’, but includes a modus
vivendi type component based on the mutual recognition of partially disjointed ethicities, but which the latter
recognise as an agreement that is normatively superior to those mere political agreements of a moral nature.
In a plurinational liberal democracy, the perspective of moral collectivism is pluralistic by denition. This
is a point which takes us away from Hegel’s monist view of the state. Moral collectivism in plurinational
polities refers to a set of values, interests and identities of an agonistic character (conict understood as
something unavoidable in political relations), which encourages agreements of a pragmatic nature (modus
vivendi agreements). Berlin (value pluralism) and Taylor (political recognition)14 meet within a more diverse
and complex ethics than that stipulated by Hegel. But both are needed, the more individual perspective
of Berlin’s liberalism and the more collective perspective of Taylor’s recognition. To follow the path of
the ‘atomised’ individualism and the monist moral perspective that accompanies traditional state-liberalism
means legitimising de facto relations of domination that exist between national groups within plurinational
democracies. In other words, to stay exclusively within the perspective of moral individualism implies to
legitimise the status quo of factual relations of domination present in the institutions, rules and decision-
making processes of traditional liberal democracies.
Clearly, to highlight the ethical importance of national groups for individuals does not involve accepting that
these groups are of a static, eternal, or non-plural character. As with almost everything that is human, they are
internally dynamic, historical and pluralistic entities. Over time, they change their values, their priorities and
their internal composition. But they will probably be replaced by other forms of collective ethicity that will
also be a legitimate source of rights, moral claims, constitutional recognition and political accommodation.
Hegel provides a theoretical perspective that, despite and beyond his statism, is a shift towards a more
interactive (dialectal) approach which is normatively and institutionally relevant for the relationship between
majorities and minorities in nationally diverse democracies. It provides a normative and institutional
democratic renement required to break the monopoly of state nationalism and a notion of citizenship
based purely on moral individualism which are still very present in most approaches of political liberalism,
federalism and constitutionalism.
In the language of the liberal tradition, this requires establishing collective rights for national minorities
alongside individual rights, and alternative institutional models. Potential conicts between individual rights
and collective rights should be regulated in a similar way to that in which conicts between individual
rights are regulated (courts, modus vivendi agreements, etc.). But to do so from the premises of pluralist
and egalitarian recognition, composition and procedures of the high courts and intergovernmental relations
in plurinational polities should take into account their national pluralism. However, as we will see in the
next section, the analysis of comparative federalism shows that the two general objectives of plurinational
democracies – constitutional recognition and political accommodation of national pluralism – are done in a
very incomplete and biased way through uninational and symmetrical traditional federal formulae. Actually,
all federal plurinational states show problems of internal legitimacy.15
13 In his ‘technical’ language, Hegel denes the state as ‘the actual reality [Wirklichkeit] of the ethical idea’. See Philosophy of
Right, section 257. See also Seymour, 2008; Singer, 2001; Taylor, 1998.
14 Berlin, 1998a; Taylor, 1992.
15 Some theoretical and comparative analysis of plurinational federalism, in Burgess & Gagnon, 2010; Requejo, 2005; Amoretti &
Bermeo, 2004; Filippov, Ordeshook & Shvetsova, 2004; Tierney, 2004; Baldi, 2003.
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In this way, I think that the Hegelian legacy of political recognition and moral collectivism, as an enlargement
of the Kantian perspective, facilitates a better implementation of national pluralism through institutions and
procedural rules in current liberal democracies.
2 Federalism. Political theory and institutional practices
The three ‘classic’ institutional responses for societies with a strong component of national diversity have
been:
1) Federalism: (in a wide sense, including federations (mainly asymmetrical), associated states, federa-
cies, confederations and regional states).
2) Consociationalism: institutions and processes based on consensus between the majorities and perma-
nent national minorities. One can nd examples of these institutions and processes in the democracies
of Switzerland and Belgium, in both cases in conjunction with federal solutions.
3) Secession.
We will focus here on the rst and third of these institutional solutions. Regarding federalism, the generic
question is whether it offers a suitable framework for establishing the recognition and accommodation of
plurinational democracies.16
2.1 Federal theories
Broadly speaking, federalism is a notion that has been neither historically nor normatively related to national
pluralism until quite recently. In fact, it is evident that both classic institutional analyses and those of a
normative nature regarding federalism have been heavily inuenced by the historical example of the United
States, the rst contemporary federation. And this is an empirical case that is not related to national pluralism.
If we remain in the orbit of the federalism of the United States (J. Madison, Federalist Papers, 10, 51), the
response to the question concerning the possibilities of the political accommodation of plurinational societies
by means of federal formulae is basically negative. The fundamental reasons for this are both historical and
organisational. This is essentially a uninational model that avoids, but implicitly responds to, a fundamental
question that, paradoxically, democratic theories have failed to answer: what is ‘the people’, the demos,
and who decides what ‘the people’ refers to. If we take empirical data into account, it would appear to
be practically impossible to politically empower the different demoi of a plurinational society within the
uninational rules of the federal model of the United States.
From the philosophical discussion of the previous sections we can infer how the perspective of moral
individualism and the concept of citizenship associated with individual autonomy make it easier to approach
political relations: a) from the perspective of an abstract, empirically impoverished form of individualism
that is inclined to legitimise the position of hegemonic groups; b) from the perspective of a kind of ‘state
universalism’ – often associated with state nationalism – which pays little attention to the internal pluralism
of plurinational societies. These approaches make it easier to conceive politics in ‘monist’ national terms –
with regard to a single, state demos, or in ‘pluralist’ terms but with a hegemony of the demos of the federation
over the demoi that make up the minority nations of the polity (who are sometimes denied recognition
as demoi and are relegated to being ‘regional’ entities of a single state unit). Relations between national
majorities and minorities are either removed from the (normative and institutional) political agenda, or are
included in terms of the hierarchical subordination mentioned above.17 We can therefore establish a simple
typology of federal theories according to the national perspective they adopt:
16 We have focused here only on federations and regional states, excluding other federal models such as associated states, federacies,
confederations, or supra-state organisations such as the European Union. See also Watts, 1999.
17 It is worth recalling here the words of E. Burke in his famous speech to the voters of Bristol (1774) in which he describes
Parliament as ‘a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local
prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole’ (emphasis added).
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a) Federal theories that are monist in national terms.
b) Federal theories that are pluralist in national terms with hegemony of the federation.
c) Federal theories that are pluralist in national terms without hegemony of the federation.
This typology can be combined with that of the liberal democratic theories established in the previous section.
In order to simplify this combination we will group the liberal theories according to their basic philosophical
framework described in the previous section (Kantian versus Kantian plus Hegelian):
1) Theories based on pragmatic agreements.
2) Theories based on moral agreements from the perspective of Kantian moral individualism (neutralist
theories, weak perfectionist theories, and strong perfectionist theories).
3) Theories based on Kantian moral agreements and on the Hegelian ethicity of empirical societies:
moral individualism + recognition and moral collectivism (value pluralist theories).
The combination of theories of democratic liberalism and federalism makes it possible to visualise what
kind of federal liberal democratic theories are most suitable for the regulation of pluralism in plurinational
democracies.
I) Federal liberal theories that are in favour of reaching pragmatic agreements in the public sphere of
democracies. Although from the perspective of liberal democratic theories that are in favour of reaching
moral agreements they are not regarded as sound in terms of their ‘foundations’, in some cases federal
theories based on pragmatic agreements appear to be more open to incorporating regulations, institutions and
practices (modus vivendi agreements) based on the recognition and accommodation of national pluralism,
than theories of a moral nature based on mere moral individualism.
Obviously, this will not be the case if the main political actors and institutions involved in the process adopt
a monist national perspective with regard to the federation (a1). By leaving agreements to political practice
once there are guarantees of i) individual rights; ii) liberal techniques for controlling power (separation of
powers, principle of legality, representative democracy, competitive elections, etc.); and iii) a federal division
of territorial powers, etc., these pragmatic agreements will follow from the relative strength of the actors who
must establish the federal agreement. However, when the political actors of minority nations start out from a
weaker situation than their opponents, they are unlikely to achieve institutions, rules and processes that will
favour them in equal-footing procedural rules. This will make it difcult to achieve the recognition and a
stable political and constitutional accommodation of the state’s national pluralism.
If the actors adopt a national pluralist perspective but with hegemony of the federation, recognition and
accommodation agreements will probably be possible, albeit partially (b1). This situation makes it likely that
there will be instability and a permanent unresolved conict in the federation.
A stable political accommodation of the state’s national pluralism only seems to be possible if all the most
important actors adopt the perspective of a kind of federalism without the hegemony of the federation in
national terms (c1). This perspective involves understanding the fact that in liberal-democratic polity there
is not a single public sphere but as many spheres as there are national demoi. There is no doubt that this is
an empirically difcult situation in historical and political terms, but one that is conceptually congruent with
the logic of reaching agreements of a pragmatic nature.
II) Federal liberal theories that are in favour of reaching moral agreements in the public sphere of democracies
based only on Kantian philosophical approaches. In general terms, liberal theories of this type have not been
inclined to conduct the analysis of plurinational federal agreements. This is not a strong point of normative
analyses of this kind. The implicit perspective adopted is usually that of monist state nationalism. This makes
it difcult for them to adequately understand national pluralism, as the recognition of this kind of pluralism
is absent from this federal-liberal intersection. This is the usual perspective adopted by federal institutions
and actors in uninational federations (USA, Germany, Austria), presented in terms of traditional ‘Liberalism
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1’, as well as by some institutions (governments, parliaments, courts) and some Canadian, British or Spanish
political parties (a2).
On the other hand, to adopt the federal perspective with national hegemony of the federation would probably
result in a partial recognition of national pluralism and its inherent problems of permanent instability as in
the pragmatic agreements (b2).
However, if the perspective of federalism without national hegemony of the federation was adopted, things
would be different. The neutralist and perfectionist perspectives could permit different kinds of agreement in
different territorial spheres – taking into account, for example, a variety of conditions in the different ‘original
positions’, as well as more pluralism in the perfectionist ways implemented by different demoi (c2).18
The adopted notions of individualism (which makes them blind to national collective identities that are
different from those of state nationalism) and rationalism (the belief that it is possible to achieve a consensus
based solely on rational criteria), are two notions that situate Kantian-based liberalism before what could
be called the ‘mirage of linguistic consensus’. Perhaps most of the aws of liberal theories that are based
exclusively on moral individualism (which sometimes coincide with the so-called ‘Liberalism 1’) are due to
their conception of politics. Despite being a key aspect of his work, Rawls, for example, does not appear to
take pluralism seriously in the political eld. He considers private pluralism (interests and moralities) to be
compatible with consensual principles of justice. But there is something missing in this approach.
III) Federal liberal theories that are in favour of reaching moral agreements that include a Hegelian ethicity in
the public sphere of democracies related to the features of empirical societies. In this case, the intersection of
value pluralist theories with the federal perspective which is monist in national terms does not exist by denition
(a3), because in this case only the ethicity of the state would be included (as in Hegel’s conception itself).
The adoption of a federal perspective with national hegemony of the federation may lead to the adoption of
asymmetric federations (b3). In this case, both the recognition and the constitutional accommodation of the
national pluralism of the state are likely to occur, but again only partially. In this case, only a high level of
self-government including symbols and international politics, as well as similarly asymmetric participation
in the ‘shared government’ of the polity (rights of veto, opting-in/opting-out policies, etc.) and even a
regulation of the secession of minority nations through clear rules would be likely to ensure the stability of
the polity in national terms.
If the value pluralist perspective were adopted, the ethicities of minorities would be established both in terms
of their aspects of recognition and their aspects of institutional accommodation (c3). The philosophical
approach here is, so to speak, to put Berlin inside Hegel. Here the adoption of partnership and confederal
institutional formulae is congruent with the normative foundations adopted in terms of the legitimacy of
liberal-democratic polity. In this case, the secession clauses will probably be less dramatic than in the case
of federations.
Although Berlin’s writings do not address the issue of federalism, even though they do discuss nationalism,
which he saw as a reaction to previous collective grievances, I believe that the adoption of value pluralism
as a theoretical perspective of plurinational federations has at least two advantages over other theoretical
perspectives:
a) Regarding democratic liberalism, value pluralism allows individual and collective rights and freedoms
to be constitutionally investigated and established more openly. Moreover, it allows for mutual recognition
between the different national collectives or demoi within a democracy. As a result, fewer issues are excluded
a priori from the political agenda, and the dialogue between the different parties is no longer based on monist
theories – be they more ‘liberal’ or more ‘republican’ (both of which display conceptual and institutional
biases when applied to plurinational realities). Value pluralism also makes it easier for pragmatic agreements
18 It is, however, worth noting that according to comparative studies, the highest levels of self-government of federal entities do not
correlate with the uninational or plurinational character of federations. There are as many uninational federations (USA, Switzerland)
as plurinational ones (Belgium, Canada) with relatively high levels of self-government. In fact, the correlation occurs more between
plurinationality and a greater degree of asymmetry and, surprisingly, between plurinationality and a certain ‘federal decit’ of an
institutional nature. (Requejo, 2015, 2010).
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to be reached among political actors who are generally sceptical of the potential of theories, but who also
wish to maintain a minimum consensus which is more open to cultural interpretation and more resistant to
the passage of time than that which characterises traditional liberalism and constitutionalism.
b) Regarding plurinational federalism, value pluralism allows the liberal and federal logics related to the
protection of rights and freedoms to be more easily recovered. It also facilitates regulation of the mutual
recognition of internal national pluralism in a democracy and the content of self-government, as well as
the regulation of reform processes by national collectives that lack any kind of normative hierarchy. It is,
therefore, a theoretical perspective that facilitates the legitimacy of changes in federal rules over time, when
neither the majorities nor the minorities have exclusive claim to their interpretation.
These two advantages are related to the predominance of freedom in Berlin’s work (individual and collective
freedom; and negative and positive freedom). Obviously, there are other values and other basic legitimising
principles (the different meanings of political equality, respect for minorities, constitutionalism and the
rule of law, efciency and stability, etc.). However, it is possible to say that negative collective freedom
plays a key role in guaranteeing that external coercion between the different national collectives within a
plurinational democracy is avoided.
The increased complexity of an increasingly plural and globalised world also requires greater complexity
in federal agreements inside democracies. One of the historical advantages displayed by different kinds
of federal agreements, even federations, is their potential exibility and their adaptability to different
specic realities. In fact, since World War II, comparative politics has shown that adaptability is an essential
requirement for the stability and success of any federal agreement that is established. This adaptability also
extends to plurinational federations, which, while sharing certain common features with other federations,
also display major historical, cultural and constitutional differences and also differences within the party
system compared to uninational federations.
To sum up, liberal democracies, by means of rights and techniques for limiting power have offered humanity
the best way to avoid the ‘great evils’ which have occurred throughout history (genocide, slavery, torture,
deportations, etc.) and the best way for individuals to achieve their life plans. This is a path that can always
be improved and on which the journey to Ithaca consists of a ‘long and winding road’ to higher levels of
liberty. The commitment of liberal-democratic theory is to facilitate that improvement, by warning of the
‘shadows’ that are present in earlier theories. Let us focus now on the sphere of federal institutional practices.
2.2 Federal institutional practices
Among the conclusions of a previous exhaustive comparative study into federal and para-federal democracies19
– using variables situated on four analytical axes and a variety of indicators applied to 19 cases with data
based on two different periods (2008 and 2014), it is worth pointing out:
1) The existence of a ‘federal decit’ of an institutional nature in plurinational federations. In other words,
somewhat paradoxically, uninational federations display, as a whole, greater institutional federal logic –
albeit in extremely varying degrees – than plurinational federations do. This characteristic is independent of
the greater or lesser degree of political decentralisation in both types of federation.
2) Only a few plurinational federations (Russia, Ethiopia) establish an explicit constitutional recognition
of their internal national pluralism and, also rather paradoxically, this is not true for those which possess
a greater degree of stability and democratic quality. In the other cases, however, this recognition is non-
existent or much less explicit in their constitutional regulations, even when the degree of decentralisation of
some federations is high in comparative terms.
19 These empirical analyses include federations and a number of regional states which accomplish specic conditions. The four
analytical axes included are: 1) uninational-plurinational federations; 2) the degree of institutional federalism; 3) the degree of
political decentralisation; and 4) the presence or absence of constitutional asymmetries. Each of these axes is broken down into
several indicators which are described in these analyses. See Requejo, 2015, 2010.
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3) In more predictable terms, there is a greater presence of elements of de jure asymmetry in plurinational
federations than in uninational federations. In some of the former there are also pressures working in favour
of the symmetry of the system. This occurs, above all, when the number of subunits is not small (empirically,
at least nine subunits in the sample, whereas such pressures are not present when the number of subunits
is less than four). This is the case of Canada, India, Russia, Ethiopia and Spain, in contrast with Belgium,
the United Kingdom and Bosnia-Herzegovina. It is an open question whether the unwillingness of some
federations and plurinational regional states to introduce more asymmetrical regulations will or will not
reinforce territorial tensions and secessionist movements in the future.20
4) The coexistence in plurinational federations of several processes of nation-building which are partially
competitive situates the issue of the construction of a ‘federal trust’ in different terms to the simpler case of
uninational federations. In the rst case, achieving this trust seems to require two institutional factors:
4.1) The existence of procedures and rules that allow minority nations to participate in the ‘shared government’
of the federation (or the regional state) maintaining their singular character (specic presence in the lower
chamber, bilateral intergovernmental relations, participation in consociational state institutions, etc.).
4.2) The existence of procedures and rules which protect the recognition and self-government of minority
nations from the actions of the majorities (powers of veto in the lower chamber, ‘alarm bell’ procedures,
opting in and opting out procedures which do not require constitutional reforms, appointment of magistrates
to the supreme or constitutional courts, specic participation in processes of constitutional reform, etc.).21
5) The predominant conception in federations is that the ‘right to self-determination’ is reserved for the
federation. However, this is a conception that some federations have questioned recently. This is the case of
the famous Opinion of the Canadian Supreme Court in the Secession Reference (1998); of the regulations
introduced into the constitution of Ethiopia – which include the right of self-determination in the preamble
and the right of secession in the article for the constituent nations and peoples. Other, more specic cases are
the federation of St. Kitts & Nevis – or the case, with the right of secession already exercised and approved
(2006) of the old federation of Serbia-Montenegro.
Broadly speaking, the model that I have described elsewhere as ‘plurinational federalism’ involves the
inclusion of three normative conditions applied to a group of ve spheres – the symbolic/linguistic sphere,
the institutional sphere, the sphere relating to powers, the economic/scal sphere, and the international
sphere.22 The aim is to achieve a ‘friendly federal state’, that is, a federal state that is friendly to the minority
nations (and vice versa) and which permits a satisfactory and stable regulation of national pluralism for this
type of polities.
To sum up, in previous works I have analysed the practical impossibility of establishing a ‘just and stable’
regulation of plurinational democracies through federations or regional states that regulate: 1) a uniform
and symmetrical territorial division of powers; and 2) composite states which do not establish an explicit
20 When the number of territorial entities of a plurinational state is high, it seems inevitable that simultaneous, albeit contradictory,
pressures will emerge, in favour of a more symmetrical or more asymmetrical system. For the Canadian case, see Asymmetry Series
(IIGR, Queen’s University, since 2005), especially G. Laforest ‘The Historical and Legal Origins of Asymmetrical Federalism in
Canada’s Founding Debates: A Brief Interpretative Note’ Asymmetry Series (8), IIGR, Queen’s University 2005. The well-known
West-Lothian Question (participation/inhibition of the representatives of territories endowed with asymmetrical regulations in their
central institutions depending on the nature of the decision to be taken) does not appear to provoke too many problems in the majority
of countries. For a general overview of constitutional de jure asymmetries, see R. Watts, ‘A Comparative Perspective on Asymmetry
in Federations’, Asymmetry Series 2005 (4), IIGR, Queen’s University.
21 It could be said that an additional factor for the construction of federal trust in plurinational democracies is the existence of
a ‘federal political culture’ and of a ‘plurinational political culture’ in the polity as a whole. The former appears to arise in those
democracies with a lengthy history of federal institutional links. The latter, which is more difcult to achieve as it clashes with the
inherent nation-building process present in almost all states (whether they are federal or not), appears to arise in those states which
were established more as a ‘union’ – a more pluralist concept – of different entities than as a ‘unit’ – which is a more monist concept.
The acceptance of a process of secession, for example, of one of the substate entities appears to be more accepted in the United
Kingdom and Canada, which are plurinational states with a common past in the British Empire, than in other contexts. Here we are
dealing with a kind of political culture which does not seem to be linked to the federal character of the state. These two questions
will, however, require a detailed analysis of specic indicators.
22 I deal with this point in more detail in F. Requejo, 2005, ch. 4.
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recognition of national pluralism, and a wide territorial division of powers (political decentralisation) in the
internal and international spheres. When different processes of nation-building converge, together with a
diversity of values, interests and identities on the part of the different collective actors, federal theory based
on Madison’s approach is further away from the solution than that which is based on Althusius’ approach.23
In the normative debate of recent years regarding the advisability or the legitimacy of such regulations, moral,
strategic and functional reasons have been put forward to oppose the introduction of a right of secession.
Some of these reasons have a certain amount of plausibility, above all in some contexts. However, there
seems to be no denitive argument against the introduction of such a right in plurinational democracies when
the rules that regulate it prevent its strategic use by elites of the minorities. The 21st century may be witness
to political movements in favour of regarding minority national demoi as polities that wish to preserve as
much collective negative liberty as possible in an increasingly globalised world. Federal theory and practice
would be advised to pay more attention to these movements than they have done in the past.
3 Secession. Political theory and institutional practices
3.1 Secession theories in liberal democracies
While federalism and consociationalism have been studied for a number of decades through both theoretical
and normative models and the analysis of different empirical cases and comparative analyses, secession has
received renewed analytical attention in recent years, especially in plurinational contexts. One consequence
of this has been the analytical renement of the literature on normative theories of secession.
We are aware that the existing borders between states were not established through consensual processes,
but by means of violent actions such as wars, territorial annexations, deportations and the forced separation
of populations, etc. Thus, when one talks about ‘popular sovereignty’ a number of questions immediately
emerge: What ‘people’ does it refer to? Are there or should there be democracies of more than one ‘people’?
Who has the right to decide who the ‘people’ is? etc. Obviously, the response cannot be that ‘the people is
that which the constitution identies as such’, because that leads to a conceptual vicious circle.
This is an issue that, somewhat surprisingly, the theories of modern democracy have never satisfactorily
resolved, whether they have ‘liberal’ or ‘republican’ roots. National pluralism is a specic kind of pluralism
faced with which the classic ideologies often reveal themselves to be hostile, perplexed or disorientated. But,
in reality, all states, including democracies, continue to be nationalist and nationalising agencies. The overall
challenge of plurinational democracies can be summed up in the phrase ‘one polity, several demoi’.24
In contrast with the traditional liberal and constitutional approaches that usually deny the possibility of
secession, a current established typology divides current theories of secession into three basic groups:25
1) Remedial theories, which link secession with a ‘just cause’, in other words, they regard secession as
a remedy for specic ‘injustices’ or those relating to a ‘just cause’. They give priority to a number
of reasons or specic cases that justify political secession, which is not regarded as a primary right
of specic collectives, but as a legitimate remedy for a series of circumstances, such as territorial
annexation by force (for example, the case of the Baltic states and the USSR), the violation of the
basic rights of a group of citizens by the state, genocidal practices, permanent negative discrimination
23 See Karmis & Norman, 2005. See also Hueglin, 2003.
24 Normative denitions of minority nations (nations without their own state) tend to be controversial. One way to determine
whether a specic case may or may not be regarded as a minority nation is by incorporating empirical criteria to the more classic
normative denitions found in studies on nationalism. In earlier papers I have put forward two empirical criteria which could be
added to the more traditional ones. As I have done in previous works, I prefer for descriptive and prescriptive reasons to use the term
‘plurinational’ instead of the more common ‘multinational’. See Requejo, 2010.
25 The second and third theories are sometimes grouped as Primary Right Theories. An analysis of the possibilities and limits of
theories of secession in plurinational democracies in Requejo & Sanjaume, 2014.
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regarding redistribution or socio-economic development, non-compliance with previous agreements
of self-government or collective rights by the state, etc.26
2) Ascriptive or nationalist theories, which take as their central element that the nation is a legitimate
political subject endowed with this right. Thus, the legitimacy of secession would be based on a
previous political unit that possesses this right, which would basically be understood nowadays in
inclusive and universal liberal-democratic terms. The collective rights of minority nations are seen
as complementary to individual rights, not antagonistic to them.27
3) Associative or plebiscitary theories, both of which regard secession as a right belonging to certain
collectives that full a number of conditions. These theories give priority to democratic procedure
in order to legitimate secession, whether this is through a referendum or based on the decisions
of representative institutions. The key values here are individual moral autonomy and the right to
choose voluntary political associations. They represent the pillars of the consensual legitimacy of
a democratic political authority. If this consensual base regarding the state’s authority is not shared
by the majority of individuals of a collective, secession is a legitimate act and constitutes a right
that must be legally regulated. Thus, in theories of this kind secession is not regarded as a possible
solution to the infringement of the rights or interests of a collective, nor is it linked to any kind of
specic national or ethnic group. Rather it is a primary right of a political and territorialised nature
based on the individual preferences of the members of a group of citizens.28
The following table summarises the main features of current theories of secession in liberal
democracies:
Theories Legitimacy of
secession Rights at stake Right to self-determination
Constitutional
and traditional
liberalism
No
Individual rights;
hegemonic collective
rights for the state
Only for the state
Just cause Yes, in some
cases
Violation of basic
individual or
collective rights
In case of violation of human rights;
violation of federal agreements; failure to
safeguard economic interests; permanent
negative redistribution.
Nationalist Yes
Individual and
collective rights of
minority nations
In order to protect culture;
to achieve better social justice;
political recognition and constitutional
accommodation.
Plebiscitary
Yes, with
territorial
conditions
Individual rights To improve individual autonomy and
freedom of voluntary association.
Kantian/Hegelian approaches applied to secession (individual and collective rights; different practical and
institutional consequences regarding recognition and accommodation of national pluralism).
Source: the author
26 Birch, 1984; Buchanan, 1991, 2003, 2007.
27 Walzer ,1994; Tamir, 1993; Margalit & Raz, 1990.
28 Beran, 1984; Wellman, 2005.
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3.2 More secessionist processes in the near future?
The creation of new states is something well known in Europe. Besides secessions as a consequence of the
breakdown of empires, we also nd peaceful secessions through referendums, like those of Norway from
Sweden (1905), Iceland from Denmark (1944) or Montenegro from the federation of Serbia-Montenegro
(2006). However, the constitutional regulation of secession in plurinational democracies is rather scarce.
Some few empirical cases, mainly of a plurinational character, present legal rules related to this subject:
Right of Secession in Plurinational Democracies
Plurinational Federations Bosnia-Herzegovinia
Belgium
Canada
Ethiopia
India
Russia
(Serbia-Montenegro)
No
No
Yes 1
Yes
No
No
Yes 2
Plurinational Regional States Spain3
United Kingdom
No
Yes 4
1 Right of Secession according federal (non unilateral) rules.
2 Federation broken by unilateral referendum in Montenegro (2006).
3 State with some federal trends.
4 According to negotiated rules (2014).
Source: the author
All democracies experience tensions between their main legitimising factors. A classic example of these
tensions is the relationship between the principles of constitutionalism, popular sovereignty and nation-
building processes that are present in all contemporary democracies. In practical terms, political and social
actors that advocate for secession usually combine the two kinds of primary right theories (ascriptive and
plebiscitary) as legitimating ways of independence, with predominance of ascriptive patterns at the moment of
justifying the group of citizens involved in referendums, and predominance of plebiscitary lines of reasoning
at the moment of justifying the intrinsic democratic pattern of the referendum itself. These legitimating
avenues are complementary to the reasons based on just cause theories, which are based on the mistreatment
in specic policies regarding national recognition and self-government. As happened in relation with
federalism, liberal democratic theories based on a value pluralist perspective and on a recognised plurality of
national demoi are in principle the best intellectually placed to establish a stable and rational regulation of a
constitutional right of secession in plurinational democracies.
In a 21st century democracy it does not seem legitimate to force the citizens of a national collective to
remain within a state against the will of the majority of that collective. Divorce is almost always better than
an unhappy marriage. However, traditional constitutionalism has often treated internal national differences
as ‘particularist deviations’.
Moving ahead of the development of secession theories, the Catalan and Scottish cases have already become
empirical references within the sphere of comparative politics on secessionist processes. These are two pro-
European countries which diverge in relation to their relation to the European Union in a rather paradoxical
way: Scotland clearly voted in favour of remaining in the EU in the Brexit referendum but it may be forced
to leave the EU as a member of the UK, while Catalonia is usually threatened by the main political actors of
its host state with being excluded from the EU if it becomes independent, despite the clear pro-European will
showed by Catalan institutions and citizens over the course of decades.
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The ethical and functional improvement of federalism and secession would permit a development of the
values of the political Enlightenment that is much more suitable for plurinational democracies. At the
beginning of this century, neither liberal democracy nor federalism and secession have reached the end of
the story. On the contrary, they are immersed in a new phase of improvement based on their variation with
respect to the features of contemporary empirical societies in an increasingly globalised world.
It is an open empirical question whether the 21st century will or will not be a period which sees the consolidation
of minority nations of plurinational democracies in pursuit of their recognition and political accommodation,
whether this is through their accommodation in plurinational federal states, through processes of new forms
of partnership, or secession (or even taking the form of internal secession in federations.29 In other words,
through forms of a stable consensual regulation of self-determination in interdependence.30
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