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Conference Announcement "Assessing Territorial Pluralism" Interdisciplinary Workshop Ethnicity and Democratic Governance Project, Queen's University Kingston, ON (Canada) 16-17 May 2008 __________________________________________________ Territorial pluralism involves the accommodation of territorially-concentrated ethnic, linguistic, religious, and national communities, either in a pluralist federation, a pluralist union state, a federacy, or through other institutions that link cross-border territories. A pluralist federation has internal boundaries that respect nationality, ethnicity, language or religion. Fully pluralist federations entail significant and constitutionally entrenched autonomy for federative entities; consensual, indeed consociational, rather than majoritarian decision making rules within the central government; and plurinational recognition, i.e. acknowledgement of plurinationalism in the states constitution, or through its flags and symbols, as well as collective, as opposed to partitioned, autonomy for the relevant nationalities. Plurinational federations may also entail asymmetrical federalism, with more extensive formal or informal autonomy for federative units belonging to distinct nationalities. In a pluralist union state, autonomy is given to one or more historically recognized nationality, but the autonomy is treated as a rescindable gift of the central political institutions. While, in pluralist federations, institutions of self-government exist across the whole state, in union states, they are more likely to exist only in one part of the state. When autonomous and asymmetric institutions are entrenched, by way of the constitution or by an international treaty, there exists a federacy, namely a unit of government that enjoys a distinctive federal relationship with the state. Finally, cross-border territorial institutions, such as Irelands North-South Ministerial Council, accommodate national communities that spill over state frontiers. The concept of territorial pluralism is related to what Watts and Elazar describe as Federal Political Systems, but it is distinct in that it emphasizes the territorial accommodation of ethnic, religious, linguistic and national communities. Territorial pluralism raises a number of important questions, and we hope to discuss at least three of these in our conference. What is territorial pluralism (i.e., what is the range of such institutional responses to diversity?) and how can it be distinguished from forms of self-government that do not accommodate communities based on ethnicity, religion, language or nationality? Under what conditions does territorial pluralism succeed or fail? Is territorial pluralism a normatively appropriate response to diversity? Co-organizers: John McGarry (Queen's University) Richard Simeon (University of Toronto & Harvard) Contact: Jennifer Clark, Project Manager Ethnicity and Democratic Governance Research Project Department of Political Studies Queen's University Macintosh-Corry Hall, Room C423 Kingston, ON K7L 3N6 Canada Phone: +1 (613) 533-6000 ext 74279 Fax: +1 (613) 533-6848 Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.queensu.ca/edg/workshops2008b.html __________________________________________________ InterPhil List Administration: http://interphil.polylog.org Intercultural Philosophy Calendar: http://cal.polylog.org
