Countries frequently use decentralization to alleviate ethnic conflict and secessionism within their borders. Unfortunately, the conditions under which decentralization does and does not alleviate ethnic conflict and secessionism are not well understood. The failure to understand these conditions may have disastrous consequences for countries, however. Without an understanding of these conditions, countries may pin their hopes on a system that has no chances of mitigating ethnic conflict and secessionism, or fail to adopt a system of government that may.
Decentralization may fail to alleviate ethnic conflict and secessionism and even exacerbate them when regional parties have a strong presence in government. Regional parties may promote ethnic conflict and secessionism by increasing the tensions among ethnic groups in society, by mobilizing groups in favor of conflict and secessionism and by support terrorist organizations that promote ethnic conflict and secessionism. Regional parties may also produce legislation that threatens other groups in a country or they may block legislation that alleviates the tensions already present in society.
This argument is tested through a large-N analysis of nineteen countries around the world and three case studies of countries with varying success in alleviating ethnic conflict and secessionism through decentralization, namely Spain, Czechoslovakia and India.
Fortunately, countries may design their decentralized systems of government in a way that moderates the strength of regional parties in government. They may do this by changing how much money they spend at the sub-national level of government and by altering the number, size and ethnic composition of their regions. They may also do this by adopting a different executive system or by changing the sequencing of elections.
Fortunately as well, countries may also design away the negative impact of regional parties on ethnic conflict and secessionism. They may do this by deepening democracy, by adopting a different executive system and even by widening their economic linkages to other countries.
In this way, all countries may adopt decentralized systems of government that emulate the success of Spain and India, and avoid the failure of Czechoslovakia.
