Does Fiscal Federalism Deter or Spur Secessionist Movements? Empirical Evidence from Europe. Issue 2 (23rd October 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Rode, Martin; Pitlik, Hans; Borrella Mas, Miguel A´ngel
• Is Part Of: Publius. Volume 48:Issue 2(2018:Spr)
• Page Start: 161
• Page End: 190
• Publication Date: 2017-10-23
• Subjects: Federal government -- United States -- Periodicals; Federal government -- Periodicals; 321
• DOI: 10.1093/publius/pjx060
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0048-5950

Abstract

Abstract: Popular and scientific contributions often call for increased regional decision-making power to manage secessionist conflict, assuming that fiscally federalized countries are less prone to disintegrate politically. From a theoretical standpoint this is not clear though, as federalism creates an institutional paradox where autonomous legislative and bureaucratic structures can potentially be used to make secessionism a viable strategy in the first place. In particular, the role of asymmetric territorial arrangements in this association is crucially underexplored at present. Using electoral data on separatist political movements from a large variety of European regions since the mid-1990s, our findings indicate that regions with comparatively higher fiscal and institutional autonomy are more prone to vote for secessionist parties. Accounting for possible endogeneity, asymmetric territorial self-governance seems to cause much stronger incentives to vote for secessionist platforms, while the association with fiscally more symmetric arrangements is surprisingly small.