Abstract

The chapter establishes a new research agenda for studying federalism and diversity which centres on recognition and empowerment of national and ethnic minorities. It argues that we must now ask and answer three central questions: (1) how do deeply diverse democracies arrive at or transition to a model of federalism that accurately reflects and represents ethnic and/or national differences? (2) How can we assess the quality of multinational and multiethnic federalism? (3) How can democracies recognize and accommodate national and ethnic diversity as well as other collective identities? The chapter shows that addressing these questions is an important endeavour. It also hopes to show that answering these questions is a necessary step forward in realizing federal democracy’s full potential, particularly at a time when the virtues of recognizing diversity are being questioned in many long-standing liberal democracies.