Multinational Federalism and Value Pluralism: The Spanish Case(Routledge Studies in Federalism and Decentralization)

This book addresses the democratic accommodation of national pluralism through federal rules. The key question is: can federalism be a fair and workable way of articulating multinational societies according to revised liberal-democratic patterns? In recent years, scholarly discussion on this issue has undergone a change. Nowadays, the answer to this question is much more complex than the one that traditional political liberalism and federalism used to give us. In the past, these two political approaches usually addressed the question of political pluralism without seriously including national pluralism in the discussion. A theoretical attitude that has often misrepresented and impoverished the moral discussions and the institutional practices of multinational democratic federations. The author presents a model based on Isaiah Berlin's concept of value pluralism and on the analysis of federal democracies. He also puts forward a critical analysis of the current Spanish territorial model and suggests four potential future scenarios for this model based on federal patterns.

Table of Contents:
ntroduction Part 1: Political Liberalism and Multinational Democracies: Theoretical Aspects 1. The Quality of Democracy in Multinational Contexts 2. Democratic Legitimacy and National Pluralism Part 2: Multinational Democracies and Federalism 3. Federalism, Federations and National Pluralism 4. Plural Federalism Part 3: Plural Federalism and the Spanish Estado de Las Autonomias 5.The Spanish Estado de las Autonomías 6. Future Scenarios for the Spanish Multinational Democracy Final Remarks Federalism for Primates... That Strive Not to Be So References

About the Author :
Ferran Requejo is Professor of Political Science at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. His main fields of research are theories of democracy, federalism, multinational democracies, political theory and political liberalism after World War II. In 1997 he was awarded the Rudolf Wildenmann Prize (ECPR) and in 2002 he received the Ramon Trias Fargas Prize. Among his recent works are: Democracy and National Pluralism (ed) Routledge, 2001 (Spanish version, Ariel, Barcelona, 2002); European Citizenship, Multiculturalism and the State (edited with U. Preuss) Nomos, 1998; "Federalism and the Quality of Democracy in Plurinational Contexts: Present Shortcomings and Possible Improvements", in U. Amoretti-N. Bermeo (eds), Federalism, Unitarianism and Territorial Cleavages, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003; "Federalism and National Groups", International Social Sciences Journal, 2001; "Political liberalism in multinational states: the legitimacy of plural and asymmetrical federalism" in A Gagnon-J.Tully (eds) Multinational Democracies, Cambridge University Press, 2001; "National Pluralism and Federalism. Four Political Scenarios for Spanish Plurinational Democracy", Perspectives on European Politics and Society, 2001; "Cultural Pluralism, Nationalism, and Federalism. A Revision of Democratic Citizenship in Plurinational States", European Journal for Political Research, 1999

Review :
'The work of Ferran Requjo has become a genuine point of reference, both intellectually and politically, in the debates on the reform of the State of the Autonomies that have taken place in Spain over the last few years.' Ramon Maiz, Nations and Nationalism 'Thoroughly revised and lucidly edited, Multinational Federalism and Value Pluralism contains in updated form some of the normative political theory that is currently being developed ion Catalonia.' Ramon Maiz, Nations and Nationalism