Divided We Stand Institutional Sources For Ethno Federal...

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate Henry Hale’s article â€Å"Divided we Stand: Institutional Sources for Ethno federal State Survival and Collapse†. Hale’s attempts to respond to the criticism leveled against ethnofederalism, which posits that ethnofederal institutional arrangement leads to secession and consequently failure of central state. He argues that existence of a core ethnic region facilitates separatism and secessionism, which if addressed will resolve the misconception about ethnofederalism. His theory of a state’s collapse is solid and well argued. However, there are some contradictions in its casual mechanism, which can be perfected with further research. This review proceeds as follows. The first section provides a brief summary of the article. The second section discusses the articles methodology, and the last section provides critique of the article. Summary: The author looks at the sources leading to survival or collapse of ethnofederal states, and is seeking to explore the casual mechanisms leading to instability of ethnofederal state by examining the factors leading ethnofederal states to disintegration or civil wars. Hale argues that ethnofederal states that have a core ethnic region (CER) are highly prone to collapse. He defines CER as â€Å"a single ethnic federal region that enjoys dramatic superiority in population† (Hale 166). Hale posits that the presence of CERs in ethnofederal states is likely to cause three main challenges. These include ‘dual