Re-negotiating power-sharing arrangements in multinational contexts: Trajectories of negotiation patterns and their impact on territorial dynamics

Re-negotiating the terms of accommodating cultural diversity forms a permanent task in multinational contexts. Despite the temporary nature of power-sharing arrangements and provisions of special recognition, little attention has been paid to patterns of negotiations and their impact on territorial dynamics over time. Tracing the path of negotiation patterns in different multinational democracies (Belgium, UK, Spain, and Canada), the paper argues that moments of establishing patterns of negotiations form a critical juncture for the direction and speed of territorial dynamics. Reproducing and stabilizing a bilateral pattern of negotiations forms a built-in mechanism for asymmetric decentralization. In order to trigger centralizing dynamics external shocks like the financial crisis are necessary in these cases. Multilateral negotiation patterns and varying these patterns over time, in comparison, keep power allocation symmetric and induce both centralizing and decentralizing dynamics. Multilateral negotiations, however, are more prone to run into deadlock and reduce the chances of achieving territorial reform at all. In consequence, keeping negotiation patterns flexible and avoiding a lock-in on one pattern causes federal trajectories that include multiple and counterbalancing dynamics but reduces the options in which change can be achieved.