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"nation's built on exclusion and assimilation, decades of civil war, widespread poverty, authoritarianism and the decline of democracy. Nepal, Myanmar and Sri Lanka are travelling a road to federalism. Institutions and ethnic identity have interacted to privilege some and marginalise others. But when the right conditions prevail, political equality can be restored. This book charts the origins and evolution of federalism and other approaches to the accommodation of minority ethnic groups in Nepal, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. It applies a historical institutionalism methodology to understand why federalism has been resisted, what causes it to be established and what design options are most likely to balance otherwise competing centripetal and centrifugal forces. Breen shows how Nepal, Myanmar and Sri Lanka are finding a middle ground whereby deliberative and moderating institutions are combined with accommodating ones to support a political equality among groups and individuals"--

AbstractHow do ethnically divided countries create inclusive and stable democratic institutions? Why do some kinds of federalism fail while others evolve? Scholars looking for answers to these kinds of questions have tended to focus on the West. Yet there are important lessons arising from the substantial democratic and federal reforms that have taken place in Asia over the last few decades. These reforms signal a new model of federal democracy in Asia, comprising multilevel ethnoterritorial federalism, mixed-majoritarianism and a party system that includes both ethnic and multi-ethnic parties. This model has emerged as a response to ethnic conflict and secession risks and reflects the high diversity of clustered communities and cross-cutting cleavages. Despite its overarching majoritarianism, the federal model has led to highly fragmented party systems and coalition governments, with positive implications for democratic stability. Together, these features go some way towards blending otherwise conflicting consociational and centripetal paradigms.

Myanmar is in an important phase of its political transition. The opportunity for substantive federal reform, which is central to peacebuilding and democratisation, is present and being progressed through parallel elite level forums. However, these elite negotiations have serious limitations, as they fail to reach out to citizens, and contribute to polarisation and the perpetuation of extreme views regarding federalism. To address the absence of public deliberation on federalism in Myanmar, we organised five deliberative events based on the Deliberative Polling® methodology. This paper discusses some of the key findings and demonstrates how they can contribute to federal constitutional reform in Myanmar. It shows that when debating fundamental issues relating to identity and national sovereignty, public deliberation has moderation effects even in conflict-ridden deeply divided societies. Indeed, questions that related to the institutions associated with identity and religion had the highest quality of deliberation, opinion change and moderation. These more moderate and considered deliberated perspectives are of great value for dealing with the polarisation issue that Myanmar faces and demonstrate the potential of deliberative democracy tools to supplement and moderate electoral democracy and elite-driven constitutional change processes.

Introduction -- Federalism and democracy -- Deliberative approach to federal issues -- Hybrid federalism structure -- Processes of hybridisation -- Religious federalism -- The covenant connection and its absence -- Conclusion: contributions of Asian federalism.