Federalism and War

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This panel focuses on the nexus between federalism and war. Although according to Riker (1964) federal countries are held together by the presence of an external threat, there is a dearth of literature on the mechanisms by which federal institutions impact defense institutions and civil-military relations. Does political decentralization encourage different internal dynamic among the military elites? Do federal countries integrate ethnic groups into their armed forces in a different manner than unitary states? Does military conflict impact the center-periphery relations? The return of realpolitik makes these questions particularly salient as more countries worldwide revamp their military capabilities. This panel takes a comparative look at defense institution in three federal countries: India, Russia, and Ukraine, and we will welcome additional papers that match this theme. The first paper by Amit Ahuja speaks to the vast literature on the integration of the ethnic minorities into the armed forces by adopting a historical perspective and examining factors that enabled ethnic minority of Nepali Gurkha to emerge as the elite group in India's armed forces. The second paper by Olesya Tkacheva uses big data analysis of the original dataset of 300,000 records of Russian citizens mobilized to fight in Ukraine to evaluate the distribution of the costs of war between ethnic Russians and titular minorities. In the third paper, Irina Busygina and Mikhail Filippov examine the impact of the war on center-periphery relations in both Russia and Ukraine.

The panel is relevant to the renovation and reimagination themes of the APSA conference. It shows that federalism can impose constraints as well as serve as a catalyst for defense institution building in the ways that have not been previously understood. By fostering intra-elite rivalry among regional elites particularly in non-democratic regimes it promotes different kind of accountability in civil-military relations. Reimagination theme is relevant to the panel by showing how federal institution can enhance the capacity for innovation for defense institutions even in non-democratic systems.

The composition of the panel is also consistent with the APSA’s diversity guidelines. The panel brings together scholars with diverse ethnic backgrounds, gender, policy experiences, tenure status, geographic location, and special needs (i.e., one of the contributors is legally blind). This diversity could be further enhanced by bringing junior scholars to the panel.

Sub Unit

• Division 13: Politics of Communist and Former Communist Countries

Chair

• Olesya Vinhas de Souza NATO Defense College

Discussant

• Mikhail G. Filippov SUNY, Binghamton

Individual Presentations

• Drafting Russian Citizens to Fight the War in Ukraine: Insights from Big Data - Olesya Tkacheva, RAND Corporation

• The Impact of War on Center-Periphery Relations in Russia and Ukraine - Mikhail G. Filippov, SUNY, Binghamton; Irina Busygina, Harvard University