Political Accommodation of Ethnic Pluralism in Cyprus: Asymmetric Federalism

Abstract

This chapter deals with normative and institutional concerns about the appropriateness and legitimacy of establishing plural federalism in Cyprus. It seems that application of plural federalism for Cyprus is likely to formulate a basis for political accommodation due to the fact that political liberalism involves cultural limitations both in normative theory and in institutional practices of democracies, including federalism. A reformulation of federal agreements in multinational societies is needed because the ‘pluralism’ considered in classical theories of federalism was not even related to cultural pluralism. Moreover, multinational/multi-ethnic federations have difficulty in recognising their own internal pluralism, as well as experiencing problems with regard to their political accommodation.1 That is why, asymmetrical federalism needs to be developed to deal with ethnic pluralism and the issue of inclusion and citizenship. There is a need to examine the notion of asymmetry and see how it can better serve the purposes of modern federal Cyprus. It is suggested that the normative political philosophy embedded in asymmetric federalism, particularly informed by Canadian and Spanish debates, advances the idea of asymmetrical federalism as a model of governance in potentially divided societies. In recent years there has not only been a change in federalist studies regarding possible practical and institutional solutions to articulate this type of diversity, but this change has been accompanied by a revision of the normative bases of liberal-democratic political theory. Traditional liberals have never really been able to understand the issue of cultural pluralism. In multinational contexts, to treat citizens uniformly is to treat them unequally in terms of national identity. Thus there is a need to defend a new concept of citizenship. The important thing is to recognise the cultural and national limits of traditional liberalism and then achieve a democratic polity in Cyprus that respects and promotes its bi-communal structure instead of considering it as a fact that must be tolerated. © Inter-Disciplinary Press 2014.