The state as a symbol or a means to an end: internal border changes in multinational federations

The state as a symbol or a means to anend: internal border changes in

multinational federations

KARLO BASTA

Department of Political Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland,St. John’s, Canada

ABSTRACT. Federalism is an important institutional option for the management ofdifference in multinational states. A number of scholars have argued that the internalboundaries of such states should divide each constituent group into several federalunits. In theory, boundary engineering of this type should activate cross-cutting cleav-ages, subvert secessionist movements and, ultimately, foster political integration andstability. This article, by contrast, demonstrates the conditions under which the subdi-vision of territorial units can destabilise polities. Where statehood is a central symbol innationalist narratives of constituent groups, the fragmentation of the sub-state unit willbe perceived as a threat to national identity of the group in question. The articlecompares former Yugoslavia and Nigeria, two cases in which such processes led todivergent outcomes.

KEYWORDS: federalism, institutional design, nationalism, Nigeria, the state,Yugoslavia.

Introduction

Federalism has a long lineage as an instrument of diversity-management inmultinational states. It has been adopted in established democracies such asCanada and Belgium; in postcolonial India and Nigeria; and more recently inconflict-ridden states like Bosnia and Iraq. Nevertheless, scholarly consensusabout the impact of federalism on the stability of multinational politiesremains elusive (Erk and Anderson 2009). One of the fundamental issues inthis debate concerns the design of federal units. Some scholars argue thatinternal borders should follow the ethnic geography of constituent groups,thereby reflecting and accommodating national diversity (Adeney 2007: 19;Bermeo 2002; Lijphart 1977: 42; Stepan 1999). Others suggest various versionsof a ‘divide and rule’ strategy, the most prominent of which would have at leastsome of the major ethnic groups subdivided into a larger number of constitu-ent units (Filippov et al. 2004: 271; Hale 2004; Horowitz 2000: 604; Lemco1991: ch. 3). The latter position has sound logic and limited empirical evidencebehind it.

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ENASJ OURNAL OF THE ASSOCIATION

FOR THE STUDY OF ETHNICITYAND NATIONALISM

NATIONS ANDNATIONALISM

Nations and Nationalism 20 (3), 2014, 459–480.DOI: 10.1111/nana.12050

© The author(s) 2014. Nations and Nationalism © ASEN/John Wiley & Sons Ltd 2014

This article problematises the strategy of subdividing political units, boththose actually existing and those ‘imagined’ by relevant political actors, intosmaller ones. Using the examples of Nigeria and the former Yugoslavia, itsuggests that the process of territorial subdivision can have either stabilising ordestabilising consequences, depending on the symbolic salience of statehood innationalist narratives. When referring to the state, I have in mind the territo-rial subunit of a larger multinational polity, rather than the polity itself. Wherethe state is construed as a central symbol in nationalist mythology, its partitioncan be interpreted as an attack on the very identity of a group, with potentiallydestabilising implications. On the other hand, if the symbolic salience of thestate is low, that is, if the state is perceived largely as a resource to be used inpolitical competition, subdivision stands a better chance of successfully dif-fusing tensions among major national groups. I do not claim that the symbolicimportance of statehood is the most important factor in accounting for politi-cal tensions in multinational states. Rather than explaining general patterns ofethno-nationalist politics, the goal of this article is to inject a degree of theo-retically and empirically grounded scepticism into debates surrounding inter-nal territorial engineering in plurinational polities.

The article examines public statements of key political leaders in Yugosla-via (among Croats and Serbs) and Nigeria (among Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa–Fulani) in order to explain why internal border changes in the formercontributed to bouts of instability, whereas in the latter, they seem to havetempered the conflict among key national groups. Emphasis is placed on thesymbolic and affective aspect of statehood, since this is an understudiedelement in works on comparative multinational federalism, most of whichengage in rationalist analyses of ethno-national political contests.

Divide et Impera as an institutional recipe

According to integrationist scholars of ethno-nationalism, properly devisedinstitutions can facilitate political integration of disparate ethnic groups,thereby contributing to political stability that eludes so many multinationalpolities.1 Some authors writing in this vein suggest that the proliferation ofconstituent units in multinational federations can alleviate conflict amongcompeting national groups. This claim has several variants. One is that exces-sively powerful federal units, their influence owing to population size, wealthor some other factor, might overwhelm the central government itself (Hale2004; Wheare 1947: 52). In multinational states this can lead to state disinte-gration, because one region’s capture of the central government might under-mine the trust that other groups have in the centre’s impartiality (Hale 2004:174–5). Fragmenting dominant regions could forestall such outcomes.

Another strand of integrationist thought suggests that splitting larger ethnicgroups into a number of constituent units has the potential to activate cross-cutting cleavages (Dikshit 1975: 234; Filippov et al. 2004: 272; Lake and

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Rothchild 2005: 130; Roeder 2005: 62; Simonsen 2005: 309).2 Proponents ofthis view contend that it is unlikely that multiple units inhabited by the sameethnic group would consistently favour similar policy options. Rather, cross-ethnic coalitions of federal units might emerge around a range of issues,weakening the pull of ethnic politics and increasing the relative importance ofsupposedly non-ethnic matters (Horowitz 2000: 613).

These theoretical insights have found some empirical support. Hale’s quali-tative comparison suggests that states with a ‘core region’, that is, a demo-graphically dominant federal unit that contains most of the largest ethnicgroup, face a higher probability of breakup than those in which the largestethnie is dispersed across a number of constituent units (Hale 2004: 179). In hisquantitative analysis, Lemco finds a strong relationship between the size ofunits and the stability of federal states, with larger federal units correlatingwith greater volatility (Lemco 1991: ch. 3). Unlike Hale, Lemco openly advo-cates the subdivision of constituent units in federations (Lemco 1991: 44). Thisarticle cautions against uncritical acceptance of such recipes for institutionalengineering.

The divisibility of statehood in multinational polities3

Multinational states in which each constituent group is divided into severalfederal units might be more stable than those where internal borders are drawnso as to accommodate ethnic difference. Yet, in some cases, the region inhab-ited by a particular group is construed, both by political elites and the popu-lation at large, as a national territorial unit. Where this ‘imagined unit’ isinvested with strong symbolic content, its subdivision might prompt nation-alist reaction in opposition to the common state. Such backlash may be relatedless to the absence or presence of a sub-state polity than the degree to whichthe idea of it is internalised among the relevant actors. Still, prior existence ofa regional polity might facilitate the development of emotive bonds towardsthat unit. Therefore, the fragmentation of an extant region might be moredestabilising than where the divided territory had no prior history as a politicalentity. Outside of the symbolic domain, prior existence of a unit also suggeststhe presence of a regional elite that might stand to lose political power asinternal borders are redrawn. The present article does not consider this impor-tant dimension of the politics of territorial engineering. Nevertheless, we maynote that where symbolic dimension is not highly salient, the consent ofpolitical elites of the subdivided entity might be secured through various kindsof side-payments.

Nationalist narratives are key elements of national culture, that is, of aworld-view ‘that provides a shared account of action and its meaning, andimparts social and political identities’ (Ross 2009: 159). A narrative evoking asense of shared origins and shared fate can evoke strong emotional reactions(Hale 2008: 42). Key symbols are of particular importance, since they

The state as a symbol 461


condense nationalist narratives, are instantly recognisable to audiences andcan focus their attention and prompt their response (Edelman 1964: ch. 9; Hale2008: 42). Symbols, therefore, can be invoked in order to facilitate nationalistcollective action, ranging from voting, to referenda on independence or, inextreme cases, armed struggle.

The symbolic importance of the state varies from society to society. As J. P.Nettl noted in his classic article, the link between the state and the nation‘depends not only on empirical problems relating to the activity and structureof a particular state but on the existence of a cultural disposition to allotrecognition to the conceptual existence of a state at all’ (Nettl 1968: 566,emphasis added). The concept of the state can be so tightly woven into thenationalist narrative that subdividing a group’s territory may be viewed as anattempt to extinguish national statehood and a threat to group identity. On theother hand, where the concept of the state is not laden with symbolic meaning,‘ethnic territory’ should be more divisible. In said contexts, the state remainsrelevant but only as an instrument of political action. We can expect thisdynamic in ‘stateless societies’, characterised by a ‘pragmatic conception ofpolitics’, where the government is seen as a means or an arena for the pursuitof private goals (Dyson 1980: 52).4 As noted, in these societies, creating newunits out of existing ones may be problematic if internal border revisionsundermine the power and wealth of existing regional elites and groups. Still,such an instrumental approach to the state suggests that the parcelisation of agroup’s ‘ethnic territory’ might facilitate political integration as long as theinterests of the main stakeholders are protected.

This article compares the symbolic representation of the state in nationalistnarratives of the major constituent groups in the former Yugoslavia andNigeria. The state was a critical national symbol for the largest Yugoslavnations, the Serbs and the Croats. The article suggests that the subdivision ofthe ‘national state’ within the broader polity contributed to nationalist politi-cal mobilisation that destabilised Yugoslavia on several critical occasions. Thestate was far less symbolically salient in the nationalist narratives of Nigeria’slargest groups, the Igbo, the Yoruba and the Hausa–Fulani. Rather, demandsfor ‘sub-statehood’ were couched in largely instrumental terms. As there areno surveys that address the symbolic importance of the state for the citizens ofthese polities during the periods studied, I have had to rely mainly on thepublic statements of key political figures in Nigerian and Yugoslav ethno-nationalist movements.

Nigeria and Yugoslavia were selected as broadly comparable cases thatillustrate opposing ends of the spectrum. While Nigeria is generally upheld asan example of successful proliferation of federal units, Yugoslavia offers acautionary tale of political backlash that can ensue if subdivision is attemptedin less hospitable environments.5 At the same time, the two states shared someimportant features. Both were created through external intervention, and bothhave experienced tensions among the constituent groups. Neither state pos-sessed a staatsvolk, with the largest group in each country forming merely a

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plurality of the population.6 Finally, both countries were ruled by authoritar-ian or transitional regimes when the subdivision of federal units was firstimplemented.

Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia survived two incarnations in largely the same territorial form:between 1918 and 1941, and then from 1945 to roughly 1992 (Ramet 2006).For the political elites of the country’s two largest nations, the Serbs and theCroats, statehood was a very important symbol indeed.7 The fragmentation ofCroat and Serb ‘national territory’ at different points during the 20th centurycontributed to profound political crises, each of which ended in violence.

Croatia

For leading Croat politicians, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1918–1941)8 wasillegitimate because it failed to recognise Croatian statehood within a federalconstitutional framework (Banac 1984: 229–37; Biondich 2000: ch. 6). Underthe country’s unitary constitution of 1921, and the territorial reform of 1929,even the administrative divisions failed to reflect what nationalist politiciansconsidered to be the historical boundaries of the Croatian state (see Figure 1).As a result, the question of Croatian statehood became a pivotal problem ofthe nascent Yugoslav polity, contributing to periodic episodes of instability.

The continuing division of Croatia fostered political crises in part becausethe Croatian nationalist narrative, articulated by 19th-century elites and sub-sequently popularised by mass political parties, was already centrally focusedon the demand for statehood within fairly well-defined territorial boundaries.As early as 1861, Croatia, then part of the Habsburg Monarchy, saw theemergence of the Party of Rights (CPR), whose sole purpose was the restora-tion of Croatia’s medieval statehood. Ante Starcevic, the Party’s founder,argued that the Croatian people never surrendered the right to its own stateand that it was unique among the non-Germanic peoples of the Habsburgmonarchy for accepting Vienna’s rule of its own accord (Starcevic 1971: 80).The Party of Rights’ co-founder, Eugen Kvaternik, demanded ‘complete inde-pendence of the Croatian state, complete sovereignty of the Croatian peoplewithin the boundaries of the state right of that people, guaranteed by interna-tional inviolable agreement’ (Cipek and Matkovic 2006: 208).9

Not only did the founders of the CPR extol the virtues of statehood, placingit in the foreground of national struggle, but they also denounced the perceivedfragmentation of Croatian lands. Starcevic lamented that, since the onset ofVienna’s rule, ‘the Croatian Diet did not govern over more than one third ofthat Kingdom of Croatia that our forefathers had bequeathed to theHabsburgs’ (Starcevic 1971: 110). Major irritants for the Croat nationalistsincluded the existence of the Military Frontier and the separation of Dalmatia



from Croatia/Slavonia. Evidently, the statehood articulated in the Croatiannationalist narrative came with a no-subdivision clause attached. Indeed, mostother 19th-century Croat political parties, including those that did not seekindependence, advocated the reunification of Croatian lands (Cipek andMatkovic 2006: 183; 187–9; 268; 285).

Thus, by 1918 the Croatian political elites had already formulated a veryspecific idea of Croatian statehood and placed it at the centre of the Croatiannational mythology. The Croatian Peasant Party (CPP), the first mass politicalorganisation in Croatia’s history, further popularised this prearticulatednationalist project (Biondich 2000: 189). CPP’s leader Stjepan Radic believedin Serbo-Croat fraternity, but nevertheless argued that the two ‘tribes’ of thegreater South Slavic family constituted separate nations (Banac 1984: 232). Hetherefore advocated the unification of Croatian lands into a single politicalunit and the institutional recognition and autonomy of that unit within afederal Yugoslavia. Just like Starcevic and Kvaternik before him, Radicinvoked the medieval state right in demanding Croatia’s unification andrecognition (Radic 1995: 68). Just like his ideological predecessors, he also

Figure 1. Banovinas of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1929–1939).National boundaries adapted from European Commission, (C) EuroGeographics forthe administrative boundaries. Banovinas adapted from Karta Administrativne PodeleKraljevine Jugoslavije, Beograd, 1938. Map by Zack Taylor.

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bemoaned the fragmentation of the Croatian lands under the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and beyond (Radic 1995: 74).

There is no incontrovertible evidence that such ideas of statehood werewidespread among Croats by the time the common state of the South Slavswas established. Yet we do know that, in the half century before 1918, theeducational curriculum in Croatia emphasised Croatian nationalism, patriot-ism and, notably, called ‘for the administrative unification of the lands of theTriune Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia’ (Jelavich 2003, 97).10

Given that the literacy rates in Croatia were about 50 per cent by the time ofunification, we may cautiously infer that the ideas about Croatian statehood,which were already prevalent among the elite, may have been common amongthe general population as well. Thus, while these ideas were constitutive, ratherthan representative, of Croatian national identity during the mid-19th century,by 1918 they may have been internalised by a significant proportion of thegeneral population.

In light of the centrality of statehood in the Croatian nationalist narrative,it is unsurprising that the CPP continued to press for Croatia’s reunificationand autonomy. The issue of Croatia’s political non-recognition and persistentadministrative fragmentation continued generating political instability, ulti-mately contributing to the inter-ethnic carnage of World War 2. Croatia finallyreceived institutional recognition and partial autonomy in 1939 (Djokic 2007:ch. 5). It maintained its territorial integrity in the socialist Yugoslavia, whereits political leaders managed to carve out a significant degree of autonomyduring the late 1960s and early 1970s. Attempts to implement autonomy forregions within Croatia during the socialist period were always vehementlyrejected.11 A closer examination of these events suggests that the state was notonly a political instrument in the service of the nation or its political elites butalso a symbol and a goal in its own right.

Serbia

Serbian political elites were similarly opposed to the subdivision of what theyconsidered Serbian territories. They explicitly rejected the federalisation of thefirst Yugoslav state, believing that it would divide the Serbian nation andexpose it to domination in federal units with Serb minority (Cubrilovic 1954:461–5; Radan 1999: 139). All the same, Serbia lost its formal status in theformation of the new state, and its territory was eventually subsumed into asmany as five administrative units during the 1929 administrative reform(Figure 1). This type of institutional engineering was acceptable to the Serbelites in part because the institutions and symbols of the Serbian state, whichwas autonomous since 1830 and formally independent since 1878, were graftedonto the other territories that joined Yugoslavia in 1918. Most notably, thesesymbols included the Serbian Karadjordjevic monarchy (Banac 1984: 145).Additionally, most of Yugoslavia’s higher officialdom in the inter-war periodconsisted of Serbs (Ramet 2006: 38). The kingdom of Yugoslavia was, in



effect, a quasi-nation-state for the largest group. The administrative fragmen-tation of Serbia thus did not represent the same kind of threat to nationalidentity that the continued partition of Croatia did for the Croats.

For Serbian political and intellectual elites, real problems arose in the late1960s, when Serbs were no longer assured dominance in the federal institutionsof socialist Yugoslavia. Among the country’s six republics, Serbia alone wasinternally divided – into inner Serbia and the provinces of Vojvodina andKosovo (see Figure 2).12 The autonomy of the two provinces was largelyformal until the late 1960s, when the process of decentralisation that swept theentire country resulted in a de facto political division of Yugoslavia’s largestrepublic.13 As in Croatia, the Serbian nationalist narrative had at its core theidea of the Serbian national state. By the time of Serbia’s political partition,this idea was already more than a century old. The outcome of Serbia’ssubdivision was profoundly destabilising: it not only resulted in the generalnationalist mobilisation of the 1980s, but also paved the way for Miloševic’sre-centralisation bid. These efforts kicked off the cycle of nationalist claimsand counterclaims that resulted in the wars of the early 1990s.

Much like their Croatian counterparts, nationalist elites in 19th-centurySerbia drew on the tradition of medieval statehood to bolster contemporary

Figure 2. Republics and Autonomous Provinces of Socialist Yugoslavia (1946–1992).National and subnational boundaries adapted from European Commission, (C)EuroGeographics for the administrative boundaries. Map by Zack Taylor.

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political claims. As the Serbian state was being consolidated, key statesmen,such as Ilija Garašanin, advocated the territorial expansion of what wasduring the mid-19th century a small and vulnerable statelet. In the 1844document Nacertanije (The Draft), Garašanin offered a realpolitik rationalefor Serbia’s territorial expansion, arguing that the enlarged Serbian stateshould contain all surrounding lands inhabited by Serbs (Šimunic 1992: 91).Simultaneously, he legitimised Serbia’s claim to neighbouring territories byreferencing the medieval Serbian Empire. By expanding the borders of theirstate, the Serbs would be

restoring their own patrimony. Therefore, (their present would) not be without alliancewith (their) past, but (would) rather make one interdependent (. . .) whole, (bringingSerbia’s) nationhood and its statehood under the protection of the sacred historic right.(Šimunic 1992: 93–4)

As with Starcevic and Kvaternik, this contemporary claim to national state-hood was closely linked to the existence of the medieval state, though it lackedthe dimension of legal continuity with medieval political forms that was anintegral part of the CPR programme. These early nationalist myths andsymbols were subsequently popularised by political parties, most notably thePeople’s Radical Party, the first mass political organisation in Serbia (Stokes1990). At the same time, unlike their Croat counterparts, Serb nationalistpoliticians had the advantage of independent statehood, which they used toinculcate in the citizens of their country the sense of nationhood and statehoodnecessary to legitimise their rule (Pantelic 2011: 460).

As in the Croatian case, we lack reliable data that would allow us to assessthe salience of the idea of statehood among the population of Serbia in 1918.We do know, however, that the idea of the Serbian state was propagated inSerbia’s public schools for much of the second half of the 19th century andbeyond (Jelavich 2003: 96). This suggests that the symbolic salience of state-hood may have been as pronounced among the Serbs as it was among theCroats, perhaps even more given the wars fought by Serbia in the 19th andearly 20th centuries.14 Even though the territory claimed by various Serbpoliticians and intellectuals was not as precisely delimited as was the case withthe Croatian national discourse, the national narrative certainly gave pride ofplace to the idea of statehood.

As previously mentioned, the Serb nationalist narrative ran parallel to itsYugoslav counterpart. For many Serbs, Yugoslavia became their nationalstate, which is why opposition to the decentralising reforms undertaken byYugoslavia’s Communists usually came from Serbian quarters.15 As long asthe Serbs were politically dominant, however, the apparent loss of Serbianstatehood was not politically combustible. Problems arose in the second halfof the 1960s, when Serbian elites lost their relative influence in common stateinstitutions and when the process of Yugoslavia’s federalisation led to the defacto subdivision of the Serbian state. Many Serbs reacted to these develop-ments with suspicion. The first open challenge to the perceived erosion of



Serbia’s statehood came from the author and future nationalist leader DobricaCosic who, in 1968, criticised the autonomist tendencies in Serbia’s two prov-inces (CK SK Srbije 1968: 108–9). Serbia’s political elites soon took up thecause, pressuring the highest authorities at the federal level to reverse theirrepublic’s political fragmentation (Jovic 2003: 258–65).

The intellectual opposition to Serbia’s subdivision eventuated in the Memo-randum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the draft of which wasleaked to the press in 1986. The Memorandum had explosive consequences forinter-ethnic relations in Yugoslavia, in part since it moved the boundaries ofpermissible discourse on the question of nationalities.16 The authors’ objec-tions to Serbia’s status within Yugoslavia are notable for the attention theypay to the fragmentation of Serbian statehood. The perceived assault on thisstatehood and, by definition, on the Serbian nation itself receives the mostexplicit recognition in the following passage:

What we are talking about first and foremost is the Serbian people and its state. Thenation which, after a long and bloody struggle, re-gained its state; which through itsown efforts managed to establish civic democracy; and which during the last two warslost 2,5 million of its compatriots, has been reduced to having a party commissiondetermine that after four decades in the new Yugoslavia it should be the only nationwithout its own state. (Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti 1995: 133)

Nation and state are woven together in a narrative of immense suffering,achievement, betrayal and loss. The state is a central symbol and national goalwhich, having been lost to the nation for centuries, has been retrieved at a greatcost, only to be surrendered yet again.

The idea of Serb statehood was so emotionally potent that the perceivedpartition of Serbia contributed to the mass nationalist mobilisation in the late1980s and paved the way for the wars of the early 1990s (Ramet 2006: ch. 12).Generations of people were socialised into the Serbian national narrative wellbefore the 1960s, when the process of Serbia’s subdivision was initiated. Oneshould not be surprised that the institutional reworking of this sort resulted inpolitical instability. Where the state is a potent symbol of national aspirations,it is difficult to subdivide it without causing nationalist backlash. However,where statehood lacks such emotional and symbolic salience, institutionalengineering by territorial subdivision tends to be more feasible, as the case ofNigeria suggests.

Nigeria

In 1914, the British amalgamated several of their West African possessionsinto the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria (Coleman 1958: 42). Constitu-tional reforms during the 1940s and 1950s produced a radically decentralisedfederal structure based on three large regions, each of which contained ademographically preponderant group (see Figure 3). The Northern Regionwas home to Hausa–Fulani, the Western Region was dominated by Yoruba

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and the Eastern Region by Igbo (Suberu 2001: 23–6). Scholars believe thisinitial division entrenched regional identities that would facilitate the emer-gence of ethnic politics during the 1950s.17

Nigeria became independent in 1960. The first Nigerian republic collapsedin a succession of coups and counter-coups during 1966 and 1967 (Falolaand Heaton 2008: 173–4). The anti-Igbo violence that accompanied theinitial seizure of power, and the reprisals against Northerners residing inthe East, eventually led to the attempted secession of that region, styled asthe Independent Republic of Biafra, in 1967 (Falola and Heaton 2008: 175).The ensuing civil war ended with the defeat of the Biafran project in 1970.Convinced that the primary reason behind Nigeria’s ethnic instability wasthe ‘divisive regionalism’ of the First Republic, the country’s new militaryruler, General Gowon, decided to break up existing regions into a numberof smaller states as early as 1966. He justified his actions by arguingthat

no one Region or tribal group should be in a position to dominate the others(and) noRegion should be large enough to be able to threaten secession or hold the rest of theFederation to ransom in times of national crisis. (Suberu 2001: 86)

Figure 3. Nigeria’s 3 regions and Lagos (1961–1963).Boundaries adapted from public domain maps at MDZ Multimedia GIS for Develop-ment, <http://www.mdzmultimedia.com/13/2175.html>. Map by Zack Taylor.



http://www.mdzmultimedia.com/13/2175.html

The three regions were therefore split into twelve states (Suberu 2001: 87), withthe process of internal border revision finally resulting in the 36 state structurewe see today (see Figure 4).

The subdivision of the original regions seems to have accomplishedGowon’s stated goal. As several observers have noted, the redrawing of inter-nal borders effectively diffused the conflict between the three largest groups,though it did not eliminate ethno-nationalist conflict altogether (Horowitz2000: 604, 612; Suberu 2009). More importantly, the process of state prolif-eration did not result in political backlash of the type observed among Croatsor Serbs.18 The following analysis suggests that this divergence in outcomescould be explained, at least in part, by the lower symbolic salience of the statein the nationalist narratives of Nigeria’s major groups.

Igbo

Precolonial Igbo peoples were organised into small and decentralised politicalunits (Harneit-Sievers 2006: 281–2). It was only under British rule that mostIgbos found themselves sharing the same political space. Consequently, therewas little historical-administrative basis for a strong sense of native statehood.

Figure 4. Nigeria’s 36 States and the Capital Territory (1996–present).Boundaries adapted from public domain maps at MDZ Multimedia GIS for Develop-ment, <http://www.mdzmultimedia.com/13/2175.html>. Map by Zack Taylor.

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http://www.mdzmultimedia.com/13/2175.html

Moreover, Igbo, just like other preindependence Africans, harboured ideas ofpolitical organisation that diverged significantly from the European traditionsand norms. Exclusive territorial statehood was a largely foreign idea to mostpeople, except for the westernised elites (Herbst 2000: ch. 2). The notion ofsplitting the Eastern Region into a number of states after the Nigerian civil wartherefore did not result in significant political backlash.

The 1950s saw the emergence of mass politics in Nigeria. During thisperiod, most Igbos threw their support behind the avowedly all-NigerianNational Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC).19 The public pro-nouncements of Nnamdi Azikiwe, NCNC’s co-founder and a key Igbo politi-cal figure, reveal both the recent vintage of Igbo identity and the equally recentidea of Igbo statehood. The novelty of Igbo nationhood is revealed by theambiguity in Azikiwe’s statements about the boundaries of the national com-munity. On occasion, he referred to all Nigerians as members of a singlenationality (Azikiwe 1961: 185). At other times, the Igbo were labelled as anation, albeit one characterised by a great degree of internal diversity (Azikiwe1961: 242–6; 251). Finally, Azikiwe also referred to the ‘Igbo-speaking peoples’(Azikiwe 1961: 248; 251, emphasis added). This discursive flexibility stands insharp contrast to the Serb and Croat cases and suggests that Igbo nationalaffinities may have been only moderately strong at Nigeria’s independence.The discourse about Igbo nationhood was at this early stage most likelyconstitutive of identity, rather than being reflective of it, as the mass mobili-sation of the population behind common identities was only taking placeduring the last preindependence decade. Nonetheless, this did not preclude therapid politicisation of Igbo identity during the 1950s and 1960s, a process thatculminated in the demand for an independent state.

More importantly for the present article, Azikiwe’s speeches suggest thatthe concept of an Igbo state did not possess a deeply rooted symbolic dimen-sion among the targeted population. Consider the following statement, deliv-ered in 1949:

Let us establish an Igbo State, based on linguistic and ethnic factors, enabling us to takeour place side by side with the other linguistic and ethnic groups which make up Nigeriaand the Cameroons. (. . .) Therefore, our meeting today is of momentous importance inthe history of the Igbo, in that opportunity has been presented to us to heed the call ofa despoiled race, to answer the summons to redeem a ravished continent, to rally forcesto the defence of a humiliated country, and to arouse national consciousness in ademoralized but dynamic nation. (Azikiwe 1961: 246)

The excerpt suggests the novelty of the idea of statehood and its low symbolicsalience. Azikiwe talks about ‘establishing’, rather than ‘re-establishing’ theIgbo polity, an idea that is so new that it lends the meeting its ‘momentousimportance’ for the history of the Igbo people. Moreover, Azikiwe does notattach the demand for Igbo statehood to a broader myth of Igbo origins orcommon history. Unlike Serb and Croat nationalist discourses, the Igbo claimis neither rooted in historical rights nor presented as the culmination of a long



quest for a homeland. Rather, it is based on ethnic affinity, with statehoodbeing seen as an instrument for redressing historical and contemporarywrongs. The Igbo state does not seem to have been a pivotal political symbolat this stage.

The declaration of Biafran independence in 1967 points to a similar con-clusion. While the Igbo would have constituted a majority of Biafra’s popu-lation, the state was given an entirely new name, as no historical appellationfor this particular territorial unit was available. Furthermore, the declarationof independence was framed in instrumental terms: independent statehoodwas a last-resort necessity because Easterners were no longer offered protec-tion from violent persecution in other parts of Nigeria (‘Biafra: Proclamationof the Republic of Biafra’ 1967: 14–6). Thus, rather than being infused withsymbolic content, the discourse of the declaration rested on rational calculus.

The Yoruba

In contrast with the Igbo, the precolonial Yoruba developed larger and morecomplex polities. However, Yoruba states were not only disunited but were,during the 19th century, frequently at war with one another (Akintoye 2010:ch. 14; Falola 2004: 150). When, during the early 20th century, the Britishadministrators attempted to consolidate the Yoruba-inhabited territories,their efforts foundered on the reluctance of traditional chiefs and kings toaccept the authority of a single ruler (Falola 2006: 32). Subsequent attempts tobuild pan-Yoruba identity were made on the basis of prepolitical ties, such asthe myth of the common Yoruba ancestor, Oduduwa, with blood ties trump-ing political, state-centered legitimisation (Falola 2006: 32–3). As with theIgbo, no sustained resistance to the subdivision of ‘Yoruba-land’ materialisedafter 1970.

The Yoruba were the first Nigerian group to explicitly mobilise on anethno-nationalist platform. The first expression of this mobilisation was acultural society, the Egbe Omo Oduduwa20, founded in 1945. The Egbebecame the organisational backbone of the Action Group (AG), a Yorubapolitical party established in 1951 (Sklar 1963: 67; 101–12). The statements ofObafemi Awolowo, the AG’s founder, are as indicative of the absence ofstrong symbolic content behind Yoruba statehood as we have observed in theIgbo case. In his autobiography, Awolowo explicitly acknowledges the weak-ness of common Yoruba political identity, despite the notional commonalityof origins (Awolowo 1960: 166). The Egbe Omo Oduduwa, which he helpedestablish, had as one of its goals the elimination of intra-Yoruba tribalism andthe establishment of ‘the idea of a single nationality throughout the [Western]region’ (Awolowo 1960: 168). In fact, as with the other two major ethnicgroups, the political mobilisation among the Yoruba was remarkably success-ful in the years immediately preceding and following Nigeria’s independence.

At the same time, Awolowo’s writings reveal a lack of a strong notion ofYoruba statehood that could take a central symbolic place in the collective

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imaginary of his group. Egbe’s statement of principles, for instance, includedreference to ‘the propagation of the idea of a modern Yoruba state’, whichcontrasts with the restorationist rhetoric of both Serb or Croat nationalists(Awolowo 1960: 169, emphasis added). This language also suggests that theidea of a modern state, Yoruba or otherwise, was not generally present amongthe Yoruba population. In advocating Yoruba statehood, Awolowo fre-quently used rationalist arguments. He was a proponent of an ethno-federalNigeria, in which the boundaries of federal units would correspond with ethnicboundaries (Awolowo 1960: 176). This claim was not made on the basis ofhistorical tradition but of national self-determination and political rationality.Awolowo stated that ‘in dividing Nigeria into regions, it is [. . .] necessary togroup together only people who, through affinity or general experience, areknown to be capable of working together harmoniously’ (Awolowo 1960:177). Therefore, the basic principle for the creation of federal states was theachievement of major groups’ self-government, albeit in such a way as tominimise inter-group conflict.

The mid-1950s saw attempts to subdivide the Western Region. The AGopposed this initiative on partisan grounds: the party leadership understoodthat the creation of a Mid-Western federal unit would strengthen the hand ofthe rival NCNC, which had significant support in the territory slated forseparation (Awolowo 1960: 183). Furthermore, while Awolowo favoured thecreation of new ethno-federal units out of the three existing regions, heopposed their further subdivision. He argued that excessive fragmentation offederal units would

amount to a backdoor reversion to a unitary system. Each of the (proposed) seventeenstates would be so weak that it would perforce be subordinated to the federal govern-ment in practically all the major functions which the Regions now performed.(Awolowo 1960: 190)

The logic of consequences comes through clearly. The state was not a potentsymbol of Yoruba nationhood, but rather an instrumental institution, throughwhich party and group interests were to be pursued. The absence of broad-based Yoruba mobilisation against the subdivision of the Western Regionafter 1970 is thus unremarkable.

Hausa–Fulani

The Hausa-Fulani are Nigeria’s only major ethnic group with a historic claimto a unified precolonial political entity – the Sokoto Caliphate. While theCaliphate encompassed most of the Hausa kingdoms by 1810, it was not amodern state but rather a medieval polity composed of a number of highlyautonomous emirates (Falola and Heaton 2008: 65). Moreover, the emotiveglue that held it together was neither ethnicity nor proto-nationalism butIslam, a fact that continues to reverberate in northern Nigeria to the presentday (Falola and Heaton 2008: 72). When, during the 1950s, Hausa–Fulani



elites finally made their appearance on Nigeria’s political scene, their politicaldiscourse contained few references to historic Hausa–Fulani state(s). Theyviewed the regional polity that they headed as a tool for the advancement oftheir own and their group’s goals, rather than an objective in its own right.Consequently, there was no broad-based opposition to the division of theNorthern Region into a number of smaller states during the late 1960s andbeyond.

Hausa–Fulani elites entered Nigeria’s politics comparatively late, establish-ing their own political party, the Northern People’s Congress (NPC), in 1951(Sklar 1963: 96). Northern political awakening was a defensive development,taking place in response to the political mobilisation among the other twogroups discussed in this article (Coleman 1958: 353). Indeed, the NPC opposedearly independence for Nigeria because its members feared that Northernerswould be politically marginalised, both within the central government andwithin the Northern Region itself. Their greatest concern was that Northernpoliticians lacked the political skills of their Igbo and Yoruba counterparts,since by the 1950s, the latter already had several years of organisationalexperience behind them (Diamond 1983: 472). Accordingly, statehood was asinstrumental for Hausa–Fulani elites as it was for their Igbo and Yorubarivals.

Public statements by Ahmadu Bello, the first premier of the NorthernRegion, reveal the utilitarian understanding of statehood in the Hausa–Fulanidiscourse. Not only does Bello seldom refer to the Sokoto Caliphate, but healso hardly mentions ethnicity at all. Rather, the key political community towhich Bello keeps referring is the people of the Northern Region. Bellodirected his efforts at the political integration of his demographically domi-nant unit:

Our aim is to unify the North and make all tribes living in the region feel that they areone and the same people. The people of the North are in fact already one on accountof inter-marriages between the tribes. (Bello 1999: 11)

His insistence on the unity of the Northern people is belied by the first sentencein this quote. Nevertheless, the Northern population was effectively politicisedbehind the common religious heritage for contemporary political purposes(Sklar 1963: 326). This mobilisation was both reflected in, and reinforced by,periodic episodes of violence in the North, directed primarily against theIgbo.21

Bello’s statements suggest that Northern statehood in the modern sense wasa novel concept, and as such, unlikely to have been a potent symbol forHausa–Fulani nationalists. He acknowledged explicitly that statehood in theNorthern Region was a product of British colonial policy, as it was the British‘who began to weld the North into the unified whole which it now is’ (Bello1999: 59). Analysis of Northern demands for statehood seems to confirm thisinterpretation. During the 1953 crisis over the question of Nigeria’s independ-ence, Northern politicians threatened virtual secession in case southern elites

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declared sovereignty (Coleman 1958: 399). NPC demands for a loose confed-eration were pragmatic – Northern statehood was to be used in defence of theinterests and the traditions of the Northern people (Bello 1962: 135–47).Moreover, when during the late 1950s plans for the subdivision of the North-ern Region were aired, Bello’s opposition to these was rooted primarily inpolitical expediency, as he recognised that any re-engineering of boundarieswould weaken the electoral clout of his party (Bello 1962: 216). It is thereforenot surprising that the fragmentation of the Northern Region did not provokea sustained political backlash.

Conclusion

In multinational states, separating more or less compact ethnic territory intoseveral federal units might diffuse, or even preclude, conflict between majorconstituent groups. On the other hand, territorial engineering also has thepotential to destabilise the common state. This article suggests that part ofthe reason for such variation lies in the symbolic salience of statehood. Wherethe state is a central symbol in the nationalist narrative, as it was in the case ofSerbia and Croatia, attempting to redraw its boundaries may provoke nation-alist reaction. However, where statehood is largely instrumental, as it was forYoruba, Igbo and Hausa–Fulani elites, the multiplication of federal units isless likely to be interpreted as a threat to national identity. A pragmaticunderstanding of statehood may lead ethnic entrepreneurs to adopt moreflexible attitudes towards territorial arrangements, provided that group inter-ests are institutionally protected. It is in these instances that ethnic gerryman-dering championed by integrationist scholars might foster stability, thougheven here state-builders ought to exercise caution. Revision of internal bordersmight backfire if the process undermines the relative position of a particulargroup or its elite. In order to forestall instability, any strategy of territorialreform must address the interests of existing stakeholders at the regional level.

If symbolic salience of statehood matters as much as this article suggests,then what explains its variation across societies? Answering this questionwould require careful, contextualised study of individual countries or clustersof cases. All the same, literature on state development points to lines of inquirythat might yield more generalisable conclusions. One relates to the strategicenvironment that influences the size and strength of the state. Recent work onstate-building suggests that frequent conflicts with characteristics of totalwarfare contribute to the consolidation of strong states, whereas less intenseand ubiquitous wars tend to produce weaker polities (Centeno 2002). Geog-raphy complicates this parsimonious explanation. Modest size of states mightfacilitate institution-building, whereas large territorial scale makes it costlyand difficult to build the infrastructure of government (Centeno 2002; Herbst2000). Scholars should explore the possibility that these factors shape not onlythe institutional cohesion and strength of states but also the cultural impor-tance of statehood.



Yet, structural and strategic factors do not automatically translate intoparticular discourses of statehood. These are also influenced by existingpolitical-cultural prisms employed by local political elites. In the case of coun-tries with lower levels of literacy and socio-economic development, as bothmid-20th-century Nigeria and 19th-century Yugoslav lands were, ‘imported’political ideas usually play a pivotal part. We should therefore pay attention tothe foreign intellectual lineage of political cultures. For instance, Serbia’s19th-century political elites had significant exposure to French and Germanpolitical ideologies. Many were educated in German, Austrian and Frenchschools, and key leaders took Bismarck and his vision of the state as theirmodel (Stoianovich 1959).22 Due to British colonial presence, Nigerian intel-lectual and political elites were influenced by different ideas of politics andstatehood. How these diverse factors – strategic, structural and cultural –combine to shape symbolic salience of the state in any given context is a matterof further empirical research and sensitivity to the internal politics of the casesin question.

Conclusions presented in this article are tentative and are meant to stimu-late further discussion about the feasibility of territorial engineering in multi-national states. As arguments drawn on only two cases cannot be generalisedtoo broadly, future work on the topic should extend the comparison to a largernumber of cases. This would allow for a more valid test of the link between thesymbolic salience of statehood and political responses to redrawing of internalboundaries. In the process, particular emphasis should be placed on theconceptualisation of the symbolic salience of statehood andthe development of means used to evaluate it. More systematic research ofthe state as an ‘imagined institution’ should deepen our understanding of thelimits and possibilities for the institutional management of difference in multi-national polities.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank John McGarry, Alexandre Pelletier, Zoran Oklopcic, SanjayJeram, Lauren Lydic, Yoanna Terziyska and two anonymous reviewers forvaluable comments, all of which improved this work appreciably. Zack Taylordeserves special mention for his excellent work with the maps. Of course, anyof the article’s shortcomings are my own.

Notes

1 For an overview of the integrationist-accommodationist debate, see McGarry et al. (2008).2 For a more nuanced recent work, see Anderson (2013).3 Unlike Goddard (2006) and Toft (2003), who examine the divisibility of territory among

conflicting ethnic groups, this article emphasises the possibility of altering boundaries of landinhabited by a single group.

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4 Dyson juxtaposes stateless societies to ‘state’ societies, characterised by ‘non-utilitarian atti-tudes towards political relations’, in which the state is seen as the embodiment of the politicalcommunity (Dyson 1980: 51).

5 For Nigeria, see Horowitz (2000: 604) For an overview of inter-war Yugoslav politics, seeDjokic (2007). For the Serbian backlash during the late socialist Yugoslavia, see Ramet (2006:ch. 12).

6 For the implications of presence or absence of staatsvolk in multinational federations, seeO’Leary (2001).

7 A similar argument with respect to the Serb nationalist narrative can be found in Vujacic’simportant contribution (2004).

8 Initially the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.9 Not all 19th-century Croat parties demanded full independence. The 1848 Croatian national

programme called both for the ‘reunification’ of Croat lands and for the inclusion of reconstitutedCroatia within a confederal Habsburg polity (Korunic 1998: 28). Yet, most Croat parties empha-sised statehood within fairly specific territorial boundaries. While there was some flexibility in theterritorial demands among different parties during the 19th century, the minimalist claim of thoseadvocating Croatian sovereignty always included the three historic Croatian kingdoms – Croatia,Slavonia and Dalmatia.10 Croatia gained autonomy over its educational system in 1868 (Jelavich 2003: 96).11 The first such attempt took place during World War 2, when the Croatian communist lead-ership countered what it perceived as excessive autonomy of the Dalmatian Party organisation(Irvine 1993: 168–70). The second, during the late 1960s and early 1970s, involved the demand forSerb territorial autonomy in Croatia. The claim was roundly dismissed by the republic’s leadership(Irvine 2008: 167–8).12 While Kosovo was predominantly inhabited by ethnic Albanians, most residents of Vojvodinawere Serbs.13 For an overview, see Cohen (1977). For an explanation, see Basta (2010).14 For the role of war in national homogenisation, see Conversi (2008).15 On Serb identification with Yugoslavia, see Vujacic (2004: 184–6). On resistance to thefederalising reforms, see Rusinow (1977: ch. 5).16 For an important analysis, see Dragovic-Soso (2002: ch. 4).17 See, for example, Coleman (1958: ch. 15).18 The recent revival of the Biafran idea has been motivated by political and economicmarginalisation of the Igbo, rather than by territorial fragmentation (Duruji 2012).19 The party, established in 1944, was at the forefront of the struggle for Nigerian independence(Sklar 1963: ch. 2).20 Society of the descendents of Oduduwa.21 For instance, the Kano riot of 1953 (Diamond 1983: 472–3) and the riots preceding the 1967civil war (Falola and Heaton 2008: 183–4).22 As Rejai and Enloe note, Bismarck tried to actualise the Hegelian idea of the state ‘as thesupreme repository of all moral and spiritual values, the supreme object of man’s devotion’ (1969:147).

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Documents

The state as a symbol or a means to an end: internal border changes in multinational federations