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The main focus of this study is on the question of why political institutions change. By extension, the study is also about explaining and predicting the direction of change. Put simply, the study postulates that political institutions will change in order to be congruent with the society. / Change is analysed within the context of two federal structures, the Federal Republic of Germany and Belgium. During the same time period from 1949 to 1993, one transformed from a unitary state into a loose federation while the decentralised federation consolidated and became central. The puzzle which the research project deals with is about this change: Why did the institutions of 1949 fail to survive? / The prevailing institutionalist logic in comparative politics would suggest that once in place, institutions would have socialised the political actors into the existing structure by providing veto points in such a way that institutions would have been reproduced over time, but this has not been the case. Furthermore, why has change come about in two opposing directions, centralising and decentralising, despite many common characteristics between the two cases? / This study is based on a theory of congruence which argues that political institutions change in order to reflect underlying societal structures. More specifically, the argument is that political institutions in federal structures change to correspond to the ethno-linguistic make-up of the country. Accordingly, the unitary state of Belgium has changed its political institutions in order to accommodate the Flemings, Walloons and Bruxellois; while Federal Germany has centralised many issues despite explicit constitutional clauses against such changes. / According to the theory of congruence, when confronted with an ethno-linguistic structure that does not match the political one, the political structure changes; not automatically, but through the pressure of public policy concerns pursued by political actors. The ethno-linguistic community is the primary collectivity for which public policy decisions are made. The choices available to political actors are constrained by the demarcations of this societal composition. Decision makers might disagree over the substance of the policies, but they share the choice of venue in the form of the ethnolinguistic 'nation'. In case of a discrepancy between the ethno-linguistic societal structure and the political structure, public policy concerns wold exert a pressure towards congruence by demarcating a social collectivity for which policies are made different from the one set up by the political institutions. Thus, if the 'nation' is bigger than the unit that marked off by political institutions, the tendency would be towards amalgamation with the other subunits of the 'nation' and centralisation. If, on the other hand, the 'nation' is smaller than the unit defined by the political institutions, there would be devolutionary pressures on the unitary institutions. / The empirical research was carried out on two policy areas, education and mass media, through a paired comparison of Flanders and Wallonia in Belgium and Baden-Wurttemberg and North Rhine Westphalia in the Federal Republic of Germany.

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Can states formally recognize cultural diversity and, at the same time, preserve their political and social unity and provide the main public goods of modern citizenship? Is such conciliation feasible? Is it morally desirable? In the current context of unprecedented expression and politicization of cultural identities, especially in democratic countries, such questions are more and more crucial. To answer these questions, the present study considers the contribution of the modern federal tradition. Within this tradition, I analyze four federal responses to the unity-diversity dilemma. The first two---the Belgian and Canadian federations---are practical. Each embodies one of the two dominant contemporary models of federalism: classical liberal individualist, and multinational. I study the experience of each country over the past thirty years to compare the effects of the two models on citizenship. The potential of the modern federal tradition is further assessed through an examination of two theoretical and normative reflections, those of Tocqueville and Proudhon. / The central thesis is twofold. First, I contend that in a context of increasing cultural diversity, unity and diversity have an equal value and are both essential to citizenship. This is true both from a moral and from a practical point of view. Second, I argue that the dominant conceptions of federalism are unable to satisfactorily conciliate unity and diversity. Such task requires the development of what I call an intercultural federalism, one centered on the good of identity pluralization or complexitication. From a strictly practical point of view, only an intercultural federalism can prevent identity fragmentation and the political and social fragmentation which come with it. From a moral perspective, intercultural federalism promises not only to protect, but also to maximize the primary goods which are the most affected by identity fragmentation---political liberty and social solidarity---while also promoting individual liberty. Intercultural federalism rests on three principles which summarize the teachings of the modern federal tradition with regard to the establishment of just citizenship institutions in a context of diversity. Such institutions are just in that they protect and maximize the primary goods of citizenship for all citizens. The three principles are: (1) mutual recognition; (2) intercultural dialogue; (3) multi-varied asymmetrical institutionalization.

Pas de résumé / Doctorat en droit / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished