Is decentralization "glue" or "solvent" for national unity? /

Of course, as already mentioned, one key important missing link in the argument is the degree of regional concentration of those who are “different.” Other potentially critical explanatory factors include the level of development, the nature and effectiveness of political institutions, and, of course, the degree and nature of decentralization. [...] Although we review each of the countries included in the “universe” set out in Table 2 briefly in the remainder of this section, in the balance of the paper we concentrate for the most part on the relatively small subset of these countries that combine three characteristics. [...] In the remainder of this section, we comment briefly on most of the countries listed in Table 2, in the order listed there, both to explain at least in part the way we have filled in the cells in that table and to draw out some common characteristics found in a number of countries. [...] Again, in 2001 in reaction to the “Black Spring” disturbances, in which Kabyle protesters were killed, the Berber Arouch Citizen‟s Movement was created with the objectives of recognition of the Berber language as the second official language of Algeria, expanded democracy, and more regional autonomy. [...] Although it was suppressed after a civil war, the country largely remained under the control of various regionally based warlords until the 1990s when it became embroiled in the biggest interstate war in African history, involving a number of countries and at times the foreign conquest and de facto secession of large areas of the Congo.