Fragile Nations: The Promise and Perils of Multinational Democracies (Democracy, Diversity, and Citizen Engagement Series, 15) (Volume 15) - Softcover

Mathieu, Félix

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0228027675 ISBN 13: 9780228027676

Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2026

Synopsis

Non-sovereign nations are fragile: not because they lack identity but because their futures depend on sustained collective efforts to preserve institutions, cultures, and political autonomy while they remain unequal partners within constitutional frameworks.

In a brilliant sociopolitical analysis of five non-sovereign nations – Catalonia, Northern Ireland, Wallonia, South Tyrol, and Quebec – Félix Mathieu offers new empirical evidence that a state’s constitutional character shapes the management of national diversity and advances novel ideas for creating authentic multinational democracies. Beginning with each state’s formative rupture and unfolding through the twists of political modernity, Fragile Nations shows how political, social, and economic forces interact with constitutional structures. It examines how unitary or federal states enable or constrain minority nations in building institutions and shaping their destinies. Mathieu brings empirical depth to theoretical debates and takes a compelling look at the democratic principles of pluralism and equity, which can sustain fairer, more inclusive multinational states.

Fragile Nation engages in questions about nationalism, federalism, minority nations, and the challenges of governance, enriching wider conversations about identity, sovereignty, and coexistence in diverse societies.

About this title

About the Author

Félix Mathieu is professor in the Department of Law at the Université du Québec en Outaouais.

From the Back Cover

Series Editors: Alain-G. Gagnon and Yasmeen Abu-Laban

Vibrant movements both new and old, inspired by Indigeneity, national self-determination, anti-racism, migrant precarity, and their intersections with other forms of identity, raise profound questions about social justice. Such movements also provoke backlash. These developments beg the interrogation of institutional mechanisms for inclusion as they relate to democracy, citizenship, public policy, and rights across different state forms, including settler colonial and federal states. Centring the heterogeneity of mobilizations and claims-making by citizens, non-citizens, nations, and groups in the twenty-first century, the Democracy, Diversity, and Citizen Engagement Series invites consideration of how people and interests are represented. In light of how nations and people are often divided by state frontiers, the series, with the support of the Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Diversity and Democracy, also showcases work that identifies how interests and representation might be enhanced at local, national, or global levels.

Edition details

• Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0228027675
• ISBN 13: 9780228027676
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 300