Abstract
Taking the view that constitutions are devices whereby people coordinate to specific equilibria in circumstances that allow multiple equilibria, we show that a constitutional secession clause can serve as such a device and, therefore, that such a clause is more than an empty promise or an ineffectual threat. Employing a simple three-person recursive game, we establish that under certain conditions, this game possesses two equilibria—one in which a disadvantaged federal unit secedes and is not punished by the other units in the federation, and a second equilibrium in which this unit does not secede but is punished if it chooses to do so.
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This research was partially funded by a grant from the United States Institute of Peace at the California Institute of Technology. We wish to thank several anonymous referees who brought to our attention a number of things that we had not previously considered.
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Chen, Y., Ordeshook, P.C. Constitutional secession clauses. Constit Polit Econ 5, 45–60 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02393255
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02393255