Published in Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, this article examines regional consociations as institutional designs that combine two elements of traditional conflict resolution approaches: territorial autonomy and consociational power-sharing.
From a conflict resolution perspective there are three particularly interesting dimensions, namely the factors in relation to structure and agency that make it possible for a regional consociation to be established; their institutional design; and the conditions that are conducive to their stability. My primary interest in this article is in the institutional design of regional consociations, but I also make some observations on their origin and touch upon stability conditions in a comparative institutional study of South Tyrol, Northern Ireland and Brussels.