This is a good point, but not necessarily a decisive one. The central government might do few things, but some of those few might be very important. In the case of the Iraqi Kurds, one of those few will surely be national defense, and the Kurds know that they are likely to be safer with defense by the central government, than if they have face Turkey, Iran, Syria, et al., alone. Bicameralism, the veto, etc., may reduce the AMOUNT of legislation that gets passed, but the legislation that does get passed is likely to be broadly supported by a wide range of groups and perhaps highly valued by them.
At the same time, the fact that the Kurds would have a strong ability to impede the adoption of central govt legislation hostile to their interests should diminish their incentive to try to secede. As to what the Iraqi constitution (or any constitution) should say about secession, I think that is a tough question with strong arguments for both sides. I incline to the view that constitutions for highly diverse societies should allow secession in limited circumstances, but I don't have the time and space to fully defend that conclusion here (nor am I even close to 100% sure that it is in fact the right conclusion). Ilya Somin On Tue, 30 Sep 2003, Sanford Levinson wrote: > Re Ilya's comment that "Iraq might actually benefit from adopting a higher > degree of decentralization than exists under the US constitution." So the > next question is what, if anything, the Iraqi constitution should say about > the possibility of secession. Presumably, the reason one advocates a high > degree of decentralization in Iraq is because ethnic groups tend to be > territorially distributed: Kurds in the north are the most dramatic > example. One of the things that a high degree of decentralization does, > though, is essentially to create a functioning local government that, > almost by definition, gets relatively little from the central government > (which, because of bicameralism and the veto, is unlikely to pass much in > the way of legislation). Doesn't this increase the probability that the > highly decentralized entity might decide that full self-government is > desirable? > > sandy >
