Federalism at War in Ancient Greece/Krieg und Koinon im antiken Griechenland

In the past two decades, federalism has come to be seen as an important tool for the structural resolution of ethnic/cultural/religious/linguistic conflicts and for accommodating minorities, especially in countries with a high degree of heterogeneity. This assumption is not new and is the basis for ongoing processes of constitution building and peace making strategies in Europe, Africa, and Asia. Federalism has often been imposed by outsiders; famous examples include Bosnia, Nigeria, Iraq and Nepal. However, recent studies have revealed that federalism by no means guarantees peaceful coexistence. Just considering current cases, some have been successful, while others have failed. Some scholars have even wondered whether federalism may be part of the problem rather than part of the solution; others point to the fact that a wide range of critical factors need to be considered. Admittedly, federation for peace is no longer a slogan: It has become a question. And it is precisely this question that many scholars of ancient Greek history have been asking ever since 1944 when Jakob Larsen wondered, while the world was ravaged by Second World War, whether federalism could promote peace. This project draws on this very question to shift attention to the more general question, the one of the relation between federalism and war in Ancient Greece: Do they connect and on what terms? Does internal war in some way trigger federal tendencies and does, in turn, federalism resolve internal war (and thus promote peace)? Do external wars affect the emergence of federalism? To find an answer to these and other questions I will reconsider all of the evidence on Greek Federal states from the point of view of the impact of war on federalism and combine traditional methods focused on philology and institutional analysis with a comparative approach.