Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 27.3
The February 1993 Vance-Owen plan for dividing Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Source:
Owen 1996.
•
Fairness to individuals.
All citizens should have
equal power, with each person's vote worth
the same as everybody else's: if that is not the
case, then unequal power to influence the
outcome of an election results and some
preferences carry less weight than others. To
meet this criterion, constituencies should have
equal-sized electorates.
•
Fairness to communities.
A state's civil society is
not an aggregation of atomised individuals but
comprises separate geographically defined
communities with their own cultures and
interests. Each should be represented, otherwise
power is not fairly distributed among society's
major interest groups: if those communities are
spatially delimited, the fairness criterion can be
met by making community and constituency
boundaries coterminous.
•
Fairness to minorities.
Few national societies are
culturally homogeneous; most contain one
or
