A method and apparatus for hierarchical redundancy for a distributed control plane. In one embodiment of the invention, control plane processes are distributed among a plurality of processing entities including an active primary control processing entity and multiple secondary processing entities. Each of the secondary processing entities performs a dual role; an active role and a standby role. An application redundancy manager (ARM) instantiated on the active primary control processing entity manages the redundancy services for the secondary processing entities. For each secondary processing entity, the ARM selects one of the secondary processing entities to act as a backup for another one of the secondary processing entities. Upon a failure of one of the secondary processing entities, the ARM causes the secondary processing entity backing up the failed secondary processing entity to transition its standby role to an active role regarding the services provided by the failed secondary processing entity.