Federalism
Federalism is a mode of government that combines a general level of government with a regional level of sub-unit governments, while dividing the powers of governing between the two levels of governments.
Johannes Althusius is considered the father of modern federalism, along with Montesquieu. By 1748, in his treatise The Spirit of Law, Montesquieu observed various examples of federalist governments: in corporate societies, in the polis bringing villages together, and in cities themselves forming confederations. In the modern era, federalism was first adopted by a union of the states of the Old Swiss Confederacy as of the mid-14th century.
Federalism differs from confederalism, where the central government is created subordinate to the regional states—and is notable for its regional-separation of governing powers. Federalism also differs from the unitary state, where the regional level is subordinate to the central government, even after a devolution of powers.
Examples of federalism today include: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, [|Canada], Ethiopia, Germany, [|India], Iraq, Malaysia, Mexico, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States. At a multi-state level, the European Union has been characterized by some as a federation.
Overview
Etymology
The terms "federalism" and "confederalism" share a root in the Latin word foedus, meaning "treaty, pact or covenant". Until the late eighteenth century their two early meanings were essentially the same: a simple league among sovereign states, based on a treaty;. It was in this sense that James Madison referred to the new US Constitution as "neither a national nor a federal Constitution, but a composition of both"—i.e., constituting neither a single large unitary state nor a league/confederation among several small states, but a hybrid of the two forms—according to Madison; "The Federalist No. 39".Notably, in the course of the nineteenth century in the United States, the meaning of federalism shifted, now referring uniquely to the novel compound-political form established at the Philadelphia Constitution Convention—while the meaning of confederalism remained as a league of states.
History
In a narrow sense, federalism refers to the mode in which the body politic of a state is organized internally—and this is the meaning most often used in modern times. Political scientists, however, use the term federalism in a much broader sense, referring instead to a "multi-layer or pluralistic concept of social and political life".The first forms of federalism took place in ancient times, in the form of alliances between tribes or city states. According to historian Joseph Baratta, his colleagues generally begin the history of federalism with the Israelite tribal confederacy led by a military leader called a Judge between c.1200 – c.1000 BCE. Examples from the Hellenic world between the seventh to second century BCE were the Archaic League, the Aetolic League, the Peloponnesian League, and the Delian League. An early ancestor of federalism was the Achaean League in Hellenistic Greece. Unlike the Greek city states of Classical Greece, each of which insisted on keeping its complete independence, changing conditions in the Hellenistic period drove city states to band together even at the cost of surrendering part of their sovereignty. Several leagues of states existed in the contemporary China. Subsequent unions of states included the first and second Swiss Confederations ; the United Provinces of the Netherlands ; the German Confederation ; the first American union, known as the Confederation of the United States of America ; and the second American union, formed as the United States of America.
Political theory
Modern federalism is a political system that is based upon operating under democratic rules and institutions; and where governing powers are shared between a country's national and provincial/state governments. However, the term federalist comprises various political practices that differ in important details among the federalist nations—some of which are democratic in name only —leaving the terms "federalist", "federalism", "federation", etc., dependent on context. And, because the term federalization also proclaims distinctive political processes, its use also depends on context.Typically, political theory today discusses two main types of the federalization process:
- integrative, transforming a confederation into a federation; 2) incorporating non-federated population integrating a non-federated population by creating a new or revised federation.
- devolutive, transforming a unitary state into a federation.
Reasons for adoption
- Ideational theories, which hold: that among subunit population, a greater ideological commitment to decentralist ideas makes federalism more likely to be sought and adopted.
- Cultural-historical theories: that in societies with culturally or ethnically fragmented populations, federalized subunits are more likely to be favored and adopted.
- "Social contract" theories: that federalism emerges via a bargaining process between the center and a periphery —where the center is not powerful enough to dominate the periphery, but the periphery is not powerful enough to secede from the center,.
- "Infrastructural power" theories: that federalism is likely to emerge for the subunit population that already has highly developed infrastructures,.
Proponents of federal systems have historically argued that the structures of checks-and-balances and power-sharing that are inherent in a federal system reduces threats—both foreign and domestic. And federalism enables a state to be both large and diverse, by mitigating the risk of a central government turning tyrannical.
Examples
Countries around the world have implemented federal systems using variations of central and regional sovereignty for their governments. For convenience of studying these governments, they may be divided according to several categories, such as: minimalistic federations, which consist of only two sub-federal units ; as compared to multi-regional federations, consisting of three or more regional governments. Or, based on their body polity type: emirate, provincial, state, republicanism or constitutional monarchy, democratic—or democratic in-name-only. And, federal systems may be differentiated between those whose entire territory is federated, vs. only part of their territory is federated. Some systems are national while others, like the European Union, are supra-national.Two extremes of federalism are notable: 1) at one extreme, the strong federal state is almost completely unitary, with few powers reserved to local governments; 2) at the opposite extreme, the national government may be a federation in name-only, while actually operating as a confederation,. Federalism may encompass as few as two or three internal divisions, as is the case in Belgium or Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In Canada, federalism typically implies opposition to sovereignty movements—most commonly the question of Quebec separatism. In 1999, the Government of Canada established the Forum of Federations as an international network for exchange of best practices among federal and federalizing countries. Headquartered in Ottawa, the Forum of Federations partner governments include Australia, Brazil, Ethiopia, Germany, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan and Switzerland.
The governments of Argentina, Australia, Brazil, India, and Mexico, among others, are organized along federalist principles.
[|Europe] vs. the [|United States]
In Europe, "federalist" is sometimes used to describe those who favor a common federal government, with distributed power at regional, national and supranational levels. The Union of European Federalists advocates for this development within the European Union, ultimately leading to the United States of Europe. Although there are medieval and early modern examples of European states which used confederal and federal systems, contemporary European federalism originated in post-war Europe; one of the more important initiatives was Winston Churchill's speech in Zürich in 1946.In the United States, federalism originally referred to belief in a stronger central government. When the U.S. Constitution was being drafted, the Federalist Party supported a stronger central government, while "Anti-Federalists" wanted a weaker central government. This is very different from the modern usage of "federalism" in Europe and the United States. The distinction stems from the fact that "federalism" is situated in the middle of the political spectrum between a confederacy and a unitary state. The U.S. Constitution was written as a replacement for the Articles of Confederation, under which the United States was a loose confederation with a weak central government.
In contrast, Europe has a greater history of unitary states than North America, thus European "federalism" argues for a weaker central government, relative to a unitary state. The modern American usage of the word is much closer to the European sense. As the power of the U.S. federal government has increased, some people have perceived a much more unitary state than they believe the Founding Fathers intended. Most people politically advocating "federalism" in the United States argue in favor of limiting the powers of the federal government, especially the judiciary.
The contemporary concept of federalism came about with the creation of an entirely new system of government that provided for democratic representation at two governing levels simultaneously, which was implemented in the US Constitution. In the United States implementation of federalism, a bicameral general government, consisting of a chamber of popular representation proportional to population, and a chamber of equal State-based representation consisting of two delegates per State, was overlaid upon the pre-existing regional governments of the thirteen independent States. With each level of government allocated a defined sphere of powers, under a written constitution and the rule of law, the two levels were thus brought into a coordinate relationship for the first time.
In 1946, Kenneth Wheare observed that the two levels of government in the US were "co-equally supreme". In this, he echoed the perspective of American founding father James Madison who saw the several States as forming "distinct and independent portions of the supremacy" in relation to the general government.