André Lecours
University of Ottawa
The author clarifies four challenges that federal systems are facing today:
1. the management of diversity, whether ethnic, religious, linguistic or national;
2. the practice of democracy, particularly in highly complex societies in which it is not yet thoroughly rooted;
3. the equilibrium between the centre and federated entities, and between the adoption of symmetric or asymmetric policies;
4. the quest for stability and justice by way of territorial redistribution of wealth.
– The author comments on the practice of federalism, as experienced in Germany, England, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Spain, Ethiopia, India, Switzerland and in the European Union.
– He finds that the existence of political parties with a single organizational structure across levels of government is conducive to political stability within federations.
– Canada borrows from two models of federalism: a “coming together” federalism, which principally aims to generate greater power and prosperity and a “holding together” federalism, which has the more modest goal of ensuring the survival of the state. The State of Federalism in the World 2010
– The experience of multinational federations shows that there exist no definitive solutions to the question of deep diversity. Managing this diversity is a premise of the functionality of such federations and it is illusory to think that they might, one day, function like what many commentators call “normal” countries. The degree of success of a federal arrangement must thus be evaluated by its capacity to manage rather than to eliminate conflict.
Federalism can certainly help in the resolution of conflicts, but it must be used in combination with other strategies, such as the sharing of power, the recognition of linguistic rights or the acceptance of asymmetric policies.
– There is an interesting empirical paradox regarding contemporary federalism. On the one hand, the federal model is in the minority as far as governance models go. Federalism is dominant in North America (Canada, United-States and Mexico) and popular in Europe (Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Russia, and also Spain, which is not formally a federation but whose structure is of federalist inspiration). It is pretty well represented in South America (Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela) and Oceania (Australia and Micronesia), but relatively uncommon in Africa (Ethiopia, Nigeria and the Comoros), Asia (India, Pakistan and Malaysia), the Middle-East (United Arab Emirates and, in an embryonic fashion, Iraq) and the Antilles (St. Kitts and Nevis). On the other hand, almost half of the world population lives in federations. Indeed, among the 15 most populated states, nine are federations.
– This paradox leads to an important point. Federalism is a model of predilection for the governance of large and complex states. Further, among these states, and other
smaller ones, we find many well-established democracies and others whose government is based on the principle of popular sovereignty, though with different levels of success. Many federal states are wealthy or present an important potential for wealth due to their natural resources.
– These observations are useful for understanding the major challenges confronting federal systems today. Indeed, the two most fundamental ones are undoubtedly democracy and the management of diversity. Achieving a balance between the centre and the federated entities and the territorial distribution of wealth are two others. Before discussing these challenges, the present text puts forward certain conceptual and empirical distinctions, which are needed for a better understanding of federalism and of federations.
