Among international rankings, Austria is often considered as a rather centralized country given that the Federal Constitution does not offer many legislative competences for the Länder (federal units). After an overview of key features of Austrian federalism as laid down in the Federal Constitution, this entry seeks to compare demographic facts of Austrian federalism with those of decentralized unitary systems. Further, recent issues of the country’s political discourse are outlined.
The introduction of federalism in Iraq was meant to address the lingering ethnic conflict between Kurds and Arabs and prevent an imminent breakup of the country. Federalism was supposed to offer the Kurds a form of local self-determination by setting up a bulwark against the Arab policy of assimilation and other forms of discrimination. The paper presents the Iraqi brand of federalism and attempts to explain its several shortcomings by testing the argument stemming from the paper’s title.
We provide enough evidence to prove that Iraqi federalism rests mainly on imposed institutions with no supportive local political traditions and culture. Acute nationalist feelings among the Kurds, a result of historically unrealized statehood, constitute an important part of the problem, too.
Unionism swept back to power in the United Kingdom in December 2019 in a new Conservative government whose Prime Minister is also Minister for the Union. It committed itself to swift withdrawal from the European Union, with the likely effect of weakening the Union with Scotland and with Northern Ireland. Meanwhile unionism in Northern Ireland – in the form of the Democratic Unionist Party – has already undermined the union by its support for – and eventual betrayal by – hard-line British Conservatism. Why unionisms – which promise progressive and flexible politics – have such effects is the topic of this article. (This is the theme of a Special Issue of Irish Political Studies, edited by Jennifer Todd and Dawn Walsh, to be published in 2020. See Todd 2019).
This contribution describes how a Catalan bid for more autonomy and for national recognition miscarried in 2010 after long negotiations. In this process, the major part of Catalan nationalism turned towards independence. We follow the different steps that led to the show-down in October 2017, with the failed declaration of independence and the temporary suspension of Catalan autonomy. New elections in Catalonia and in Spain have been of no use to get out of the quandary. While federal solutions if combined with a constitutional recognition of Spain’s plurinational character might be highly advisable to accommodate minority nations like Catalonia and to combine democracy and constitutionalism, fragmented party systems and minority governments on both sides make the necessary constitutional amendments even more improbable than ever.
In spite of numerous suspensions in its initial years, nationalist and unionist parties shared power for an uninterrupted 10 years from 2007-17. At the time of writing, however, Northern Ireland finds itself in a seemingly intractable political crisis, produced by both internal and external factors, and the future of power-sharing hangs in the balance. The impasse underlines the need for broad inclusion in power-sharing arrangements, beyond the core ethno-national parties. It further speaks to the importance of continued constructive engagement from external actors, who were central to the conflict and remain central to its resolution.
In the years of transition from the authoritarian apartheid system to a new constitutional democracy, South Africa has chosen decentralisation to solve its deep-seated economic, political and societal discrepancies. This paper argues that federal principles, enshrined in both the Interim Constitution and the 1996 Constitution, played a key role in the constitutional transition to democracy and strongly contributed to the achievement of the negotiations between the different parties. However, South Africa’s (quasi) federal system is now highly centralized, with a declining autonomy for its constituent units.
The Solomon Islands has struggled with issues of decentralisation and devolution ever since independence, but so far steered clear of embracing a federal constitution. Aspirations for ‘state government’ were complicated by the arrival of an Australian-led intervention mission over 2003-17, but a federal model also poses acute dilemmas for the country’s political elite. The Solomon Islands has become a state that repeatedly disavows its unitary form of government but so far without enacting any of the many iterations of its draft federal constitution.
Federation and federalism are not equal categories. Sometimes federation is very formal with the absence of federalism, but flowering unitarism. Such form can be a result of the intention to provide more stability and security to the state, but where is the border which ensures the equilibrium in consideration of regional interests and rights and at the same time with paying respect to federal powers? This contribution analyses the implications of federalism and unitarism in a federal state on issues of stability and security using the example of contemporary Russia. The author reveals two major stages of contemporary federal development in Russia: one with huge decentralization, which led to cracked stability of the federal state at the end of the 20th century, and unitarization of the federation as the next step aiming to stabilize federation as the modern stage. This contribution concludes that what is important to understand is the border, where the level of unitarism is still acceptable in such a type of community in order not to lose control and equilibrium and finally to ensure stability and security.
There is hardly something that could be called “federal spirit” in Germany. Mostly, the German citizens have little knowledge about which jurisdiction is in charge of what. If things do not work well – like schooling in most of the Länder currently – politicians suggest, and citizens ask for centralized solutions. The roots of this apathy towards the federal order can be found in the formation of the German Empire of 1871: The agreement was that the German states (since 1919: Länder) wanted common federal regulations with their consent but the implementation was to remain in their hands. This concept is valid until today. The Basic Law stipulates: “The Länder shall execute federal laws in their own right …” Still today we have a cleavage between the “Prussian” Protest North and East and the Catholic South. This cleavage is underpinned today by an economic cleavage, the South is more prosperous and richer than the North and in particular the East. Therefore, the North and the East has a stronger leaning towards the federal government while the South argues for more independence and mot autonomy for the Länder.
In multinational federations, tensions around national identities, rights and entitlements, and power-sharing arrangements are endemic and never finally resolved. In Canada, simultaneous constitutional and fiscal crises in the 1990s brought into question the legitimacy of the ‘federal bargain’ at the core of the citizenship regime. The federal government’s response was to introduce a number of institutional, programmatic, fiscal and symbolic reforms that adjusted the delicate balance between national unity and the accommodation of diversity. This pragmatic political vision, replete with certain asymmetries and ambiguities, enabled Canada to rebuild and rebalance its way to its own unique shade of federalism.