Ronald L. Watts, Professor Emeritus of Political Studies at Queen's University |
Federalism |
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There are roughly 25 federal countries in the world today, which together represent 40 per cent of the world's population. They include some of the largest and most complex democracies - India, the US, Brazil, Germany and Mexico. Their system of government, while it can be complex, has made many federations amongst the most prosperous countries in the world with high standards of government services. Historically, most federations were the result of previously separate entities - the American 13 colonies, the Swiss cantons - coming together to form a federal government. The entities would keep some powers to themselves but others were pooled with the central government of the new country. More recently, previously unitary countries - such as Spain, Belgium and South Africa - have adopted federal structures as a way to maintain common central government for some purposes while empowering regional governments for other purposes. In many very diverse societies, a federal system of government permits a recognition both of this diversity and of common interests and identity at the same time.
John Kincaid, Professor at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania and director of the College's Meyner Center for the Study of State and Local Government gave a useful definition of federalism: Federalism is essentially a system of voluntary self-rule and shared rule. This is implied in the derivation of the word 'federal', which comes from the Latin foedus, meaning covenant. A covenant signifies a binding partnership among co-equals in which the parties to the covenant retain their individual identity and integrity while creating a new entity, such as a family or a body politic, that has its own identity and integrity as well. A covenant also signifies a morally binding commitment in which the partners behave toward each other in accord with the spirit of the law rather than merely the letter of the law. - John Kincaid, Handbook of Federal Countries: 2002, Introduction, Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2002. Ron Watts, former Principal of Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario and Fellow of the Institute of Intergovernmental Relations, gave a functional definition of federalism: Federalism provides a technique of constitutional organization that permits action by a shared government for certain common purposes, together with autonomous action by constituent units of government for purposes that relate to maintaining their distinctiveness, with each level directly responsible to its own electorate. Indeed, taking account of such examples as Canada, the United States and Mexico in North America, Brazil, Venezuela and Argentina in South America, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Belgium and Spain in Europe, Russia in Europe and Asia, Australia, India, Pakistan and Malaysia in Asia, and Nigeria, Ethiopia, and South Africa in Africa, some 40 percent of the world's population today live in countries that can be considered or claim to be federal, and many of these federations are clearly multicultural or even multinational in their composition. - Ron Watts, Federalism Today, the background paper written for the International Conference on Federalism 2002, Saint Gallen, Switzerland, August 2002.
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The Federalism Library Federalism by Country From the Chairman Forum President on Federalism
For external articles on federalism also visit: The Canadian Encyclopedia/federalism Wikipedia-Forum of Federations
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