Democracy

Dec 7, 2010

Imara

8 Comments

Federalism & Democracy Development

Wiki map of current federalist states.

In light of the recent domestic concerns raised by the “repeal amendment” and growing concerns over the role of federalism in the United States, I thought it might be worthwhile to discuss the subject through the lens of democracy building.  Of course here in the US there are few things as American as State’s rights, ranking somewhere between baseball and apple pie, but it seems seldom asked just how useful is federalism in pursuit of effective governance.

Federalism does seem to offers tangible opportunities in addressing issues of discrimination against regional minorities and groups on the margins.  Commonly Federalism seems applied as a means to tie together loose gatherings of people in effort to govern beyond lines of culture, certainly this is a useful step toward creation of states in areas with diverse groups.  Yet these attempts have also led to stagnation, inaction and continued segregation.  Still, in states like Bosnia-Herzegovina it’s hard to imagine any system of governance addressing the people’s long history of strife, so perhaps an end to cultural/tribal violence is a good starting point.

Another typical argument for federalism lays in the innate value of decentralization of government.  The effect of decentralization on issues of corruption and separation of powers is notable enough that decentralization seems to have been accepted as a good in and of itself.  Concerns over “big government” certainly aren’t limited to the United States and concerns of this sort might help explain the trend toward Federalism in the last few decades.

In the case of developed democracies Federalism serves quite a different role.  Among other benefits, the system of federalism contributes to the process of “deliberation”, slowing changes down lest government become reactionary in response to the will of the populace.  Interestingly much of the literature on trends toward Federalism and decentralization of governments focuses on periods before our most recent economic crisis.  I wonder if the trend has survived unscathed.

Other

8 Comments

• 
  David December 7, 2010 at 4:20 pm

  Good post Imara, I agree that the benefits of federalism need to go under greater scrutiny. I do have to, however, disagree with a few points you made. Namely, I don’t really see federalism as a meaningful way to ensure the equality of marginalized groups. In the United States, for example, federalism was the reason that minorities had less rights than whites for most of our history. Likewise, in many developing countries, decentralization efforts often lead to worse conditions for women, as it means they are then governed by more conservative, rural elites. You are certainly correct to note that some regional autonomy may be useful for these goals, but I think the most important way to ensure adequate rights/lack of sectarian tension, is to make sure all groups feel like they have some veto power at the national level. Even if one ethnic group is allowed to control it’s own local budget, that group is still connected to the national budget in terms of revenue collected from taxes, and revenue received. How this relationship is perceived by that group, and the rest of the nation, will be critical in ethnic relations with the rest of the country.

  It’s interesting that you bring up Bosnia and Herzegovina as people are currently debating ways to reform it’s electoral system. BiH is a complex, consociational system that ensures citizens only get to vote for members of their own ethnic group. While this made since post-Dayton, it’s hard to see how the country can move beyond ethnic fragmentation unless candidates are able to compete among the entire electorate. (http://www.electionguide.org/country.php?ID=28) Belgium is a good example of
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  Barak December 7, 2010 at 4:39 pm

  I am with the decentralization cynics as well. Decentralization has been a fad among donors for some time, but often fails to produce better governance. David is right that it can easily make things worse, for example, by giving power to local elites or exacerbating rural-urban inequalities. Using “states rights” in the US to enforce racist laws is a perfect example of this.
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  Jack December 8, 2010 at 3:48 pm

  The subplot in this discussion is that we need to know a lot about a country before we decide whether federalism would be good for it or not. (By implication, need to know what “good” we’re maximizing, too.) At a minimum, what we need to know includes information about predominant cleavages and their political salience. Equally fundamental is the question of what’s federalized. What institutional variables characterize the federal system in question? What powers are devolved and to what extents? Just looking at that map, there are big reasons to question a binary or even ordinal classification. Is Russia federal? Doesn’t the Kremlin appoint all oblast executives? We might jam Canada, the US, Australia, and Germany into an ordinal scale, but there are huge qualitative differences. For example, devolution is deep in Canada and has an ethnocultural dimension. Is federalism good? Knowing seems like an inherently qualitative exercise.
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  Barak December 8, 2010 at 11:04 pm

  I agree with Jack fully. Rarely in any policy discussions can we answer the question “is X good?” in the abstract. We need to know more about the dependent variable: good for what or whom. The assumption that decentralization is good for democracy and/or more effective government is far from self-evident and often flat wrong.
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  Imara December 9, 2010 at 12:44 pm

  Largely I thought this post would be a good way to pick a few clever people’s brains on the subject of federalism. Glad to see I wasn’t disappointed
• 
  Barak December 9, 2010 at 3:12 pm

  So you are baiting us? Well, I guess you see we bite easily. On the bright side, I guess this bodes well for provocative blog posts.
• 
  Jack December 9, 2010 at 11:35 pm

  I am easily baited when a literature review isn’t involved.
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