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Comparative Politics of Federalism

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  1. Introduction
  2.  
  3. Federalism is a system of government that sits uneasily between a unitary government with administrative decentralization and a confederacy composed of independent states that choose to coordinate their activity in some realms, such as defense or trade. The comparative study of federations is broad, ranging from internal fiscal arrangements to economic performance to political representation and identity. Uniting these diverse fields is a common interest in federalism as a system of government, adopted for a purpose, and failing or meeting aspirations. Federal systems vary widely in construction, in purpose, and in practice. The system effects are complex and often unexpected. Hence, adopting the federal form is an important constitutional decision with significant—and sometimes surprising—consequences. In this article, we concentrate on two aspects of the literature on comparative federalism: the postulated benefits of federalism and theories to explain its inconsistent performance.
  4.  
  5. General Overviews
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  7. As a field, political science has been working on (and arguing about) an understanding of what federalism might achieve and under what conditions it might be successful since Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and especially James Madison wrote under the pseudonym Publius (Publius 1787–1788). Political scientists and those in closely related disciplines, particularly economics and law, continue to search for an understanding of optimal constitutional design and the dynamics of federal systems in practice. The study of federalism is both normative and positive, often within the same work. Positive analyses characterize the federal system, make predictions about what the system might achieve, formulate hypotheses about what causes a federal system to perform well or poorly, and measure empirical outcomes (e.g., Wheare 1946; Riker 1964; Filippov, et al. 2004; Ostrom 2008; Bednar 2009). Positive political theory also captures the effect of federalism on other political or economic activities, such as the production of policy, the extent of citizens’ political participation, or the shape of the party system. The study of federalism is also normative: as seen in Ostrom 2008, Elazar 1987, and Burgess 2006, the theories characterize the relationship between the people and their government, and the way that federalism builds and accommodates diverse values and identities. Hueglin and Fenna 2006 and Elazar 1987 capture well the philosophy of thought that underpins the concept of federalism. This article focuses primarily on the positive literature.
  8.  
  9. Bednar, Jenna. The Robust Federation: Principles of Design. Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
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  11. A general theory of federalism that is based on the incentives that the federal structure creates for the component parts. Defiance of constitutional boundaries is to be expected, and no single institutional safeguard is sufficient to ensure compliance. A system of redundant and complementary safeguards is necessary for a federation that is robust and adaptive.
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  13. Burgess, Michael. Comparative Federalism: Theory and Practice. New York: Routledge, 2006.
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  15. Burgess’s text treats federalism and federations broadly, from intellectual and empirical origins, to close studies of several federations in operation, to analysis of federal-system failure and success. Rather than accept a single, general theory of federalism’s origins, Burgess proposes a theory of circumstantial causation of federations that embraces a wide variety of internal and external factors. Federations are diverse in form, purpose, and practice.
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  17. Elazar, Daniel J. Exploring Federalism. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1987.
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  19. Elazar provides a comprehensive account of the origins of federalism and describes different structural forms of federalism; this comparative work describes how federalism satisfies diverse populations. Elazar emphasizes that the essence of federalism is not the formal structure but the relationships between the units.
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  21. Filippov, Mikhail, Peter C. Ordeshook, and Olga Shvetsova. Designing Federalism: A Theory of Self-Sustainable Federal Institutions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
  22. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511610875Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  23. This book links the rise of federally integrated political parties to increased opportunities for good policymaking. When parties are not integrated across subnational and national levels of government, policymaking can be myopic and beholden to constituency desires. When parties are integrated across subnational and national levels, however, politicians are motivated partly by party constraints and push for less-myopic policymaking.
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  25. Hueglin, Thomas O., and Alan Fenna. Comparative Federalism: A Systematic Inquiry. Peterborough, ON: Broadview, 2006.
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  27. Hueglin and Fenna draw upon differences in constitutional traditions and institutional design to identify four main models of federalism, as practiced in the United States, Canada, Germany, and the European Union. They highlight the importance of judicial review in stabilizing and changing the federal system.
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  29. Ostrom, Vincent. The Political Theory of a Compound Republic: Designing the American Experiment. 3d ed. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008.
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  31. Ostrom applies his influential theory of polycentric governance—where decision-making authority is dispersed among actors and agencies, and democracy emerges from the bottom up—to the American federal system. Ostrom presents the federal principle of overlapping, polycentric decision points as prior and necessary for democracy to thrive.
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  33. Publius. The Federalist Papers. 1787–1788.
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  35. James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay make the case for replacing the early US Articles of Confederation government with a federal model. The authors construct the basic intellectual framework of federalism. Accessible online via the US Library of Congress website.
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  37. Riker, William H. Federalism: Origin, Operation, and Significance. Basic Studies in Politics. Boston: Little, Brown, 1964.
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  39. Riker hypothesizes that federalism emerges due to military necessity or expansionist drive. He categorizes countries by type of federal government. The party system and citizen loyalty maintain the distribution of authority between levels of government. Riker concludes with a condemnation of federalism because it enables racist political enclaves to persist.
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  41. Wheare, K. C. Federal Government. London: Oxford University Press, 1946.
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  43. A classic study of federalism, updated regularly throughout the 1900s, Wheare describes the “federal principle” of divided government, where authority is distributed between two levels of government.
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  45. Data Sets
  46.  
  47. Although federalism is a subject of significant academic scrutiny, large and easily accessible data sets devoted to federal topics have historically been few in number. However, this pattern is changing as several data sets now exist that cater to different dimensions of study on federalism-related issues. This section contains references to quantitative data, and Country Reports and Other Qualitative Data will describe qualitative comparative data. The OECD Fiscal Decentralisation Database houses fiscal federalism data pertaining to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, while World Bank Fiscal Decentralization Indicators Database includes developing countries as well. Hooghe, et al. 2010 captures the relative strength of regional governments. The Ethnic Power Relations Database is a valuable tool for research on peace-preserving federalism. For electoral studies, the Harvard Election Data Archive contains fine-grained data on electoral results across different levels of government in the United States, and the Constituency-Level Elections Archive contains cross-national lower-house election data. Data related to federalism and decentralization present a variety of analytical challenges and must be used with care. Rodden 2004 is a useful guide to avoiding misinterpretations of the data. Marks, et al. 2008 suggests methods for measuring regional authority.
  48.  
  49. Ansolabehere, Stephen, and Jonathan Rodden. Harvard Election Data Archive.
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  51. Contains shapefiles as well as electoral returns for US state and federal elections, in most cases with boundaries drawn at the precinct level. It is a particularly useful data resource for those conducting spatial analysis.
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  53. Cederman, Lars-Erik, Brian Min, and Andreas Wimmer. Ethnic Power Relations Dataset.
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  55. Contains data on politically relevant ethnic groups and access to power in 156 countries from 1946 to 2005. Ethnic Power Relations (EPR) is dynamic, showing how changes in ethnic politics over time affect access to power. It is a valuable tool for research on the peace-preserving merits of federalism. The EPR data set is also available in a geocoded format for investigations of spatial questions.
  56. Find this resource:
  57. Hooghe, Liesbet, Gary Marks, and Arjan H. Schakel. The Rise of Regional Authority: A Comparative Study of 42 Democracies. London: Routledge, 2010.
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  59. The database, known as the Regional Authority Index, measures ten dimensions of regional authority (e.g., institutional depth, policy scope, fiscal autonomy, borrowing autonomy), generating annual scores for regional governments in eighty countries for the period 1950–2010.
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  61. Kollman, Ken, Allen Hicken, Daniele Caramani, and David Backer. Constituency-Level Elections Archive. Center for Political Studies, University of Michigan.
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  63. A repository of election results at the constituency level for lower-house legislative elections. Over 1,100 election results are available from a broad variety of countries.
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  65. Marks, Gary, Liesbet Hooghe, and Arjan H. Schakel. “Measuring Regional Authority.” In Special Issue: Regional Authority in 42 Countries, 1950–2006: A Measure and Five Hypotheses. Regional & Federal Studies 18.2–3 (2008): 111–121.
  66. DOI: 10.1080/13597560801979464Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  67. Written as a methodological guide to accompany the release of the Regional Authority Index database, the article contains substantial advice concerning measurement of regional authority more generally.
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  69. OECD Fiscal Decentralisation Database.
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  71. Contains data on the tax autonomy, revenue and spending totals, balances, and revenue structures of state and local governments across OECD countries.
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  73. Rodden, Jonathan. “Comparative Federalism and Decentralization: On Meaning and Measurement.” Comparative Politics 36.4 (2004): 481–500.
  74. DOI: 10.2307/4150172Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  75. A useful and important warning about pitfalls in using federalism and decentralization data. Rodden clarifies a variety of concepts and suggests methods to avoid misuse of the data.
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  77. World Bank Fiscal Decentralization Indicators Database.
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  79. Collects data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Government Statistics database and includes expenditures by economic sector, revenue by type, and vertical imbalance. The World Bank notes limitations in country coverage as well as the completeness and accuracy of data provided.
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  81. Journals
  82.  
  83. Scholarship on federalism spans a wide range of fields, from economics to political science to public policy to law, and therefore publications often appear in journals that are of more-general interest. However the Journal of Common Market Studies, Perspectives on Federalism, Publius, and Regional & Federal Studies are English-language journals either dedicated primarily to federalism or that frequently publish articles on federalism.
  84.  
  85. Journal of Common Market Studies.
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  87. Focusing particularly on European integration and European Union policy and politics, the Journal of Common Market Studies is published six times annually and is peer reviewed. It has a strong presence both in political science and economics and often publishes analyses of particular countries or policies.
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  89. Perspectives on Federalism.
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  91. A free online journal launched in 2009, including peer-reviewed submissions as well as topical reports from specialists.
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  93. Publius: The Journal of Federalism.
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  95. Publius publishes articles on federalism in theory and practice. As an international journal it is an outlet both for US domestic applications and comparative federalism. Each year it publishes a review of the state of American federalism. It is sponsored by the Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations section of the American Political Science Association. It is peer reviewed and is published quarterly.
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  97. Regional & Federal Studies.
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  99. A quarterly peer-reviewed journal publishing articles on divided authority and multilevel government. The journal is a particularly strong source for issues related to European regional governance.
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  101. Country Reports and Other Qualitative Data
  102.  
  103. Quite often, federalism scholars ask questions that require qualitative data to analyze. A variety of resources exist for expert-generated country reports and rich case studies. Watts 1999 and Elazar 1994 are useful handbooks. The Federalism by Country page on the Forum of Federations website is a large repository of background information on federal countries. Eldis aggregates country reports about the developing world, with a section dedicated to local governance and decentralization. The Council of Europe’s Country Reports on the Structure and Operation of Local and Regional Authorities and the European Union Committee of the Region’s Division of Powers gives country-specific data on assignment of competences for European countries. Finally, the Comparative Constitutions Project documents constitutional change and allows for comparative institutional analysis across a number of countries.
  104.  
  105. Comparative Constitutions Project.
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  107. This project compiles chronologies of constitutional change across a broad set of countries and provides English translations of constitutional events, allowing researchers to trace pathways of constitutional development across comparative contexts.
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  109. Council of Europe. Country Reports on the Structure and Operation of Local and Regional Authorities.
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  111. Separate reports for each of the forty-seven members of the Council of Europe, surveying the structure and operation of local and regional democracy, including information about the institutional arrangements, status of elected representatives, elections, finance, and distribution of competences.
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  113. Decentralization & Local Government. Eldis.
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  115. An online repository for policy reports and data concerning the developing world. Their section on decentralization and local government may be of particular interest to scholars of federalism, as well as their country and region profiles.
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  117. Elazar, Daniel J., comp. and ed. Federal Systems of the World: A Handbook of Federal, Confederal and Autonomy Arrangements. 2d ed. London: Longman, 1994.
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  119. Elazar’s catalogue of federal and quasi-federal systems is an encyclopedic reference. Individual country reports include brief characterizations of constitutional principles and design, general features of the government, and an assessment of the federation’s political culture.
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  121. European Union Committee of the Regions. Division of Powers.
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  123. A menu-driven tool to look up the assignment of competences for all European Union member states, candidate states, and potential candidates.
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  125. Federalism by Country. Forum of Federations.
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  127. An international governance organization founded by Canada and with nine other participating federal systems. In addition to providing consultation to federal systems worldwide, the Forum of Federations is a central repository of background information on federalism and federations. Profiles of federal countries are available, as are reports on topics related to federal governance. The “Federalism Library” contains reports in a number of languages. It is an excellent source for country-specific analysis.
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  129. International Association of Centers for Federalism Studies. Country Reports.
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  131. A global association of twenty-five university-hosted centers for federalism studies. Member centers periodically post updated country reports. The site also provides links to the publications of all member centers.
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  133. Watts, Ronald L. Comparing Federal Systems. 2d ed. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1999.
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  135. This monograph provides an overview of the variety of federal systems that exist in the world today.
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  137. Definitions of Federalism
  138.  
  139. Definitions of federalism generally fall into one of two categories: they either treat federalism as an indefinite segment on a continuum of subtypes or as a type of governance distinguishable from other forms of decentralization. In the first category, federalism falls along an axis of decentralization, so that one might move from a unitary system to decentralized administration to federalism to a confederation, by turning a dial on how much authority is meted out to the national and subnational governments (Wheare 1946, cited under General Overviews). The definition in Riker 1964 (cited under General Overviews) ties each level’s autonomy to a constitutional guarantee but otherwise shares Wheare’s definition. Given that in nearly all domains and nearly all federal systems, authority is shared between levels (as Grodzins 1966 makes clear with its memorable marble cake analogy), with these representations, distinguishing federalism from its nearest neighbors—administrative decentralization and confederation—is a judgment of the analyst. Halberstam 2012 improves on the Rikerian definition by specifically incorporating shared authorities: federalism is “the coexistence within a compound polity of multiple levels of government each with constitutionally grounded claims to some degree of organizational autonomy and jurisdictional authority.” The second category of federalism definitions posits federalism as qualitatively distinct both from decentralized administration and the confederacy. The distinction arises not on the basis of the degree of decentralization but instead on the relationship between the triumvirate of national government, state governments, and the people they govern. In these definitions, a system of government is federal if both levels of government have a direct relationship with the people, and neither one may dissolve the other (see James Madison’s Federalist 39 [in Publius 1787–1788], as well as Bednar 2009, both cited under General Overviews). In a direct relationship, the government has authority to design and implement policy that directly affects the public, and the public holds that level of government accountable for those decisions, generally through an electoral connection. Although accountability is possible in authoritarian systems, this definition is most amenable to the study of democratic federations. An advantage of a precise definition of federalism is that it opens a research space for analyses of why federations fail to meet expectations of multilevel governance, as well as why some systems are federal in practice, despite lacking formal provisions to structure them as federations. In addition to the distinctions above, scholarship increasingly probes asymmetries in the distribution of authority between subnational governments, where some subunits are endowed with greater authority than others (e.g., Benz 1999, Burgess 2006 [cited under General Overviews], Congleton 2006, Elazar 1987, Stepan 1999, Swenden 2002).
  140.  
  141. Benz, Arthur. “From Unitary to Asymmetric Federalism in Germany: Taking Stock after 50 Years.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 29.4 (1999): 55–78.
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  143. Distributive conflicts, including asymmetries between East and West Germany, affected the development of the German federal system as well as the formation of a regionalized party system.
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  145. Congleton, Roger D. “Asymmetric Federalism and the Political Economy of Decentralization.” In Handbook of Fiscal Federalism. Edited by Ehtisham Ahmad and Giorgio Brosio, 131–153. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2006.
  146. DOI: 10.4337/9781847201515Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  147. An overview of the theory and practice of asymmetric federalism, where bargaining-power imbalances derived from fiscal asymmetries result in authority asymmetries.
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  149. Elazar, Daniel J. Exploring Federalism. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1987.
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  151. Federations may be asymmetric or symmetric in character. In asymmetric federations, the central government typically has different structural relationships with individual subnational governments or groupings of subnational governments. In symmetric federations, the central government has the same underlying structural relationship with all subnational governments.
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  153. Grodzins, Morton. The American System: A New View of Government in the United States. Edited by Daniel J. Elazar. Rand McNally Political Science. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966.
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  155. A classic rejection of the dual federalism model, which posited that competences were neatly divided between levels of government. Instead, federalism in the United States resembles a “marble cake,” with federal and state governments sharing authority in important policy domains. Reprinted as recently as 1984 (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction).
  156. Find this resource:
  157. Halberstam, Daniel. “Federalism: Theory, Policy, Law.” In The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Constitutional Law. Edited by Michel Rosenfeld and András Sajó, 576–608. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
  158. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199578610.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  159. More than an overview of federalism theory, the article repairs several inconsistencies, delves deeply into the theory of subsidiarity, and proposes parallels between federalism and different scales of governance, from local to global.
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  161. Stepan, Alfred C. “Federalism and Democracy: Beyond the U.S. Model.” Journal of Democracy 10.4 (1999): 19–34.
  162. DOI: 10.1353/jod.1999.0072Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  163. An article distinguishing federalism along several dimensions: as demos-enabling or demos-constraining (encouraging democratic participation or limiting the effects of majoritarianism); holding together or putting together (depending on the initial motivation for the federal union), and symmetric or asymmetric.
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  165. Swenden, Wilfried. “Asymmetric Federalism and Coalition-Making in Belgium.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 32.3 (2002): 67–88.
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  167. Swenden uses the case of Belgium’s asymmetric federalism to argue that the concept of asymmetry must include an understanding of the party system.
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  169. Federalism’s Purpose and Performance
  170.  
  171. Federalism is commonly theorized as a means of organizing a polity to achieve goals, particularly military security, improved economic performance, and governance of a diverse population. It is frequently seen as an independent variable whose presence might remedy a host of economic and political challenges (Inman and Rubinfeld 1997; Bednar 2009, cited under General Overviews). Even ranking the various priorities of government—security, economic growth, and political representation—may challenge a diverse society, and federalism provides an opportunity for localized expression of values (Kincaid 1995).
  172.  
  173. Inman, Robert P., and Daniel L. Rubinfeld. “Rethinking Federalism.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 11.4 (1997): 43–64.
  174. DOI: 10.1257/jep.11.4.43Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  175. Inman and Rubinfeld weigh three models of federalism: economic, cooperative, and democratic, according to the differing principles of economic efficiency, political participation, and liberty. Setting up the institutions to establish each involves hard choices to manage competing priorities. The article concludes with an analysis of the 1996 welfare reform in the United States, arguing that the model of cooperative federalism best accounts for the decentralization of welfare policy.
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  177. Kincaid, John. “Values and Value Tradeoffs in Federalism.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 25.2 (1995): 29–44.
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  179. A defense of the practical merits of federalism. Many economic and political choices have tradeoffs without a “one-size-fits-all” solution. The decentralization inherent in federalism allows for customized solutions.
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  181. Economic Growth
  182.  
  183. Under some conditions, federalism may encourage economic growth. Weingast 1995; Montinola, et al. 1995; and Qian and Weingast 1997 identify “market-preserving” conditions under which federalism stimulates economic growth by constraining overspending. Wibbels 2000 analyzes data on economic performance and finds that in developing countries, federalism dampens economic performance because subnational governments are insufficiently restrained. Braun and Trein 2013 examines the resilience of federal systems to economic shocks.
  184.  
  185. Braun, Dietmar, and Philipp Trein. “Consolidation Policies in Federal Countries.” In Staatstätigkeiten, Parteien und Demokratie: Festskrift für Manfred G. Schmidt. Edited by Klaus Armingeon, 139–161. Wiesbaden, Germany: Springer Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2013.
  186. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-658-01853-5Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  187. In response to fiscal crisis, federal systems have a particular disadvantage, because policy must be coordinated across all government units with fiscal responsibility. In examining recovery strategies across eleven systems to the 2008–2009 fiscal crisis, Braun and Trein find that those systems with strong institutional safeguards to constrain subnational spending were most successful and were least likely to lead to alterations in the federal-state balance of authorities.
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  189. Montinola, Gabriella, Yingyi Qian, and Barry R. Weingast. “Federalism, Chinese Style: The Political Basis for Economic Success in China.” World Politics 48.1 (1995): 50–81.
  190. DOI: 10.1353/wp.1995.0003Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  191. The logic of market-preserving federalism is used to understand economic growth in China.
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  193. Qian, Yingyi, and Barry R. Weingast. “Federalism as a Commitment to Preserving Market Incentives.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 11.4 (1997): 83–92.
  194. DOI: 10.1257/jep.11.4.83Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  195. Market-preserving conditions can be sustained by utilizing federalism to prevent central governments from compromising on future successes and bailing out future failures.
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  197. Weingast, Barry R. “The Economic Role of Political Institutions: Market-Preserving Federalism and Economic Development.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 11.1 (1995): 1–31.
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  199. Economic growth depends on governmental enforcement of contracts and prudent extraction (but not overextraction) of rents from society. However, governments that are powerful enough to enforce contracts can also extract excessive rents, reducing economic growth. This paper posits that federalism can “preserve markets” and facilitate growth by allocating monetary-policy authority and contract enforcement to the central governments and setting authority for fiscal policy at the subnational level, where governments face hard budget constraints.
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  201. Wibbels, Erik. “Federalism and the Politics of Macroeconomic Policy and Performance.” American Journal of Political Science 44.4 (2000): 687–702.
  202. DOI: 10.2307/2669275Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  203. With economic data from forty-six developing countries from 1979 to 1995, Wibbels empirically demonstrates the importance of institutions that incentivize subnational governments to practice fiscal discipline.
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  205. Economic Efficiency
  206.  
  207. Related to economic growth, economic efficiency is concerned with the appropriate allocation of expenditures and revenues, as well as, more generally, with the size of government and the allocation of authority. In Tiebout 1956, decentralization coupled with citizen mobility leads to subnational government efficiency; Hayek 1939 describes the same advantage in constraining subnational taxation and argues also that organized subnational interests limit federal legislation. Oates 1972 builds on Charles Tiebout’s analysis and formalizes the principle of subsidiarity, arguing that policymaking should be conditionally decentralized as long as policies produce no externalities. Hooghe and Marks 2009 reverses the question, investigating to what extent efficiency concerns drive the allocation of authority across levels of government, and Kollman, et al. 2000 derives conditions for optimal assignment of authority on the basis of centralized versus decentralized search for policy solutions. Brennan and Buchanan 1980 argues that federalism reduces the size of government, but Oates 1985 finds no empirical support for the claim. Intergovernmental transfers can introduce perverse incentives and spending inefficiencies, including a phenomenon known as the “flypaper effect”: money sticks where it hits, rather than substituting for local expenditures. Gramlich 1969 and Courant, et al. 1979 discuss the “flypaper effect” and how it has the potential to reduce the efficiency gains of decentralization.
  208.  
  209. Brennan, Geoffrey, and James M. Buchanan. The Power to Tax: Analytical Foundations of a Fiscal Constitution. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
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  211. Positing the leviathan thesis of centralized governance, optimally fiscal authority is decentralized to control the size of government. Reprinted as recently as 2006.
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  213. Courant, Paul, Edward Gramlich, and Daniel Rubinfeld. “The Stimulative Effects of Intergovernmental Grants: Or Why Money Sticks Where It Hits.” In Fiscal Federalism and Grants-in-Aid. Edited by Peter Mieszkowski and William H. Oakland, 5–21. Papers on Public Economics 1. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press, 1979.
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  215. The authors give a rationale for why the flypaper effect occurs. Local government officials can spend federal grant money without voter oversight, while they cannot do the same for monies that come through local sources. The result suggests that the flypaper effect can blunt economic gains from federalism.
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  217. Gramlich, Edward M. “State and Local Governments and Their Budget Constraint.” International Economic Review 10.2 (1969): 163–182.
  218. DOI: 10.2307/2525551Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  219. A discussion of the essence of what would later be called the “flypaper effect”: that state governments tend to spend unconditional grant money rather than use it in a more efficient manner.
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  221. Hayek, Friedrich A. “The Economic Conditions of Interstate Federalism.” New Commonwealth Quarterly 5.2 (1939): 131–149.
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  223. The advantages of a common market include reducing a state’s ability to tax, because capital and labor would be motivated to move elsewhere, and the division of interests between states makes federal legislation more difficult to pass. Overall, the effect of federalism is to reduce the size and interventions of the government.
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  225. Hooghe, Liesbet, and Gary Marks. “Does Efficiency Shape the Territorial Structure of Government?” Annual Review of Political Science 12 (2009): 225–241.
  226. DOI: 10.1146/annurev.polisci.12.041107.102315Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  227. Using three conceptions of efficiency (technical, allocative, and jurisdictional), Hooghe and Marks explain regularities in the territorial division of authorities.
  228. Find this resource:
  229. Kollman, Ken, John H. Miller, and Scott E. Page. “Decentralization and the Search for Policy Solutions.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 16.1 (2000): 102–128.
  230. DOI: 10.1093/jleo/16.1.102Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  231. The authors derive conditions for optimal allocation of policymaking assignments between states and federal government. States can solve moderately difficult problems better than the central government because of the diversity of their policy experimentation. However, centralization is necessary to efficiently solve problems of high difficulty, due to greater government capacity.
  232. Find this resource:
  233. Oates, Wallace E. Fiscal Federalism. Edited by William J. Baumol. Harbrace Series in Business and Economics. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Jovanovich, 1972.
  234. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  235. A book that takes Tiebout’s argument of beneficial intergovernmental competition and contends that policy should be decentralized unless cost savings accrue from centralization or decentralization generates undesirable externalities. This finding is called Oates’s decentralization theorem and undergirds the concept of subsidiarity, or a conditional preference for decentralized government. Republished as recently as 2011 (Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar).
  236. Find this resource:
  237. Oates, Wallace E. “Searching for Leviathan: An Empirical Study.” American Economic Review 75.4 (1985): 748–757.
  238. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  239. Testing the hypothesis that local financial control should reduce the public sector, Oates finds little support for the thesis in a cross-national study as well as a study of the American states.
  240. Find this resource:
  241. Tiebout, Charles M. “A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures.” Journal of Political Economy 64.5 (1956): 416–424.
  242. DOI: 10.1086/257839Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  243. This paper utilizes the theory of the firm to argue that citizens express their political preferences through relocation (“voting with their feet”) in the same way consumers choose products. The insight explains two phenomena: local government efficiency and community differentiation.
  244. Find this resource:
  245. Deficit Reduction
  246.  
  247. The literature on economic growth relies heavily on federalism’s potential to instill fiscal discipline among subnational governments. Interstate competition encourages fiscal discipline, but it is also necessary that states face a hard budget constraint. Therefore, the federal government must be able to credibly commit not to bail out states that run a budget deficit. Weingast 1995 (cited under Economic Growth) establishes the theory, supported empirically in Rodden 2002, while Rodden 2006 asserts that the federal government’s ability to resist bailing out the states is a function of party politics. Jones, et al. 2000 demonstrates in Argentina that a strong party system can create incentives for subnational fiscal discipline. Qian and Roland 1998 describes how the central government can influence subnational governments to observe prudent spending practices.
  248.  
  249. Jones, Mark P., Pablo Sanguinetti, and Mariano Tommasi. “Politics, Institutions, and Fiscal Performance in a Federal System: An Analysis of the Argentine Provinces.” Journal of Development Economics 61.2 (2000): 305–333.
  250. DOI: 10.1016/S0304-3878(00)00059-6Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  251. In Argentina, fiscal transfers from the central government to the provinces lead to overspending, but the tendency to overspend is curbed by party discipline. The authors find that when the provincial governor and the Argentine president are of the same party, the province is fiscally more disciplined.
  252. Find this resource:
  253. Qian, Yingyi, and Gérard Roland. “Federalism and the Soft Budget Constraint.” American Economic Review 88.5 (1998): 1143–1162.
  254. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  255. High factor mobility and central control over monetary policy must be present to reduce incentives to bail out subnational governments, thereby improving fiscal discipline.
  256. Find this resource:
  257. Rodden, Jonathan. “The Dilemma of Fiscal Federalism: Grants and Fiscal Performance around the World.” American Journal of Political Science 46.3 (2002): 670–687.
  258. DOI: 10.2307/3088407Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  259. A cross-national study supporting the thesis that subnational governments are more likely to balance their budgets when they either face centrally imposed borrowing restrictions or have significant revenue and expenditure autonomy. Intergovernmental transfers reduce subnational and overall fiscal performance.
  260. Find this resource:
  261. Rodden, Jonathan A. Hamilton’s Paradox: The Promise and Peril of Fiscal Federalism. Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
  262. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  263. A federal government’s ability to commit not to bail out states—necessary to induce fiscal prudence—is dependent on party politics and voter expectations. Rodden includes an extended study of Germany and Brazil.
  264. Find this resource:
  265. Corruption
  266.  
  267. Governmental efficiency brought about by Tiebout-style voter mobility also undergirds claims that federalism reduces corruption because intergovernmental competition sets limits on how much governments can tax, reducing opportunities for corruption and waste (Brennan and Buchanan 1980, cited under Economic Efficiency). Fisman and Gatti 2002 empirically shows that corruption tends to be lower in decentralized versus centralized countries, and Bohara, et al. 2004 identifies citizen involvement as a key mediator that influences the relationship between federalism and corruption. Myerson 2006 argues that federalism minimizes corruption during democratic transitions because politicians at lower levels have an incentive to lead honestly in order to progress to higher offices. On the other hand, Cai and Treisman 2004 suggests that internal competition among subnational governments can increase corruption when subnational governments help firms avoid taxation.
  268.  
  269. Bohara, Alok K., Neil J. Mitchell, and Carl F. Mittendorff. “Compound Democracy and the Control of Corruption: A Cross-Country Investigation.” Policy Studies Journal 32.4 (2004): 481–499.
  270. DOI: 10.1111/j.1541-0072.2004.00077.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  271. The authors determine that citizen involvement can make federalism less amenable to corruption, by making reelection-seeking politicians more accountable to the public.
  272. Find this resource:
  273. Cai, Hongbin, and Daniel Treisman. “State Corroding Federalism.” Journal of Public Economics 88.3–4 (2004): 819–843.
  274. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  275. Federalism potentially increases corruption if subnational governments can shield firms from complying with central tax and regulatory policies. Here, intergovernmental competition leads to a race to provide favorable treatment to firms.
  276. Find this resource:
  277. Fisman, Raymond, and Roberta Gatti. “Decentralization and Corruption: Evidence across Countries.” Journal of Public Economics 83.3 (2002): 325–345.
  278. DOI: 10.1016/S0047-2727(00)00158-4Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  279. The authors find empirical backing for the notion that decentralization is associated with lower levels of corruption, arguing that the origin of a country’s legal system serves as an instrument of that country’s level of decentralization.
  280. Find this resource:
  281. Myerson, Roger B. “Federalism and Incentives for Success of Democracy.” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 1.1 (2006): 3–23.
  282. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  283. Federalism, when compared to unitary government, can reduce corruption among politicians, by increasing incentives for politicians to be honest. The argument depends on progressive ambition of officeholders: in a federal system, politicians at subnational levels can develop reputations for honesty and can use these to challenge politicians at central levels of government. The effect of this possibility can decrease the corruption of federal systems.
  284. Find this resource:
  285. Redistribution and Unified Policymaking in Federal Systems
  286.  
  287. Federal systems appear to be less redistributive, on the whole, than unitary systems. Hicks and Swank 1984 demonstrates that federal systems provide fewer public goods relative to nonfederal systems. Castles 1989 determines that educational spending is lower in federal compared to nonfederal systems. Crepaz 2001 articulates how federalism can fundamentally weaken the redistributive capacity of the state. Also, there is the familiar problem of subnational governments free riding and burden shifting their problems onto others. Particularly, as Peterson 1995 shows, policies with positive externalities are underprovided, meaning that redistributive policies such as health care or welfare are not provided at levels that the electorate might support, out of fear that their states may become “welfare magnets.” Turning to analysis of legal systems, Halberstam and Reimann 2014 finds that federal systems vary considerably in the extent that laws within their systems converge to a uniform standard. One possible explanation for the policy divergence in federal systems is that the systems are not equivalently structured. Dixit and Londregan 1998 notes the interactive effects between federal and state policymaking even when fiscal policy appears to be separated; the interaction can distort incentives. Beramendi 2012 develops a thorough argument tying redistributive policies to representation schemes, regional inequities, and voter and capital mobility. Obinger, et al. 2005 combines public choice and institutionalist perspectives to guide the framing and interpretation of six welfare states.
  288.  
  289. Beramendi, Pablo. The Political Geography of Inequality: Regions and Redistribution. Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
  290. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139042796Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  291. Patterns of redistribution in federal countries can be explained by “economic geography”: inequality between regions coupled with the mobility of wealthy residents and capital. The theory is used to explain fiscal structures in the European Union, the United States, Germany, and Spain.
  292. Find this resource:
  293. Castles, Francis G. “Explaining Public Education Expenditure in OECD Nations.” European Journal of Political Research 17.4 (1989): 431–448.
  294. DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-6765.1989.tb00202.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  295. This article offers an explanation into variation in educational expenditures across Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries and suggests that federal countries spend less on public education compared to nonfederal countries.
  296. Find this resource:
  297. Crepaz, Markus M. L. “Veto Players, Globalization, and the Redistributive Capacity of the State: A Panel Study of 15 OECD Countries.” Journal of Public Policy 21.1 (2001): 1–22.
  298. DOI: 10.1017/S0143814X01001015Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  299. As the number of veto players in a government increases, the ability of that government to redistribute resources is diminished. An extrapolation of this message is that federal states—which tend to have higher numbers of veto players compared to nonfederal states—have lower redistributive capacity than nonfederal states.
  300. Find this resource:
  301. Dixit, Avinash, and John Londregan. “Fiscal Federalism and Redistributive Politics.” Journal of Public Economics 68.2 (1998): 153–180.
  302. DOI: 10.1016/S0047-2727(97)00097-2Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  303. A formal analysis of redistributive policy in federal systems, benchmarked against unitary systems. Federal transfers to the states can be reallocated according to state priorities. This interactive effect can dampen national support for federal transfers, leading to inefficiencies or underprovision of policy.
  304. Find this resource:
  305. Halberstam, Daniel, and Mathias Reimann, eds. Federalism and Legal Unification: A Comparative Empirical Investigation of Twenty Systems. New York: Springer, 2014.
  306. DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-7398-1Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  307. Uniformity of laws within a federal state is important to reduce transaction costs and to improve the general functionality of a legal system. Halberstam and Reimann survey country experts to determine the extent of legal uniformity across twenty federal and quasi-federal systems. Concentration of legislative authority is the strongest factor contributing to legal uniformity, but parliamentary systems, centralized party systems, and the civil law tradition are also unifying factors. The book includes country studies for each of the twenty federations, written by country-specific legal experts. Analytical overview available online.
  308. Find this resource:
  309. Hicks, Alexander, and Duane Swank. “On the Political Economy of Welfare Expansion: A Comparative Analysis of 18 Advanced Capitalist Democracies, 1960–1971.” Comparative Political Studies 17.1 (1984): 81–119.
  310. DOI: 10.1177/0010414084017001003Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  311. The authors search for the causes of welfare state contraction and expansion and find that federal countries have noticeably diminished welfare states compared to nonfederal countries.
  312. Find this resource:
  313. Obinger, Herbert, Stephan Leibfried, and Francis G. Castles, eds. Federalism and the Welfare State: New World and European Experiences. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
  314. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511491856Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  315. This edited volume presents case studies of the welfare states in six federations: Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, and the United States, to understand under what circumstances federal systems retrench or limit redistribution.
  316. Find this resource:
  317. Peterson, Paul E. The Price of Federalism. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1995.
  318. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  319. Due to interstate competition, subnational governments are likely to underprovide services that are regarded as not providing tangible benefits to taxpayers. An example of such a service is welfare, and Peterson believes subnational governments “race to the bottom” in supplying welfare to prevent increases in welfare caseload size. Peterson recommends that the national government take over responsibility of providing redistributive services such as welfare.
  320. Find this resource:
  321. Policy Innovation and Diffusion
  322.  
  323. Perhaps one of the biggest advantages of federalism is that it can engender innovative policymaking at the subnational level. Brandeis 1932 describes how the decentralization fostered by federalism turns subnational governments into “laboratories” of policy experimentation. Two early empirical works provide the foundation for modern policy innovation and diffusion studies: Walker 1969 uncovers when subnational governments are likely to be experimental in policymaking, while Gray 1973 evaluates how policies “diffuse” or spread from state to state. Berry and Berry 1990 suggests that policies diffuse in accordance with geographic proximity, and Case, et al. 1994 shows how policies spread nongeographically, between states that are economically similar. Shipan and Volden 2006 finds that policies also diffuse vertically, from municipalities to states, on the basis of various political mechanisms. Shipan and Volden 2008 identifies four mechanisms of policy diffusion. Cai and Treisman 2009 argues that subnational governments in federal countries may copy one another rather than innovate.
  324.  
  325. Berry, Frances Stokes, and William D. Berry. “State Lottery Adoptions as Policy Innovations: An Event History Analysis.” American Political Science Review 84.2 (1990): 395–415.
  326. DOI: 10.2307/1963526Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  327. Event history analysis is exploited to determine that policies often diffuse among geographically adjacent states.
  328. Find this resource:
  329. Brandeis, Louis. “Dissenting Opinion.” New State Ice Company v. Liebmann. 285 U.S. 262, 1932.
  330. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  331. Brandeis identifies what he sees as one of the key virtues of federalism: that subnational governments can innovate in policymaking without jeopardizing the welfare of the country at large.
  332. Find this resource:
  333. Cai, Hongbin, and Daniel Treisman. “Political Decentralization and Policy Experimentation.” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 4.1 (2009): 35–58.
  334. DOI: 10.1561/100.00008039Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  335. Decentralization may induce copycatting rather than innovation, since officials in subnational governments find copying to be less risky than crafting novel policy.
  336. Find this resource:
  337. Case, Anne C., James R. Hines Jr., and Harvey S. Rosen. “Copycatting: Fiscal Policies of States and Their Neighbors.” NBER Working Paper 3032 (1994).
  338. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  339. In this paper, the authors demonstrate that fiscal policies can diffuse both to adjacent and nonadjacent states that share similar traits. Policy diffusion is not limited to geographically contiguous neighbors.
  340. Find this resource:
  341. Gray, Virginia. “Innovation in the States: A Diffusion Study.” American Political Science Review 67.4 (1973): 1174–1185.
  342. DOI: 10.2307/1956539Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  343. Gray highlights a distinct S-shaped pattern to the form with which policies diffuse across the states. Policies diffuse among innovators, then rapidly among the bulk of states, and finally among laggards.
  344. Find this resource:
  345. Shipan, Charles R., and Craig Volden. “Bottom-Up Federalism: The Diffusion of Antismoking Policies from U.S. Cities to States.” American Journal of Political Science 50.4 (2006): 825–843.
  346. DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2006.00218.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  347. With evidence from adoption of antismoking policies in the United States, the authors show that policies may diffuse vertically, with states learning from municipalities.
  348. Find this resource:
  349. Shipan, Charles R., and Craig Volden. “The Mechanisms of Policy Diffusion.” American Journal of Political Science 52.4 (2008): 840–857.
  350. DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2008.00346.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  351. Shipan and Volden distinguish four mechanisms of policy diffusion: learning, economic competition, imitation, and coercion. With evidence of municipal adoption of antismoking policies, they demonstrate that these mechanisms are conditional, with larger cities more likely to learn but also less likely to rely on imitation.
  352. Find this resource:
  353. Walker, Jack L. “The Diffusion of Innovations among the American States.” American Political Science Review 63.3 (1969): 880–899.
  354. DOI: 10.2307/1954434Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  355. This paper explains why some states are more innovative than others. States with large industrial sectors and urbanized populations are found to be more innovative than states lacking these features.
  356. Find this resource:
  357. Peace-Preserving Federalism
  358.  
  359. When federalism decentralizes authorities, it has the potential to defuse tensions between geographically clustered groups, giving it “peace-preserving” qualities. Kymlicka 1998 and Stepan 1999 (the latter cited under Definitions of Federalism) cite asymmetric federalism as a method for appeasing minority concerns. Yet, the evidence on whether federalism fosters peace in multiethnic countries is mixed (Amoretti and Bermeo 2004, Horowitz 1985, Erk and Anderson 2009, Zuber 2011). Brancati 2006 provides evidence that ethnically aligned political parties can hijack the peace-preserving benefits of federalism, and Christin and Hug 2012 finds that conflict is more likely in federations with arrangements to accommodate ethnic diversity. Hale 2004 argues that a dominant ethnicity exacerbates the likelihood of conflict in a multiethnic federation.
  360.  
  361. Amoretti, Ugo M., and Nancy Bermeo, eds. Federalism and Territorial Cleavages. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004.
  362. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  363. An edited volume of case studies of the success (or failure) of accommodation policies in twelve federal and quasi-federal systems, as well as several analytical comparative essays.
  364. Find this resource:
  365. Brancati, Dawn. “Decentralization: Fueling the Fire or Dampening the Flames of Ethnic Conflict and Secessionism?” International Organization 60.3 (2006): 651–685.
  366. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  367. Brancati confronts the view that federalism preserves peace, by showing that regionally based political parties can accentuate ethnic differences for political gain, weakening the federation and threatening peace.
  368. Find this resource:
  369. Christin, Thomas, and Simon Hug. “Federalism, the Geographic Location of Groups, and Conflict.” Conflict Management and Peace Science 29.1 (2012): 93–122.
  370. DOI: 10.1177/0738894211430280Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  371. Christin and Hug exploit spatial data to assess the effect of ethnic-group dispersion on conflict in federations. Federal systems with more accommodations for ethnic groups are more likely to experience conflict.
  372. Find this resource:
  373. Erk, Jan, and Lawrence Anderson. “The Paradox of Federalism: Does Self-Rule Accommodate or Exacerbate Ethnic Divisions?” Regional & Federal Studies 19.2 (2009): 191–202.
  374. DOI: 10.1080/13597560902753388Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  375. In this introduction to a special issue dedicated to peace-preserving federalism and secession, Erk and Anderson assess the competing claims about the effect of federalism on minority integration.
  376. Find this resource:
  377. Hale, Henry E. “Divided We Stand: Institutional Sources of Ethnofederal State Survival and Collapse.” World Politics 56.2 (2004): 165–193.
  378. DOI: 10.1353/wp.2004.0011Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  379. Hale points out here that federalism may decrease the likelihood of ethnic conflict, but this ameliorative effect occurs only if core ethnic groups cannot dominate the federation and antagonize smaller groups.
  380. Find this resource:
  381. Horowitz, Donald L. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.
  382. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  383. In this book, Horowitz affirms the idea that federalism can exacerbate ethnic conflict, and he recommends that federal structures in multiethnic contexts emphasize crosscutting rather than overlapping cleavages.
  384. Find this resource:
  385. Kymlicka, Will. “Is Federalism a Viable Alternative to Secession?” In Theories of Secession. Edited by Percy B. Lehning, 109–148. New York: Routledge, 1998.
  386. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  387. Asymmetric federalism can defuse tensions in a multiethnic federation, by giving educational and linguistic autonomy to subnational governments.
  388. Find this resource:
  389. Zuber, Christina Isabel. “Understanding the Multinational Game: Toward a Theory of Asymmetrical Federalism.” Comparative Political Studies 44.5 (2011): 546–571.
  390. DOI: 10.1177/0010414010364350Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  391. Asymmetric federalism is often utilized in multiethnic states; Zuber identifies how asymmetric federalism is potentially unstable.
  392. Find this resource:
  393. Secession
  394.  
  395. While secessionist movements are intuitively ascribed to identity conflict (e.g., Kymlicka 1998), several formal models (Alesina and Spolaore 1997, Bolton and Roland 1997) and recent empirical work on secession question that premise, suggesting that separatist movements are related to calculations of economic gain (Collier and Hoeffler 2005). Deiwiks, et al. 2012 confirms that separatist movements are more likely to form in regions that are either much poorer or richer than other regions in the federation. In Bednar 2007, formal analysis establishes that as secession costs decline, federal systems perform less well and may not even form. Sunstein 1991 argues that secession clauses destabilize emerging democracies, while Hechter 1992 argues that due to the significant collective-action problem that regional governments need to overcome to wage a separatist movement, secession will remain rare.
  396.  
  397. Alesina, Alberto, and Enrico Spolaore. “On the Number and Size of Nations.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 112.4 (1997): 1027–1056.
  398. DOI: 10.1162/003355300555411Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  399. Alesina and Spolaore weigh the advantages of country size (market, increasing returns to scale of public goods) against the disadvantages (e.g., political discord from heterogeneity). As economic integration increases, the advantages of size decrease and so the number of countries will increase, an effect that is exacerbated by democratization. The number of nations is inefficient; democratization leads to inefficient secession.
  400. Find this resource:
  401. Bednar, Jenna. “Valuing Exit Options.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 37.2 (2007): 190–208.
  402. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  403. In every federal system, subnational governments have the ability to secede, whether or not they have a legal right. In many cases the exit option—secession—is costly. Bednar argues that the performance of a federal system is directly related to the cost of subnational exit. High costs of secession improve compliance and productivity, while low- to medium-cost secession options reduce performance. In cases of low-cost exit options, potentially beneficial unions may fail to form.
  404. Find this resource:
  405. Bolton, Patrick, and Gérard Roland. “The Breakup of Nations: A Political Economy Analysis.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 112.4 (1997): 1057–1090.
  406. DOI: 10.1162/003355300555420Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  407. A formal analysis establishing that regional income inequity leads to secession, but the incentives to separate decrease with internal factor mobility.
  408. Find this resource:
  409. Collier, Paul, and Anke Hoeffler. “The Political Economy of Secession.” In Negotiating Self-Determination. Edited by Hurst Hannum and Eileen F. Babbitt, 37–60. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005.
  410. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  411. Secession movements are often couched in terms of distinct political identity, but the authors suggest that this identity is a creation of economic advantages. Secession will be promoted when the seceding unit stands to gain economically.
  412. Find this resource:
  413. Deiwiks, Christa, Lars-Erik Cederman, and Kristian Skrede Gleditsch. “Inequality and Conflict in Federations.” Journal of Peace Research 49.2 (2012): 289–304.
  414. DOI: 10.1177/0022343311431754Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  415. In an empirical study of thirty-one modern federations, the authors find that secessionist conflict is more likely in federations with greater interregional wealth inequality, and the regions that are both relatively more developed and relatively less developed than the federation’s average are more likely to be engaged in secessionist conflict than those nearer to the federation’s regional average.
  416. Find this resource:
  417. Hechter, Michael. “The Dynamics of Secession.” Acta Sociologica 35.4 (1992): 267–283.
  418. DOI: 10.1177/000169939203500401Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  419. Secession is a collective decision. Given the numerous competing interests party to the decision, collective agreement to secede is difficult. The difficulty of collective choice helps to explain the rarity of secession.
  420. Find this resource:
  421. Kymlicka, Will. “Is Federalism a Viable Alternative to Secession?” In Theories of Secession. Edited by Percy B. Lehning, 109–148. New York: Routledge, 1998.
  422. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  423. Kymlicka distinguishes between two types of multicultural societies: multinational (essentially intact communities) and polyethnic (resulting from immigration). While federalism may be a viable means for accommodating multinational societies, it may only delay rupture in conflict-ridden polyethnic societies.
  424. Find this resource:
  425. Sunstein, Cass R. “Constitutionalism and Secession.” In Special Issue: Approaching Democracy: A New Legal Order for Eastern Europe. University of Chicago Law Review 58.2 (1991): 633–670.
  426. DOI: 10.2307/1599969Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  427. Sunstein argues that emerging democracies in eastern Europe ought not include a secession right in their constitutions. To do so reduces the cost of secession threats, which will become a part of daily political practice, destabilizing the states. The downside of secession rights are not outweighed by the perceived advantage: to reduce majority tyranny.
  428. Find this resource:
  429. Participation and Democratic Performance
  430.  
  431. The logic of the argument linking federalism to increased economic growth, increased policy innovation, and decreased corruption—relying on competition, progressive ambition, and exit options—has been extended to the issue of participation. Inman 2007 ties decentralization to increased protection of citizen rights and liberties. However, the rights-preserving and participation-increasing effects of federalism are contingent upon residents of subnational provinces having exit options in the form of mobility. Decentralization without citizen mobility can lead to the formation of “subnational autocracies,” either comparatively, as described in Gibson 2005 and Gibson 2012, or within American political development, as described in Mickey 2014.
  432.  
  433. Gibson, Edward L. “Boundary Control: Subnational Authoritarianism in Democratic Countries.” World Politics 58.1 (2005): 101–132.
  434. DOI: 10.1353/wp.2006.0018Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  435. In this article, Gibson argues that authoritarian enclaves can develop within democratic countries. Subnational leaders more easily establish authoritarian rule if they are able to construct boundaries and restrict the mobility of citizens.
  436. Find this resource:
  437. Gibson, Edward L. Boundary Control: Subnational Authoritarianism in Federal Democracies. Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
  438. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139017992Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  439. Expanding on the conceptual themes of his 2005 article, Gibson exposes the fragility of democracy in federal states, where authoritarianism can persist at the subnational level. The theoretical work is supplemented by case studies of the United States, Mexico, and Argentina.
  440. Find this resource:
  441. Inman, Robert P. “Federalism’s Values and the Value of Federalism.” CESifo Economic Studies 53.4 (2007): 522–560.
  442. DOI: 10.1093/cesifo/ifm018Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  443. This paper links increased decentralization to the preservation of citizen rights and liberties. Subnational governments have a strong incentive to protect citizen rights, since aggrieved citizens can relocate to more-tolerant provinces.
  444. Find this resource:
  445. Mickey, Robert. Paths out of Dixie: The Democratization of Authoritarian Enclaves in America’s Deep South. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014.
  446. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  447. This book explores historical and institutional dynamics behind three examples of subnational autocracy in the United States: Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina.
  448. Find this resource:
  449. Effect on the Party System
  450.  
  451. Federalism also affects the dynamics and structure of party systems. Riker 1964 (cited under General Overviews) and Kramer 2000 discuss how federal political parties preserve subnational interests at the national level. Filippov, et al. 2004 (cited under General Overviews) lays out how integrated political parties, with interdependence between state and national party organizations, contribute to the strength of federalism. Jones, et al. 2000 demonstrates, by using the example of Argentina, that federally integrated parties can protect subnational governments from pandering to the whims of their subnational constituencies. Chhibber and Kollman 2004 links the degree of fiscal centralization in a federation and the number of effective political parties that operate in that federation. Samuels 2003 shows that in Brazil, the traditional party system hierarchy is inverted: state and local offices have higher prestige than federal offices.
  452.  
  453. Chhibber, Pradeep, and Ken Kollman. The Formation of National Party Systems: Federalism and Party Competition in Canada, Great Britain, India, and the United States. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.
  454. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  455. Chhibber and Kollman link fiscal centralization to a decrease in the number of effective parties that operate in a federation. Absent fiscal centralization, parties are regionalized and high in number across federations. As fiscal centralization increases, parties become national in character and decrease in number.
  456. Find this resource:
  457. Jones, Mark P., Pablo Sanguinetti, and Mariano Tommasi. “Politics, Institutions, and Fiscal Performance in a Federal System: An Analysis of the Argentine Provinces.” Journal of Development Economics 61.2 (2000): 305–333.
  458. DOI: 10.1016/S0304-3878(00)00059-6Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  459. The authors use the example of Argentina to confirm that party discipline protects subnational politicians from engaging in pure pandering to subnational constituencies.
  460. Find this resource:
  461. Kramer, Larry D. “Putting the Politics Back into the Political Safeguards of Federalism.” Columbia Law Review 100.1 (2000): 215–293.
  462. DOI: 10.2307/1123559Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  463. Kramer describes how state governments are protected and given voice in national policymaking, through connections between state and national political parties.
  464. Find this resource:
  465. Samuels, David. Ambition, Federalism, and Legislative Politics in Brazil. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
  466. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511510366Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  467. Samuels’s research inverts conventional wisdom about progressive ambition, where local and state politicians seek higher office by contesting federal offices. Samuels demonstrates that in Brazil, the more appealing offices are at the state and local levels, and federal officials use their offices as stepping stones to more-regionalized roles.
  468. Find this resource:
  469. Understanding Variation in Federal Performance
  470.  
  471. While federalism is often described as an independent variable whose presence facilitates socially desirable outcomes, it is also a dependent variable; the performance of the federal system is a function of whether jurisdictional disagreements can be adequately resolved. Resolving jurisdictional disagreements is difficult under federalism because the boundaries between national and subnational authority are sometimes vague and contested, leading to conflicts over governmental responsibility. Safeguards define federal jurisdictional boundaries and police those boundaries, facilitating the resolution of jurisdictional conflicts and the strengthening of federal institutions. Yet, even when a federal design is replete with safeguards, the ensuing federation is not static: national and subnational power levels change over time, with consequences for the nature of policymaking.
  472.  
  473. Why Safeguards Are Necessary
  474.  
  475. The jurisdictional conflicts associated with federalism are not easily solvable. In essence, federalism is a collective-action problem, as James Madison (Madison 1999) described long before the development of the phrase (see de Figueiredo and Weingast 2005 and Bednar 2006 for formal analysis). The practice of federalism is usually adversarial and often leads to inefficient policies (Scharpf 1988, Feeley and Rubin 2008). Sometimes both state and federal governments alike find it costly to adhere to the limits of their power, as defined by the distribution of authority. Bednar 2009 (cited under General Overviews) characterizes federal jurisdictional conflict as inevitable, taking the form of shirking, burden shifting, and encroachment. The blurriness of federal boundaries can detract from the intended benefits of federalism, either by inducing inefficiency in policymaking, as suggested in Volden 2005, or by selfish credit claiming, as suggested in Bednar 2007. Cooter and Siegel 2010 explains the US federal constitution’s enumeration of congressional powers in collective-action terms.
  476.  
  477. Bednar, Jenna. “Is Full Compliance Possible? Conditions for Shirking with Imperfect Monitoring and Continuous Action Spaces.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 18.3 (2006): 347–375.
  478. DOI: 10.1177/0951629806065012Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  479. Shirking, in a federal context, refers to when subnational governments intentionally do not fulfill their obligations to the federation. Bednar shows that monitoring can reduce shirking but that reaching full compliance (or eliminating shirking altogether) is impossible. The implication is that opportunism is inevitable in federal systems.
  480. Find this resource:
  481. Bednar, Jenna. “Credit Assignment and Federal Encroachment.” Supreme Court Economic Review 15.1 (2007): 285–308.
  482. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  483. To explain the electoral conditions that lead to federal encroachment on state powers, this paper models the tradeoff between expected policy outcome and the distribution of possible outcomes; under different conditions, both a highly competent federal government and a struggling one will have an incentive to encroach on state policies, even when suboptimal, trading mean outcome for variance.
  484. Find this resource:
  485. Cooter, Robert D., and Neil S. Siegel. “Collective Action Federalism: A General Theory of Article I, Section 8.” Stanford Law Review 63 (2010): 115–185.
  486. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  487. Rather than focus on an economic rationale for the division of powers established in Article I, Section 8, of the US Constitution, Cooter and Siegel argue that one can understand the optimality of the division in terms of using the federal dimension to overcome interstate collective-action dilemmas.
  488. Find this resource:
  489. de Figueiredo, Rui J. P., Jr., and Barry R. Weingast. “Self-Enforcing Federalism.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 21.1 (2005): 103–135.
  490. DOI: 10.1093/jleo/ewi005Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  491. This paper discusses two “fundamental dilemmas” present in federalism: first, states (and equivalent subnational governments) desire to get a free ride off one another and the national government; second, the national government must be prevented from gaining too-much power. The authors suggest that constitutions can establish ground rules that make navigating through the dilemmas feasible.
  492. Find this resource:
  493. Feeley, Malcolm M., and Edward Rubin. Federalism: Political Identity and Tragic Compromise. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008.
  494. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  495. Federalism is a “tragic compromise,” conceived when different groups see that union creates benefits but refuse to give up autonomy as in the unitary case. Inevitably, it is less efficient than either a unitary system or a looser association.
  496. Find this resource:
  497. Madison, James. “Vices of the Political System of the United States.” In James Madison: Writings. Edited by Jack N. Rakove, 69–80. New York: Library of America, 1999.
  498. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  499. Madison, in 1787, details the weaknesses of the US government under the Articles of Confederation, including a theoretical depiction of the noncompliance he witnessed, captured in terms of a collective-action problem. His list of weaknesses and diagnostic annotations preview his treatment of federalism in The Federalist.
  500. Find this resource:
  501. Scharpf, Fritz W. “The Joint-Decision Trap: Lessons from German Federalism and European Integration.” Public Administration 66.3 (1988): 239–278.
  502. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9299.1988.tb00694.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  503. Scharpf discusses how federalism can lead to suboptimal policy creation because adversarial bargaining in the policy formulation process produces diluted and inefficient policy.
  504. Find this resource:
  505. Volden, Craig. “Intergovernmental Political Competition in American Federalism.” American Journal of Political Science 49.2 (2005): 327–342.
  506. DOI: 10.1111/j.0092-5853.2005.00126.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  507. Federalism’s blurred division of authority induces inefficient policymaking because subnational and national leaders oversupply public goods and services in pursuit of credit claiming.
  508. Find this resource:
  509. Institutional Safeguards of Federalism
  510.  
  511. Safeguards contribute to the success of federalism, by setting and enforcing jurisdictional boundaries of authority among different federal actors. Because internal competition over boundaries, which can reduce a federation’s performance, can come both from state and federal sources, safeguards assume a variety of forms and are often tailored to address specific types of challenges. Federalist 78 (in Publius 1787–1788, cited under General Overviews) introduces the concept of judicial safeguards: a constitutional court can review the appropriateness of government policymaking. Bednar and Eskridge 1995 affirms the recommendation of Federalist 78 and shows how the Supreme Court enforces federal boundaries. Friedman and Delaney 2011 reconstructs the development of judicial review in the United States through Supreme Court oversight of state activity. The judiciary is not the only safeguard available in the federal system: other safeguards include structural, political, popular, and intergovernmental (Bednar 2009, cited under General Overviews). In contrast to judicial safeguards, structural safeguards fragment authority and integrate subnational voices in national policymaking. The Federalist, particularly papers 39, 46, and 51, lays out the logic behind structural safeguards (in Publius 1787–1788). The states are heavily involved in federal-level policymaking in informal but important ways (Nugent 2009). Ordeshook and Shvetsova 1997 comparatively traces how federal design affects federal operation, emphasizing political safeguards—the party system; the authors’ theory of integrated party systems is fully developed in Filippov, et al. 2004 (cited under General Overviews). Finally, popular safeguards bring attention to the role of the public in adjudicating federal conflicts. Kam and Mikos 2007 analyzes whether the public can effectively assume this role. Elazar 1984 (first published in 1966) is the classic resource identifying distinct political cultures in the American states. While each safeguard is imperfect, under some conditions, as a system the safeguards may improve federal performance (Bednar 2009, cited under General Overviews). De Figueiredo, et al. 2007 suggests how federal institutions can be designed to achieve balance between national and subnational levels of government, illustrating this argument with the Russian case. Voigt and Blume 2012 finds that the institutional details matter significantly in explaining differences in outcomes between federal states, looking at economic performance, government effectiveness, and even the happiness of the citizens.
  512.  
  513. Bednar, Jenna, and William N. Eskridge Jr. “Steadying the Court’s ‘Unsteady Path’: A Theory of Judicial Enforcement of Federalism.” Southern California Law Review 68 (1995): 1447–1491.
  514. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  515. The authors in this paper utilize positive political theory to articulate a theory of a federal commitment problem, where states and the federal government are motivated to encroach on one another’s authority. Multiple safeguards exist to protect the constitutional boundaries of federalism, and how the Supreme Court’s apparently erratic federalism doctrine may be understood in terms of failures of constitutional safeguards.
  516. Find this resource:
  517. de Figueiredo, Rui J. P., Jr., Michael McFaul, and Barry R. Weingast. “Constructing Self-Enforcing Federalism in the Early United States and Modern Russia.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 37.2 (2007): 160–189.
  518. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  519. The authors apply the model developed in de Figueiredo and Weingast 2005 (cited under Why Safeguards Are Necessary) to Russia and the United States under the Articles of Confederation.
  520. Find this resource:
  521. Elazar, Daniel J. American Federalism: A View from the States. 3d ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1984.
  522. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  523. Elazar describes the triad of political cultures that comprise the relationships and expectations that the public has with their government. First published in 1966 (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell).
  524. Find this resource:
  525. Friedman, Barry, and Erin F. Delaney. “Becoming Supreme: The Federal Foundation of Judicial Supremacy.” Columbia Law Review 111.6 (2011): 1137–1193.
  526. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  527. In the United States, the Supreme Court earned its review powers of congressional legislation through prudent and consistent review of state legislation first; through its record it established the legitimacy and credibility that it needed to review actions by the US Congress.
  528. Find this resource:
  529. Kam, Cindy D., and Robert A. Mikos. “Do Citizens Care about Federalism? An Experimental Test.” Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 4.3 (2007): 589–624.
  530. DOI: 10.1111/j.1740-1461.2007.00100.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  531. In this paper, Kam and Mikos evaluate whether citizens care about the distribution of federal and state authority in addition to caring about policy outcomes. Evidence from the issue of physician-assisted suicide confirms that citizens are concerned about the distribution of governmental authority between the two levels of federal government.
  532. Find this resource:
  533. Nugent, John D. Safeguarding Federalism: How States Protect Their Interests in National Policymaking. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2009.
  534. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  535. State officials routinely influence federal policymaking through lobbying and implementation.
  536. Find this resource:
  537. Ordeshook, Peter C., and Olga Shvetsova. “Federalism and Constitutional Design.” Journal of Democracy 8.1 (1997): 27–42.
  538. DOI: 10.1353/jod.1997.0010Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  539. A well-designed federal constitution must be prepared for renegotiation of the federal boundaries. An integrated party system aligns incentives to make federalism self-enforcing, thereby promoting federal stability.
  540. Find this resource:
  541. Voigt, Stefan, and Lorenz Blume. “The Economic Effects of Federalism and Decentralization—a Cross-Country Assessment.” Public Choice 151.1–2 (2012): 229–254.
  542. DOI: 10.1007/s11127-010-9745-zSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  543. The article is a rejection of the use of federalism as a dummy variable in regression analyses: federations vary significantly, dependent on their institutional features. Voigt uses principal-component analysis to identify institutional features correlated with differences in fiscal policy, government effectiveness, economic productivity, and happiness.
  544. Find this resource:
  545. Dynamics in Federal-State Power
  546.  
  547. Much of the literature on federalism utilizes equilibrium analysis to specify a “correct” ratio of national versus subnational power that, when coupled with appropriate safeguards, can lead to ideal outcomes. This type of analysis, based on a static equilibrium, cannot capture the dynamics of national and subnational power, where relative authority is in flux. A number of scholars have added federal-state dynamics into the conversation about federal durability, showing how federations (and safeguards) can evolve to meet new challenges. Banting and Simeon 1985 argues that constitutional change can provide federations with the needed flexibility to adapt to new challenges. Simeon 2001 details how federations can evolve without overt constitutional change, as reinterpretations of existing constitutional arrangements demonstrate. Friedman 2010 discusses how interaction between the Supreme Court and public opinion can lead to federal change. Erk 2008 uses the example of European integration to argue that the makeup of a society shapes the distribution of authority in that society’s institutions. Parikh and Weingast 1997 illustrates that fights over the distribution of authority in federations are entangled with political competition. Pierson 1996 argues that institutional design affects social change. And most recently, Kollman 2013 describes the near inevitability of centralization in federal systems if national authority becomes more concentrated, as it has a tendency to do. Despite these advances, theorizing about federal dynamics remains an open field. Benz and Broschek 2013 begins to fill that gap, but I expect much important work on federal dynamics to emerge in the coming years.
  548.  
  549. Banting, Keith G., and Richard Simeon, eds. Redesigning the State: The Politics of Constitutional Change. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985.
  550. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  551. Banting and Simeon identify constitutional change as a way to initiate evolution in a federal system.
  552. Find this resource:
  553. Benz, Arthur, and Jörg Broschek, eds. Federal Dynamics: Continuity, Change, and the Varieties of Federalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
  554. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199652990.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  555. An edited volume that aims to fill the gap in the federalism literature, by drawing together a wide range of scholars of comparative federalism, each contributing a reflection on federal dynamics and its different forms.
  556. Find this resource:
  557. Erk, Jan. Explaining Federalism: State, Society, and Congruence in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, and Switzerland. Routledge Series in Regional and Federal Studies 17. New York: Routledge, 2008.
  558. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  559. This book raises the argument that dynamics in social makeup drive corresponding changes in federal institutional design. Erk applies his theory to the integration of the European Union (EU), arguing that institutions of the EU will develop to reflect the social structure of the EU.
  560. Find this resource:
  561. Friedman, Barry. The Will of the People: How Public Opinion Has Influenced the Supreme Court and Shaped the Meaning of the Constitution. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2010.
  562. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  563. In this book, Friedman documents how the Supreme Court’s constitutional interpretation tracks well with public opinion; changes in the distribution of federal authority that seem facilitated (or tolerated) by the court might be attributable to changing public conception of the nature of the federal union.
  564. Find this resource:
  565. Kollman, Ken. Perils of Centralization: Lessons from Church, State, and Corporation. Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
  566. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  567. Representative governments have a tendency to concentrate authority. This horizontal centralization has an effect on the vertical balance of authority. In a federal system, if the national government’s authority is concentrated, then authority will gravitate from the states to the national level. Kollman’s case study of the United States chronicles the dominance of the federal government over the states as a product of the concentration of authority in the hands of the president.
  568. Find this resource:
  569. Parikh, Sunita, and Barry R. Weingast. “A Comparative Theory of Federalism: India.” Virginia Law Review 83.7 (1997): 1593–1615.
  570. DOI: 10.2307/1073770Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  571. Parikh and Weingast demonstrate that the distribution of authority in federations is dynamic. Since different interests benefit from any given distribution of authority, changes in the distribution of authority produce conflict.
  572. Find this resource:
  573. Pierson, Paul. “The Path to European Integration: A Historical Institutionalist Analysis.” Comparative Political Studies 29.2 (1996): 123–163.
  574. DOI: 10.1177/0010414096029002001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  575. Pierson takes a different view from Erk and argues that a society’s institutional design affects that society’s social changes. On the basis of this account, Pierson projects that European society will develop in accordance with the centralized structure of EU institutions.
  576. Find this resource:
  577. Simeon, Richard. “Adaptability and Change in Federations.” International Social Science Journal 53.167 (2001): 145–152.
  578. DOI: 10.1111/1468-2451.00303Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  579. Federal change can occur without direct amendment of a constitution, through reinterpretations of existing constitutional rules.
  580. Find this resource:
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