Devolution vs Federalism
Devolution and federalism are both systems of decentralizing power from a central government to regional or local authorities. In devolution, power is transferred from a central government to subnational entities, while in federalism, power is divided between a central government and regional governments with each having their own spheres of authority. Devolution often allows for more flexibility and adaptation to local needs, while federalism emphasizes the autonomy of regional governments.
7 Key excerpts on "Devolution vs Federalism"
eBook - ePub- Jorge Schiavon(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Thus, globalization is more intense and, therefore, the costs for states and SSGs to remain isolated are much higher. New actors with international incidence have decreasing costs of participation in external affairs, generating incentives for SSGs and non-state players to participate more actively in international issues (Slaughter 2004). 2.3 Federalism Federalism is defined as “a political organization in which the activities of governments are divided between regional governments and a central government in such a way that each kind of government has some activities on which it makes final decisions” (Riker 1975, 93). Because of the third wave of transitions to democracy experienced around the world since the mid-1970s, comparative analysis of institutions and their effect on the economic and political systems in the countries and their effect in domestic and international policies has grown exponentially. What started as a general discussion over which constitutional system—presidential or parliamentary—was more effective for political stability and economic growth in these recent democracies developed into a more detailed analysis of the extreme importance of the different institutional configurations (including not only the constitutional system, but also the electoral and party systems, and the distribution of power between the executive and the legislature and the judiciary, or within the legislature itself) for understanding the way in which these systems operate (Lijphart and Waisman 1996)...
- Peter Joyce(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Teach Yourself(Publisher)
...France has 27 administrative regions (22 in France and 5 overseas, divided into departments) administered by a Conseil Régional whose members are elected for a term of 6 years. In 2014, President Hollande announced plans to reduce the number in France to 14. The regions have no legislative autonomy but possess tax-raising powers. They manage sizeable budgets and possess discretionary powers to spend on education, public transport, and urban housing. In the UK, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh and Northern Ireland Assemblies have exercised control over a number of responsibilities allocated to them by the 1998 devolution legislation and subsequent measures. The terms ‘devolution’, ‘federalism’ and ‘home rule’ are similar, but it is necessary to differentiate between them. These terms have been defined as follows: Devolution : this involves the transfer of power from a superior to an inferior political authority. The dominance of the former is generally exhibited through its ability to reform or take away the power which it has bestowed. Federalism : this necessitates a division of power between central and sub-national governments. The existence of the latter and the general range of powers they possess is usually embodied in a codified constitution. Home rule : this requires the break-up of a nation into a number of sovereign states, each exercising total control over their internal and external affairs. This demand is usually based on the existence of a national identity (Joyce, 1999: 415). Joyce, P. (1999) An Introduction to Politics. London: Hodder and Stoughton. DEVOLUTION IN SCOTLAND, WALES AND NORTHERN IRELAND Key idea (6) Devolution measures designed to bring government and the people closer together were contained in three measures enacted in 1998 dealing with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The 1998 Scotland Act provided for the creation of a Scottish Parliament of 129 members serving a fixed term of four years...
eBook - ePubConstitutional Politics and the Territorial Question in Canada and the United Kingdom
Federalism and Devolution Compared
- Michael Keating, Guy Laforest, Michael Keating, Guy Laforest(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
...In the case of the Aboriginal people, they claim their own rights of self-government. In both cases, the question put was whether or not to accept the proposition (independence in Scotland and ‘sovereignty’ in Quebec, when opinion polls showed strong support for an intermediate position. The advantage of the Scottish option, of an agreed question, is that attention during the campaign was focused on the merits of the issue, rather than the meaning of the question; but this did not stop arguments about the full implications of the two options (Keating and McEwen 2017). Centrifugal and Centripetal Forces Federal and devolved systems are rarely in a stable equilibrium but are caught between centrifugal and centripetal forces. Economic change and shifts in economic dynamism can change the balance of forces among parts of the state and between the levels. In some phases, the federal level has a surplus of revenues and can transfer to the federated units, with a consequent enhancement of its power; at other times, the units are better off. Changing patterns of welfare provision and spending can lead to more centralization or decentralization. Political identities are not fixed but can fluctuate and change over time, with the balance between state and sub-state allegiances shifting. States and sub-state nations are the site of competing nation-building and state-building projects, as we have seen in the cases of Quebec and Scotland, with varying fortunes. Federalism and devolution also have their own institutional dynamics. When territories are endowed with their own self-governing institutions, these may have an interest in their own expansion, demanding ever more powers. Political movements in other territories may demand equivalent status, leading to a decentralist dynamic. Federal governments may respond by spreading devolution across the territory in an order to secure symmetry in what the Spanish call café para todos (coffee all round)...
eBook - ePubIraqi Federalism and the Kurds
Learning to Live Together
- Alex Danilovich(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...The classic definition by Riker (1964: 11) remains valid today and underlines the essential key characteristics of federalism: 1. Two levels of government that rule the same land and people, 2. Each level has at least one area of action in which it is autonomous, and 3. There is some guarantee … of the autonomy of each government in its sphere Furthermore, “in a federal state, political authority at the regional level is often exercised through a regional legislature, a regional executive, and a regional judicial system” (Anderson 2010: 129). In other words, a federated unit possesses all attributes of a polity as organized society, one step short of sovereignty. While useful by presenting the most basic common features of federalism, this definition fails to take into account the diversity within federal institutional structures, institutional origins and various uncodified social and economic factors. “These diverse origins, institutions and meanings bring about various incentives in dealing with growing dissatisfaction with the status quo. In some cases, the institutions of federalism point in the direction of secessionism. In others, they do not” (Anderson 2010: 129). Whilst there are as many federalisms as there are federations, scholars identify some key differences between federations. A federation can be: (1) strongly centralized or decentralized, (2) symmetrical or asymmetrical, (3) “coming together” or “holding together.” This latter dichotomy means, in effect, that a polity either is born federal from a bargain among previously independent political units (a coming-together federation) or becomes federal through a process of bargaining among regions within a pre-existing unitary state (a holding together federation)...
eBook - ePubComparing Asian Politics
India, China, and Japan
- Sue Ellen M. Charlton(Author)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...In practice, the distinction is often murky, even messy. Constitutions typically list powers belonging to the central government and regional governments and may also enumerate shared jurisdictions. But dynamic socioeconomic conditions, along with shifting political values and judicial interpretations, influence the evolution of these jurisdictions in ways unforeseen by the drafters of the constitutions. This has happened in Canada and the United States as well as in India. Evolution in federal systems has been matched by changes in unitary systems, where contemporary history provides examples of national governments attempting to centralize control over their country during some periods but decentralizing at others, or they may centralize in some spheres of activity (such as economic policy) but decentralize in others (social policy). Political and economic conditions often breed as many stresses in unitary systems as they do in federal systems. Such stresses are evident in China, for example, where economic reform policies have included substantial decentralization of policy-making and the introduction by the 1990s of what some scholars have called “market-preserving federalism” or “de facto federalism.” 2 Level-of-government relationships in India are especially complex. The national government, also known as the Centre or Union, has constitutional powers superior to those of the regional units, called states. The emergency powers and President’s Rule examined in Chapter 9 are examples of the ultimate authority of the Union government. But states have become more important for a variety of reasons, creating tensions between the levels of government. It is to these dynamics that we turn next. (Dis)unity in the Indian Federation To better understand the countervailing tendencies in Indian federalism, we need to review how India’s Constitution designates the division of powers between the central government and the states...
eBook - ePub- Soeren Keil, Elisabeth Alber, Soeren Keil, Elisabeth Alber(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...There is a fine line between federal arrangements and other forms of territorial decentralization, such as devolution or structured political decentralization, which often contains similar self-rule and autonomy provisions to federalism, but lacks shared-rule mechanisms as can be seen in the cases of the United Kingdom or Spain—as highlighted in Paul Anderson’s paper in this special issue. Finally, there are also forms of weaker autonomy provisions, for example administrative decentralization and deconcentration, which do not provide territorial units with any autonomous decision-making potential, but rather ensure that these have some limited freedoms when implementing decisions made at the central level. All of these different mechanisms of territorial autonomy have been tried in different conflict settings. Their variety is also represented in this special issue—while Iraq is constitutionally recognized as a federation (although substantially flawed as pointed out by Eva Maria Belser in her contribution), Spain has been in a gradual process of decentralization and, some would argue, federalization until 2010. However, it did not fully federalize (Requejo, 2017), and the more recent failure to accommodate the demands of Catalan elites for greater autonomy, as well as an increasing polarization of the judiciary, have increased existing tensions and resulted in an escalation of the situation, when Catalonia held a unilateral vote on independence in 2017. In Papua New Guinea and Ukraine, two further cases discussed in this special issue, there is an ongoing search for a solution to the existing territorial tensions. While decentralization has been experimented with and implemented to some extent in both cases, in neither case has it been able to settle the long-standing demands of ethnic groups in specific parts of the countries...
- Davide Vampa(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
...In this respect, British devolution is very different from Italian regionalisation, which has been a top-down, rigid process granting the same formal autonomy to Lombardy and Latium even though the demands for autonomy were much stronger in the former than in the latter. It is also quite different from Spain, where the central government has tried to counterbalance the demands for self-government coming from sub-state nationalities and ‘historical regions’ by devolving some competencies and creating representative institutions even in those regions with no territorial identity. The Labour Party and the Challenge of Devolution At the time of its foundation, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Labour Party was not hostile to processes of political devolution. This is because it had needed to compete with the Liberals, which, for instance, were supporters of Home Rule for Scotland. Yet this initial commitment steadily dissipated as Labour replaced the Liberals as Britain’s main ‘progressive’ party from the 1920s onwards. Thus, ‘Labour rapidly adopted a centralist approach to governing—a national, rather than nationalist, perspective—whereby it both portrayed and perceived itself as a Party and (when in Office) a government for the whole United Kingdom’ (Dorey 2008 : 203). Therefore, even though the Labour Party continued to represent the interests of the periphery—Scotland, Wales, but also the north of England, by the mid-1920s it had become a ‘centralising party’ that sought to help peripheral regions by relying on nationalisation and centralised economic planning (Bogdanor 2001 : 167). Volkens et al. (2013) have provided data on parties’ attitudes towards decentralisation by performing a content analysis of their manifestoes. Support for decentralisation is measured by subtracting the percentage of semi-sentences against decentralisation or in favour of centralisation (code 302) from the percentage of semi-sentences in favour of decentralisation...
