Federalism, mode of political organization that unites separate states or other polities

within an overarching political system in a way that allows each to maintain its
own integrity. Federal systems do this by requiring that basic policies be made
and implemented through negotiation in some form, so that all the members can share
in making and executing decisions. The political principles that animate federal systems
emphasize the primacy of bargaining and negotiated coordination among several power
centres; they stress the virtues of dispersed power centres as a means for safeguarding
individual and local liberties.

The various political systems that call themselves federal differ in many ways. Certain
characteristics and principles, however, are common to all truly federal systems.

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democracy: Unitary and federal systems

Written constitution
Constitution of the United States of America
Original copy of the Constitution of the United States of America, housed in the National Archives in
Washington, D.C.(more)
First, the federal relationship must be established or confirmed through a
perpetual covenant of union, usually embodied in a written constitution that outlines
the terms by which power is divided or shared; the constitution can be altered only by
extraordinary procedures. These constitutions are distinctive in being not simply
compacts between rulers and ruled but involving the people, the general government,
and the states constituting the federal union. The constituent states, moreover, often
retain constitution-making rights of their own.
Noncentralization
Second, the political system itself must reflect the constitution by actually diffusing
power among a number of substantially self-sustaining centres. Such a diffusion of
power may be termed noncentralization. Noncentralization is a way of ensuring in
practice that the authority to participate in exercising political power cannot be taken
away from the general or the state governments without common consent.
Areal division of power
A third element of any federal system is what has been called in the United
States territorial democracy. This has two faces: the use of areal divisions to ensure
neutrality and equality in the representation of the various groups and interests in the
polity and the use of such divisions to secure local autonomy and representation
for diverse groups within the same civil society. Territorial neutrality has proved highly
useful in societies that are changing, allowing for the representation of new interests in
proportion to their strength simply by allowing their supporters to vote in relatively
equal territorial units. At the same time, the accommodation of very diverse groups
whose differences are fundamental rather than transient by giving them territorial
power bases of their own has enhanced the ability of federal systems to function as
vehicles of political integration while preserving democratic government. One example
of this system may be seen in Canada, which includes a population of French descent,
centred in the province of Quebec.
Elements maintaining union
Modern federal systems generally provide direct lines of communication between the
citizenry and all the governments that serve them. The people may and usually do elect
representatives to all the governments, and all of them may and usually do administer
programs that directly serve the individual citizen.

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The existence of those direct lines of communication is one of the features
distinguishing federations from leagues or confederations. It is usually based on a sense
of common nationality binding the constituent polities and people together. In some
countries this sense of nationality has been inherited, as in Germany, while in the
United States, Argentina, and Australia it had to be at least partly invented. Canada
and Switzerland have had to evolve this sense in order to hold together strongly
divergent nationality groups.

Geographic necessity has played a part in promoting the maintenance of union within
federal systems. The Mississippi Valley in the United States, the Alps in Switzerland, the
island character of the Australian continent, and the mountains and jungles
surrounding Brazil have all been influences promoting unity; so have the pressures for
Canadian union arising from that country’s situation on the border of the United States
and the pressures upon the German states generated by their neighbours to the east and
west. In this connection, the necessity for a common defense against common enemies
has stimulated federal union in the first place and acted to maintain it.
Elements maintaining noncentralization
The constituent polities in a federal system must be fairly equal in population and
wealth or else balanced geographically or numerically in their inequalities. In the United
States, each geographic section has included both great and small states. In Canada, the
ethnic differences between the two largest and richest provinces have prevented them
from combining against the others. Swiss federalism has been supported by the
existence of groups of cantons of different sizes and religio-linguistic backgrounds.
Similar distributions exist in every other successful federal system.

A major reason for the failure of federal systems has often been a lack of balance among
the constituent polities. In the German federal empire of the late 19th
century, Prussia was so dominant that the other states had little opportunity to provide
national leadership or even a reasonably strong alternative to the policy of the king and
government. During the Soviet era (1917–90/91), the existence of the Russian Soviet
Federated Socialist Republic—occupying three-fourths of the area and containing three-
fifths of the population—severely limited the possibility of authentic federal
relationships in that country even if the communist system had not.

Successful federal systems have also been characterized by the permanence of their
internal boundaries. Boundary changes may occur, but such changes are made only with
the consent of the polities involved and are avoided except in extreme situations.

In a few very important cases, noncentralization is given support through the

constitutionally guaranteed existence of different systems of law in the constituent
polities. In the United States, each state’s legal system stems directly and to a certain
extent uniquely from English (and, in one case, French) law, while federal law occupies
only an interstitial position binding the systems of the 50 states together. The resulting
mixture of laws keeps the administration of justice substantially noncentralized, even in
federal courts. In Canada, the existence of common-law and civil-law systems side by
side has contributed to French-Canadian cultural survival. Federal systems more often
provide for modification of national legal codes by the subnational governments to meet
special local needs, as in Switzerland.
The point has often been made that in a truly federal system the constituent polities
must have substantial influence over the formal or informal constitutional-amending
process. Since constitutional changes are often made without formal
constitutional amendment, the position of the constituent polities must be such that
serious changes in the political order can be made only by the decision of dispersed
majorities that reflect the areal division of powers. Federal theorists have argued that
this is important for popular government as well as for federalism.

Noncentralization is also strengthened by giving the constituent polities guaranteed

representation in the national legislature and often by giving them a guaranteed role in
the national political process. The latter is guaranteed in the written constitutions of the
United States and Switzerland. In other systems, such as those of Canada and Latin
America, the constituent polities have acquired certain powers of participation, and
these have become part of the unwritten constitution.

Perhaps the most important single element in the maintenance of federal

noncentralization is the existence of a noncentralized party system. Noncentralized
parties initially develop out of the constitutional arrangements of the federal compact,
but once they have come into existence they tend to be self-perpetuating and to function
as decentralizing forces in their own right. The United States and Canada provide
examples of the forms that a noncentralized party system may take. In the two-party
system of the United States, the parties are actually coalitions of the state parties (which
may in turn be dominated by specific local party organizations) and generally function
as national units only for the quadrennial presidential elections or for purposes of
organizing the national Congress.

In Canada, on the other hand, the parliamentary form of government, with its
requirements of party responsibility, means that on the national plane considerably
more party cohesiveness must be maintained simply in order to gain and hold power.
There has been a fragmentation of the parties along regional or provincial lines. The
party victorious in national elections is likely to be the one able to expand its provincial
electoral bases temporarily to national proportions.

Federal nations with less-developed party systems frequently gain some of the same
decentralizing effects through what has been called caudillismo—in which power
is diffused among strong local leaders operating in the constituent polities. Caudillistic
noncentralization has apparently existed also in Nigeria and Malaysia.
Elements maintaining the federal principle
Several devices found in federal systems serve to maintain the federal principle itself.
Two of these are of particular importance.

The maintenance of federalism requires that the central government and the constituent
polities each have substantially complete governing institutions of their own, with the
right to modify those institutions unilaterally within limits set by the compact. Both
separate legislative and separate administrative institutions are necessary.
The contractual sharing of public responsibilities by all governments in the system
appears to be a fundamental characteristic of federalism. Sharing, broadly conceived,
includes common involvement in policy making, financing, and administration. Sharing
may be formal or informal; in federal systems, it is usually contractual. The contract is
used as a legal device to enable governments to engage in joint action while remaining
independent entities. Even where there is no formal arrangement, the spirit of
federalism tends to infuse a sense of contractual obligation.

Federal systems or systems strongly influenced by federal principles have been among
the most stable and long-lasting of polities. But the successful operation of federal
systems requires a particular kind of political environment, one that is conducive to
popular government and has the requisite traditions of political cooperation and self-
restraint. Beyond this, federal systems operate best in societies with
sufficient homogeneity of fundamental interests to allow a great deal of latitude to local
government and to permit reliance upon voluntary collaboration. The use of force to
maintain domestic order is even more inimical to the successful maintenance of federal
patterns of government than to other forms of popular government. Federal systems are
most successful in societies that have the human resources to fill many public offices
competently and the material resources to afford a measure of economic waste as part of
the price of liberty.