Writing in 1939, Harold Laski predicted that Federalism as an approach to political organisation had come to a dead end. As Rekha Saxena points out “it is amazing how sometimes even the most perceptive minds of an age could err on the future prospects.” Federalism at the national, sub-national, and supranational levels continues to engage attention across the world and stimulate different initiatives.
This is a compendious work on the history and status of federal political arrangements in different countries across the world. Saxena has grouped the essays broadly into presidential and parliamentary governments, with the latter subdivided under three heads — commonwealth, non-commonwealth, and European. As many as 17 countries are covered and the authors are academics from universities with long years of study in the field.
Coercive federalism
Take the United States, Canada, Brazil, and Russia to begin with. What started as “cooperative federalism” in the U.S., characterised by state-based and locally rooted party system, has eventually become “coercive federalism” where the Federal Government had little constraint in imposing its policies on the States and local governments. In the case of Canada, after 125 years of comparative stability and progress, the issues of Quebec nationalism, indigenous people, and multicultural immigration forced it to recognise the fact of its diversity. After the collapse of the Charlottetown Agreement (1992), it had to give up the mega constitutional exercise and go for discreet bilateral agreements, which appear to be more successful.
If the break-up of the Soviet Union saw the emergence of what could be described as “quasi-federalism” — with the job of countering separatist movements as in Chechnya remaining a preoccupation — Brazil witnessed decentralisation and fiscal devolution after the 1988 Constitution. In practical terms, however, the sharing of federal revenues poses a huge problem because of the enormous demographic and socio-economic asymmetry between States and the staggering number of municipalities (5,500-plus). This is compounded by the frequently changing political complexion of the local governments.
Closer home, the federalising process in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal has never had a real chance to make head way. In the case of Pakistan, given its ethnic and economic diversity, federalism may seem inevitable. But the serious deficit in constitutionalism is a big impediment. Sri Lanka came close to a federalised power-sharing arrangement when the Oslo accord was negotiated. But it was overtaken by subsequent events, and now there is hardly any worthwhile debate on moving towards federalism. The chapter on Nepal traces recent political history and discusses the possible outcome of a choice between the ‘substantive' and ‘nominal' federal systems.
Parallel
As for South Africa, one could see some interesting parallels with India. While deciding on the system of constitutional governance, South Africa, like India, had to strike a balance between the imperatives of securing national integrity and protecting the ethnic diversity of the country. The African National Congress was deeply suspicious of a federal structure, which it believed will mean perpetuation of the white-dominated, apartheid regime. But the Zulu nationalist Inkatha Freedom Party set federalism as a condition precedent. Eventually the 1996 Constitution provided for a multi-level three-tier system — national, provincial and local.
In their analysis, the essayists make the point that the multi-level government has surely helped the cause of democracy but it has not necessarily meant more effective governance. And this is mainly because of the yet-to-be-addressed deficits in capability at different levels — political, fiscal, legislative, and bureaucratic.
On the other hand, the Indian Constitution sought to put in place a quasi-federal system with the Centre as the focal rallying point and the States having their own legislative, fiscal, and executive domain under an elaborate scheme of power devolution. Over the past three decades, however, it has become increasingly federal, thanks to the changed political context, the advent of coalition governments, and the phenomenon of judicial review.
The experience of countries such as Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Malaysia and Ethiopia has also been discussed. Besides, there is a chapter on European Union.
What comes across clearly from the book is that the political scene in many countries is characterised by differences related not just to class but also religion, ethnicity, language and so on. And as Saxena points out, federalism continues to be an alternative system of governance open to many countries.
For a book with rich information of such variety, the absence of an index is unfortunate. Nevertheless, there is little doubt that scholars and students alike will find this compilation of well-researched and analytical material very useful.
