2 Chapter Summaries

The authors in this collection highlight the complexity of modern federa­tions from a variety of approaches. The classic studies of federalism are once again addressed in new and useful ways.

Arthur Benz (Chapter 2) tells us that the purpose of federalism is not to preserve autonomy, but rather it is about managing interdependence, where contrasting values need to be balanced against the common good. He argues that ‘autonomy means the ability of a community, organization or government to decide their own affairs without the intervention of another level of govern­ment'. Moreover, federalism cannot be seen as a feature of a federation; rather, federalism invites governments to operate in a coordinated manner. Here we can see that he channels the spirit of Michael Burgess (2012 p. 16), reminding us that federalism and federation provide a set of principles to be aggregated and identified as ‘federal theory'. Importantly, Benz reminds us that federalism is about organizing the complexity of societies, harkening back to Livingston's federal definition.

Troy Smith (Chapter 3) takes aim at the heart of Rikerian theory, claim­ing that Riker's theory is too Hobbesian in nature: it undervalues federalism's benefits and overstates its costs. He further tells us that the notion of feder­alism as ‘power-seeking' units pitted against one another is too narrow and pessimistic. Indeed, he challenges Riker's assumption that the race to the bot­tom is based on power and greed. Moreover, he reminds us that races to the bottoms are exceedingly rare, and that interjurisdictional competition leads to positive results and greater choice.

Smith tells us that a better way to think about federalism is one based on human nature, using a bottom-up complex adaptive system model that chal­lenges the assumption that order must be imposed from above, arranged and continually maintained. Again, we see in this way elements of Burgess (2012) and Livingston (1952) coming through in Smith's new vision of the federal dynamic, where federalism supports ‘freedom, self-government, indi­vidual responsibility divided sovereignty and a limited but strong national government'.

Erika Arban (Chapter 4) shows us that many modern federations do not fit that classical definition of federalism. She demonstrates that precise defini­tions are difficult because of ‘quasi federations' and regionalism. She reminds us that too many US scholars of federalism tend to regard sovereignty and autonomy as synonymous. Her contribution illuminates interesting distinc­tions between conceptual and practical understandings of federalism and sovereignty.

In Chapter 5, Felix Mathieu and Alain-G. Gagnon use their Quebec case­study to show us that ‘federal spirit' promotes autonomy in these spheres of jurisdiction. Again, we see the spirit of Livingston (1952) filter through their chapter when they discuss ‘autonomy' in multinational federations. The Canada-Quebec discussion in this chapter reveals another side of the auton­omy debate, namely that, beyond constitutional words, ‘autonomy' is negoti­ated between competing visions of society. Interestingly, we also see Rikerian lines of argument when dealing with the importance of elites and the renego­tiation of their bargain through the use of constitutional change.

Anthony Sayers (Chapter 6) takes a step back from the Canada-Quebec debate and pushes us to think about Canada as a whole. Specifically, he asks us to reconsider the Canadian party system and how it affects the distribution of power through the use of executive federalism. He embraces Riker's view that states are in competition with each other and with the federal government, showing us that there is value in this Hobbesian approach employed by Riker. Moreover, Riker's reliance on elite bargaining is highlighted in the Canadian example.

Alan Fenna, John Phillimore and Vijaya Ramamurthy (Chapter 8) ask a reflexive research question: how is it that the provinces in Canada have main­tained policy autonomy whereas states in Australia have increasingly cooper­ated, or capitulated, to the Commonwealth's policy preference? Using health policy as their case-study, they demonstrate that in Australia there is a ‘coop­erative' ethos of joint decision making. This stands in stark contrast to Sayers's findings that the Canadian provinces are happy to carve out their own policy space. Fenna et al. claim that a major challenge in modern federations is a ‘nationally unified and locally controlled' health system, which is why during the 20th century Australia has shifted models from autonomy to collaboration.

Christian Leuprecht and Mario Kolling (Chapter 9) highlight another dif­ficulty for modern federations: public security in the age of terrorism. They emphasize that security is highly dependent on horizontal cooperation and that all advanced democracies have prioritized security over the division of powers in a federation. Like Fenna et al. (Chapter 8) and Mathieu and Gagnon (Chapter 5), they conclude that a federal political culture (that is, the federal spirit) is a precondition for security management.

Isi Unikowski (Chapter 7) focuses on an underrepresented issue in federal­ism studies: the role of the public service. He explains that it is the frontline actors, the public servants, who have to navigate the intersection of public administration and federalism on a day-to-day basis. He shows us that fed­eralism is more than simply the constitutional, legal and political structures; rather, it is the freedom of actors in the system to maintain policy autonomy that allows the federal spirit to be found.

Many of the authors in this collection focus on ‘first-generation' federal systems: Australia, Canada, the USA, among others. A critical question, how­ever, emerges in those chapters which examine second- or third-generation federations, particularly those in Africa. Tinashe Chigwata, Jaap de Visser and Zemelak Ayele (Chapter 11) demonstrate that much of our understanding of how federations emerge comes from Riker's theory. They show us that tech­nological advances, like modern telecommunications, have made smaller sub-national units capable of delivering services. Indeed, in much of Africa, international organizations' financial assistance packages have been a key driver of decentralization, resulting in African nations adopting federal-like arrangements.

In practice these federal-like arrangements have been unbalanced and unlikely to achieve success. As in those federations that came before them, many local governments have been subsumed constitutionally by the exclu­sive competence of the states. This is compounded by the minimal revenue­raising capacity of local government. This problem of fiscal autonomy is also highlighted in Miguel Angel Asensio's chapter on Argentina, in which he tests Wheare's (1963) claim that the ‘states must have sufficient revenues to enable them to act independently’.

These chapters show that the echoes of Riker, Wheare and Livingston still resound through modern federal scholarship. Indeed, the questions posed by those classic scholars are still debated, engaged with and reformulated today. Taken together, the chapters in this volume and those classic conceptions point the way forward for federal research.

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