Democracy and Autonomy

Democracy presumes that governments act autonomously, irrespective of the pattern of a federation, whether its powers are separate from those of other governments or shared, whether governments make policies on their own or cooperate in one way or another.

When making decisions according to the rules of democracy, a government has to pretend to act autonomously. This is not only a normative principle, but a real claim determining the behaviour of actors and shaping politics and policy making. Accordingly, federal and state governments negotiating an intergovernmental agreement are expected to speak for their people, and they actually do so when defining their bargaining positions and strategies in multi-level policy making (Scharpf 2000). Hence even if they cooperate, they tend to prioritize their own interests, regardless of the external impact of their policies.

In a federal democracy, levels are, in a way, separated. Yet the reason for this separation is not the allocation of powers, but the territorial organiza­tion of democracy.

Second, one might argue that a federal government speaks for the people of the federation, as well as for the peoples of the constituent units, who might both be represented in federal parliaments, in particular in those with elected second chambers. Nevertheless, a federal parliament and a federal executive act for and are accountable to the people of the federation, not the peoples of the constituent states. If bicameralism introduces a territorial dimension of representation in a federal legislature, this amounts to ‘descriptive repre­sentation', as Hannah Pitkin (1972) has labelled it, whereas ‘responsive rep­resentation'—that is, acting for—requires autonomy of legislation within a jurisdiction.

Third, speaking and acting for the people actually means speaking for a party or a coalition of parties holding a majority in parliament. But, nonetheless, those in power claim to speak for the people, as do parties. Parties compete to gain a majority in elections. The existence of opposition parties thus forces parties in power to act for the people. In consequence, competition reinforces the autonomy of government, which in the democratic process materializes on a particular level. Of course, the same parties may exist and participate in elections at different levels of a federation, as clearly happens in an integrated party system (Thorlakson 2009). Under these conditions, they can serve to harmonize policies across federal and sub-federal governments and provide a channel of communication between levels.

To conclude: in democratic federations, autonomy finds expression in the process of democratic governing. This process is organized within a territo­rially defined jurisdiction where the government can be hold accountable to parliaments and the people. Thus, it has nothing to do with the division of power, with shared rule or self-rule. Irrespective of whether they apply sepa­rate or shared powers, governments act on their own responsibility, if they act in accordance with the rules of the democratic process.

As long as federalism, like democracy, is presumed to imply autonomy of governments at the different levels, there is no conflict inherent in a federal democracy. Yet, this concept of a dual federalism and a constitution clearly separating powers into ‘watertight departments' is unrealistic and was never an appropriate idea of federalism. A federation claiming to act on its own responsibility causes problems if policies made by governments at different levels are interdependent. Whereas democracy separates governance at the different levels, federalism links them in multi-level governance in order to manage interdependence between policies made at the different levels. This requires intergovernmental coordination between governments, a process which conflicts with their claim to autonomy.

3