How We Define Autonomy in Federal Practice

If we define autonomy as Benz suggests,

Autonomy means that ability of a community, organization or govern­ment to decide on its own affairs without the intervention of a higher authority.

many chapters in this collection, therefore, accept that autonomy is in fact ‘imagined', either because it is constrained or promoted via other factors, or because it never really existed, or because it is negotiated through the ana­lytical prism that Burgess (2012) labels ‘the federal spirit'. Understanding autonomy through this prism takes it far beyond its definitional parameters. All the contributors frame their theoretical contributions and empirical anal­ysis within a world characterized by increasing interconnectedness and inter­dependence (and policy spillovers). Now, more than ever, for contemporary federalism to remain relevant and effective in its real-world manifestations, it needs new mechanisms that manage these interdependencies to produce cooperation and compromise between groups, individuals and territories.

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