1 Some Theory

Federalism is an elusive concept. Ronald Watts (1999, pp. 6-7) distinguishes between three distinct but related terms: ‘federalism', ‘federal political systems' and ‘federations'.

‘Federal political systems' and ‘federation', by contrast, are ‘descriptive terms applying to a particular form of government' in which there are ‘two (or more) levels of government' combining shared-style and regional self-rule (Watts 1999, p. 7). Federal political systems can cover a range of non-unitary systems of government, including quasi federations, federations and confederacies (see also Elazar i994).Using ‘federal political system' rather than ‘federation' allows countries to include some elements of federations, because ‘political leaders and nation-builders are less bound by considerations of theoretical purity than by the pragmatic search for workable political arrangements' (Watts 1999, p. 7). This is an important distinction that we will return to when we discuss emerging federations in Africa and South America.

Finally, ‘federations' are a very specific set of countries (Australia, Canada, the USA, and so on), in which neither the federal (or central) nor constituent (regional) units of government are constitutionally subordinate to one another. Put another way, each level of government is ‘empowered to deal directly with their citizens in the exercise of legislative, executive, and taxing powers and each is directly elected by those citizens' (Watts 1999, p. 7).

This narrower definition of ‘federation' rather than ‘federal political sys­tem' is widely used by federal scholars; when the contributors' chapters are discussed below, we will see that this causes a number of analytical problems, including the reliance on overly formal legal models.

This reliance on the narrow definition of ‘federation', rather than ‘fed­eral political system', can be traced back to the early scholars of federal the­ory: Riker, Dahl, Livingston and Wheare. The classic debate can be divided into two main schools of thought: strict legalism (Riker and Dahl) and sociological approaches (Livingston). The strict legalism approach favours clear delinea­tion of constitutional realms; K. C. Wheare (1963) tells us that federal systems require a division of power, a written constitution and the coordination of supremacy. Riker tells us that central and component governments both enjoy authority in some sphere of decision making.

Livingston (1952) and Burgess (2012) tell us that there is more to federalism than simply the rules of the game and who happens to interpret them. Writing in 1952, Livingston says that the nature of society and the divisions within it are equally important when thinking about federalism. He wrote that society is a necessary and sufficient condition for a federal society. Before Elazar (1987) wrote of a spectrum of federal societies, Livingston told us that there is no ide­alized type of federation and that federations exist on a spectrum from strong (like the USA) to weak (like the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia).

Riker countered Livingston, arguing that his conception of a federal society goes too far in removing the federal components of the constitution. He says that federal societies begin and end with a ‘bargain' between the players and that those elites are of critical importance. It is they who aggregate and artic­ulate the political interests of society. Moreover, he reminds us that judges, as the arbiters of the bargains negotiated, are at the centre of federal societies and Livingston goes too far in removing those critical elites.

Taken together Riker, Wheare and Livingston lay the foundation for the scholarly debate around federalism for the half-century that followed. Indeed, the authors in this volume continue to push and pull those early discussions in new and meaningful ways. I now turn to these contributions, examining them through the lens of the early scholars of federalism.