In the previous video lecture we looked at how constitutions play a key role in distributing power across orders of government. They establish where the regional governments and where the center enjoy self-rule, as well as areas where there is shared-rule. Supreme Constitutional Courts often help in clarifying who does what. But not always is this a technical legal matter with an easy solution. Different ideas about the nature of the Federal Union can coexist amongst the constiuent nations. Especially when more than one ethnic, linguistic, religious, cultural community lives together federal issues tend to acquire political colors, pitting entire communities against one another. There is a risk that the law itself might come to be seen as favorable to one community, often the majority, at the expense of the legitimate concerns of the weaker and smaller minority. Not everything in federalism is about protecting the autonomy of the regional states against the encroachments of the center, that is the self-rule side of things. There's also the shared-rule’s side of things and that is about how much political presence do regional states have at nationwide politics and institutions. While this presence could be formalized in the political institutions, particularly the upper house or the second chambers of national parliaments, that work as outlets for regional state representation at the center. Or in terms of regional quotas, like national institutions of the civil service and the army. The presence of the regions at the center could could also rely on more diffused and indirect factors, like political parties or the party system. Particularly in terms of the relative weight of the national party dynamics versus regional ones. What makes federalism different from its elder sibling, confederalism, is that federalism takes place within a single sovereign state. Federalism creates a sovereign state that is based on a federal union. When states join a looser union, where they share political power, but retain their individual sovereignty then we have confederalism. There is very little at the center since in confederalism the cautious states do not build a central federal order of government bringing together the regional states and the citizens. Confederations are intergovernmental unions between countries. Federations are countries with a territorial division of powers between the center and the regional states. So different from confederalism, regional representation at the center is the key component of federalism and that's why it deserves our attention here. Yes, regional states have constitutionally entrenched autonomy providing them with self-rule in policy areas under their jurisdiction. But regional states are also territorial components of the country and should have a say in national politics through shared-rule. The most visible and symbolic element of regional representation at national politics is in the parliament. You’ll remember the brief discussion we had on the American presidential elections to demonstrate the non-majoritarian Democratic politics at play. We talked about the directly elected House of Representatives, representing Americans on a one citizen one vote nationwide basis, regardless of federal demarcations. But we also talked about the two senators each of the states got, making the Senate the representation and the voice of America's 50 constitute regional states. The Senate, that is the upper house of the US Congress, is the parliamentary chamber, second chamber, representing the regional states. In the American case all regional states have two senators regardless of size. Now, that is the size of the state, not the senator of course. But instead of following this model of equal representation of the regions at the center other federal systems follow a weighted regional representation. Not a directly proportional representation based on one citizen one vote, but one where there is some recognition of the differences in size that leads to different weights in votes. The second chamber, or the upper house, of the German parliament, the Bundesrat, is an example of this representative model. Each state has a minimum of three votes, but the number of votes could go up to six based on the size of the population. So the largest state, North Rhine-Westphalia, has six votes, representing its 18 million inhabitants. While the smallest state, Bremer, has three votes, representing 660,000 citizens. In pure one citizen one vote terms this means that 220,000 Bremers equal 3 million North Rhine-Westphalians. But, of course, in federal terms, Bremer needs a corporate representation that would bring it around the table together with other regional states on a more or less equal footing. The election, selection, and appointments of regional representatives in second chambers and upper houses differ from all of these cases from one another to another. So do the constitutional political powers of the upper houses of parliaments, we'll leave those details for elsewhere. But what is constant across the cases is that this is the most important formal venue for regional representation at the center. A more diffused and indirect vehicle for regional representation at the center is the party politics and the party system. Now, there’s a huge political science literature looking at various aspects of party politics, party systems, party agendas, and so on. Of course, electoral systems are also an important part of this. Seeking to expose the impact different electoral systems have on facilitating nationwide representation on the one hand. Or empowering regional and local political parties on the other. We cannot cover all angles to the role of political parties and the party system in bringing about or stonewalling regional representation at the center. But in looking at it our individual cases we cannot and should not leave out the role of political parties. Particularly the role they play in workings of federalism and decentralization. What matters here is whether we seen nation-wide parties cutting across regional state jurisdictions and campaigning nationally on national politics. Or do we see political parties that are only active at the regional level or indeed active only in one regional state representing a distinct ethnic, religious, or linguistic community. Another important question centers around the number of political parties. Are there multiple parties competing for the control of various orders of government? Or is this a case where we see one nationally dominant party controlling most orders of governments? The nationally dominant roles of ANC in South Africa or the EPRDF in Ethiopia are inseparable from the federal dynamics in both countries. Altogether party politics plays an important role in the foundations, the political foundations of federalism. These political factors establishing party politics and the party system are normally not codified in constitutions, but they are malleable to change over time. This does not make them less relevant or less important, of course. The composition of the national bureaucracy, police, and military can become very sensitive issues in federal systems indeed. Especially in federations with deep ethnic, linguistic, and religious divisions. Fears of one group controlling, say, the security services can instill tensions and, in fact, unleash the perception of insecurity. At the same time enforcing nationally strict quotas for regional representation in national bureaucracies does not always bring about effective, efficient, and workable solutions. One reason for this is the difference amongst communities in terms of their geographic distribution, their language proficiency, their education, and training, as well as indeed their career choices. Some minority groups, especially those with a history of marginalization, might be underrepresented in the security services. While communities traditionally with more bilingual proficiency and a tradition of higher education might be overrepresented in federal bureaucracies. Due to their language skills and training. Another tricky issue in divided societies and federalism concerns the proportion that is supposed to be presented in the composition of national bureaucracy. Does one follow nationwide statistics in order to determine the proportional targets in the bureaucracy or do we adopt regional indicators for such targets? These seemingly technical indicators can become very politicized in day to day politics. For example, in South Africa the coloured community make up close to 50% of the population of the Western Cape province. Whereas nationally their percentage of the population is about 9%. The Cape region has been the traditional and historic home to this community. This community representing the interracial melting of European, black African, ethnic Khoisan, and Southeast Asian elements. One of the cases grinding its way through the legal system in South Africa at the moment concerns the official employment quotas for ethnic groups. The federal correctional services employs national benchmarks. But this practice is challenged by coloured correctional officers from Western Cape. Claiming regional demographics and statistics should provide the benchmarks for the regional branches of federal bureaucracy. Their claim is that the correctional services in the province of Western Cape should reflect the population demographics of Western Cape itself. And not a national average of all the provinces. The case is currently under appeal, but we will see more of these issues in the next video lecture on the social foundations of federalism. But before that we have one item left on the political foundations of federalism and decentralization. In terms of the political building blocks of federalism, in particular, in terms of the presence of regional states in national politics, the notion of intergovernmental relations holds a very important place in the study of federalism. It is exactly what it sounds like, it is the relations between the orders of government, the central one, as well as the regional state. These governments meet, debate, negotiate, and decide. Neither national and regional legislators, nor common citizens are privy to these intergovernmental debates. It is a government to government venue, not completely unlike international relations between sovereign states. But we see more of traditional intergovernmental relations in older established federations. Especially those with strong populous regional-states with the political administrative and financial strength to hold their ground against other regional states in the center. In most African cases the regional and local levels of government still lag behind in state capacity. This means that they might not be capable of balancing of the center yet. But for this reason intergovernmental relations does not seem to be a key defining characteristic of federalism and decentralization in Africa at the moment. So the rich scholarly literature on intergovernmental relations in older more established federations accumulated over years might not always be of immediate help here. Deficiencies in regional state capacity, administrative capacities, trained personnel, and financial autonomy all prevent the regional and local levels of governments in Africa from engaging with the central government on an equal footing. What is a key characteristic of federalism and decentralization in Africa, however, is the bewildering ethnic, linguistic, demographic, and geographic complexity. Which happens to be the topic of the next video lecture so I'll see you then, bye.
