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The Case for Conceptual Dichotomies in Comparative Federalism: Can Political Science Learn from Comparative Constitutional Law?

2014; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 2; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/21622671.2013.866595

2162-268X

Franz Xavier Barrios-Suvelza,

Local Government Finance and Decentralization

AbstractComparative federalism has offered a stable theoretical framework for classifying states according to their formal structure. However, in the last decades heterodox constitutional outcomes as in the Spanish, Italian and South African cases have put the conventional taxonomies under pressure, particularly the widely accepted unitary-federal dichotomy. This article will show that a better link between political science and legal theory is needed for improving taxonomies in comparative federalism by offering a complementary way of classifying state forms from the perspective of territorial structures. A new methodology of classifying territorial state forms, based on the distribution of rulemaking authority, is operationalized through adjusted parameters that are tested by means of a re-classification of selected countries according to a new dichotomy and to subtypes reflecting the status of territorial layers within the state.ExtractoEl federalismo comparativo hasta ahora ha constituido un marco teórico estable para clasificar los Estados en función de su estructura formal. Sin embargo, en las últimas décadas los resultados constitucionales heterodoxos, como en los casos de España, Italia y Sudáfrica, han sometido a las taxonomías convencionales a presión, especialmente en lo que concierne a la dicotomía unitaria-federal ampliamente aceptada. En este artículo se demuestra que para mejorar las taxonomías en el federalismo comparativo es necesario crear una mejor relación entre la ciencia política y la teoría legal ofreciendo un modo complementario de clasificar las formas estatales desde la perspectiva de las estructuras territoriales. A partir de la distribución de la autoridad normativa, se considera una nueva metodología de clasificar las formas de Estados territoriales mediante un ajuste de parámetros que se comprueban al llevar a cabo una reclasificación de países seleccionados según una nueva dicotomía, y de acuerdo a subtipos que reflejan el rango de las capas territoriales dentro del Estado.比较性联邦制，为依照国家的正式结构进行分类提供了稳定的理论框架。但在过去数十年来，在西班牙、意大利与南非案例中的非主流宪政结果，使得传统的分类学面临考验，特别是被普遍接受的单一制与联邦制的二元对立。本文从领土结构的视角，透过提供分类国家形式的补充方法，证明需以政治科学和法律理论之间的较佳连结来改善比较性联邦制的分类。本文将透过调整后的参数，施行根据规则制定权力分配的领土国家形式分类之崭新方法论，这些参数藉由根据新的二元对立以及反应国家内部领土阶层状态的子类型，对选定的国家再分类以进行测试。RésuméLe fédéralisme comparatif a fourni un cadre stable théorique pour classer les états en fonction de leur structure formelle. Néanmoins, pendant les dernières décennies, des résultats constitutionnels hétérodoxes, comme c'est le cas en Espagne, en Italie, et en Afrique du Sud, ont mis en cause les taxonomies traditionnelles, notamment la dichotomie fédéralo-unitaire qui est généralement bien reçue. En fournissant une voie complémentaire pour classer les états en fonction de leur structure territoriale, ce présent article va démontrer qu'il faut un meilleur lien entre la science politique et la théorie du droit pour améliorer les taxonomies du fédéralisme comparatif. À partir des paramètres ajustés qui sont mis à l’épreuve au moyen d'un reclassement des pays sélectionnés suivant une nouvelle dichotomie, et selon des sous-classes qui reflètent le statut des échelons territoriales au sein de l’état, on met en oeuvre une nouvelle méthodologie de classer les états territoriaux qui est fondée sur la distribution du pouvoir normatif.Keywords: devolutionfederalismmulti-level governancestate theoryregions AcknowledgementsThe author is grateful to the anonymous reviewers and to the editor for their insightful comments and feedback, and to Mariam Hamouda for her helpful work on the earlier drafts of this paper.Notes1. See more on the methodological pros and cons of dichotomies in political science in Collier and Levitsky (Citation2009).2. According to Sartori's definition, degreeism follows the ‘maxim that differences in kind are best conceived as differences of degree, and that dichotomous treatments are invariably best replaced by continuous ones’ (Sartori, Citation1991, p. 248).3. For the differentiation of these two systems see Watts (Citation2008, p. 8).4. The term ‘subnational’ is avoided because some states may be plurinational. On this topic and the term ‘substate’, see Tierney (Citation2004). See also Watts (Citation2000, p. 941) regarding the retention of the term ‘subnational’ while acknowledging the problems as far as multinational federations are at stake.5. For the differences between primary, secondary and tertiary lawmaking, see Baldwin (Citation2003).6. For the concept of hybrids see Watts (Citation2000, p. 950; 2008, pp. 11, 14, 25; 2013, p. 24). In this context, for more on hybridization as a novel trend see also Burgess (Citation2013, p. 55), and Loughlin (Citation2013, p. 15) for an analysis more related to ‘territorial governance’.7. Not every concept of a ‘regional state’ concerns a true trichotomy. Keating's use of this concept, for example, pursues other cognitive goals. For Keating (Citation2003, p. 187), the ‘regional state’ is less a categorical classification than an expression of the contemporary rise of the ‘region’ as a social phenomenon. Even Keating's (2003, p. 114) concept of a ‘regionalized state’ is not comparable to Badia's ‘regional state.’ This is because Keating's ‘regionalized state’ is built upon degreeism; thus, he finds no trouble in considering both Spain and France as belonging to the same family of ‘fully regionalized states’ (2003, p. 118).8. The more neutral term ‘first-tier jurisdiction’ will be used when the ‘central government’ or the ‘national level’ is referred to, and the term ‘state’ will be employed to express the whole polity. The term ‘first-tier jurisdiction’ is borrowed from Treisman (Citation2007, p. 22).9. As early as 1942, the term ‘simple’ was used by Groppali in contrast to the term ‘composite’, yet for him, ‘simple’ was not related to the monopoly of lawmaking authority, and the idea of ‘composite’ was conterminous to the federal state, understood as a union of states (Groppali, Citation1942, p. 246).10. For an illuminating and critical account of the evolution of Watts' concept of ‘federal political systems’ and its implications for the genus-species issue, see Burgess (Citation2013, pp. 51 ff.).11. Along these lines, see Venter (Citation1997, p. 56), who after asserting that South Africa was ‘not transformed into a formal federation’, preferred to speak of South Africa as a ‘composite state’ that would probably end as a ‘regional state’ (1997, pp. 56, 73).12. The term ‘statics’—though with a slightly different meaning—is borrowed from the German legal scholar Merten (Citation1993), who used it for describing the architecture of the state as far as its structural principles were considered.13. See Art. 40 and 41 of the South African Constitution. Even the term ‘sphere’ was deliberately chosen to avoid the more hierarchical connotation of the more common term ‘level’ (Devenish, Citation1998, p. 105).14. See also Lejeune (Citation2010, p. 55) for a comparable argument relating to the regional state as a kind of composite model lacking shared rule, and see also Uyttendaele (Citation2005, p. 56) for a lack of participation in lawmaking at the state level in the regional state.15. According to Hills (Citation2005, p. 198), US municipalities receive constitutional protection through the constitutions of the several federated entities. However, as the concept of constitutional entrenchment I am referring to relates to the constitution of the whole polity, the US case very well illustrates subtype A-1.16. This exaggerated view corresponds to Elazar’s (1997, p. 238) subtypes of unitary states. According to Elazar, the first subtype is based on military hierarchy (pyramidal), and the second is based upon a single centre, which may ‘accidentally’ expand and retract in relation to the periphery (organic). For Elazar, France is the best example of the first subtype, in which ‘intrigues and manoeuvres’ dominate the pyramid, whereas ‘reflection and choice’ prevail in the federal world.17. In the semantic field of the conventional unitary-federal dichotomy, it is quite safe to say, as Watts does, that in unitary states ‘there may be … legislative … decentralization to constituent units’ (Watts, Citation2013, p. 20, my emphasis). In the semantic field proposed in this paper such an assertion is too vague as the concept of the simple state presupposes that a decisive kind of rulemaking (namely primary legislation) can never be transferred in favor of substate units.18. This kind of strong substate rulemaking authority can be compared to the category of Satzung pertaining to the tradition of German local government. Municipal Satzung is considered law-production, not execution of law (Ossenbühl, Citation2007, p. 377).19. This assertion corresponds to considering the UK ‘unitary’ as Goldsmith and Page (Citation2010, p. 259), Drewry (Citation1995, p. 1303) as well as Tierney (Citation2004, p. 188) suggest. This is not incompatible to viewing the UK simultaneously as a ‘union state’ (see also Rhodes, Citation2001, p. 15968), as both terms relate to different things. Indeed, according to Prélot, unitary and union state are compatible because in a union state there may be different legislations for addressing diverging substate realities, but there is still only one legislator (Prélot, Citation1990, p. 255). Thus, within the simple-composite semantic field we do not need to imagine the ‘union state’ as a third alternative as Loughlin (Citation2013, p. 8) caught up within the conventional unitary-federal semantic field proposes.