Parliamentary Federations and Limited Government

Abstract

Constitutional arrangements can be said to have a structural logic in the sense that, among other things, they reflect a pattern of assumptions about the nature of government and a polity's particular brand of constitutionalism. It is the argument of this article that there is a basic inconsistency in the constitutional design of parliamentary federations and particularly those which have incorporated British parliamentary traditions. This is illustrated by an analysis of the constitutional evolution of Australia and Canada. Both systems have responded to changing popular expectations of the scope and function of government not by gradual evolution within a consistent constitutional tradition, but by major alteration to the mode of constitutionalism as first one and then another element of the rival institutional logics becomes dominant. The tension between these competing elements is used to chart the interaction between federalism, parliamentary institutions and notions of limited government.