Rise Of Federalism Research Articles

A House Divided: Federalism and Social Conflict in Italy

Looking at Italy, the article argues that government serves as an intervening variable that can mediate the implication of federalism and social division. Its overall argument is that the Italian state maintained its unity through a governmental practice of configuring social division so as not to align on the North/South divide, while engaging in a comprehensive devolution of competencies to the subnational level. Through readings of Carlo Cattaneo and Guiseppe Mazzini, the first part of the article considers the conjunctural factors that allowed for the creation, against all odds, of Italy as a unitary state. The second part considers by what strategies the political parties colluded in preserving the unity of the national territory, and by what forms of devolution power was transferred to the subnational level. In conclusion, the article considers the rise of federalism in Italian politics from the 1990s.

The Legal Geography of Expansion: Continental Space, Public Spheres, and Federalism in Australia and Canada

This article is a comparative, historical overview of Canadian and Australian federalism. The author seeks to answer three questions: Why did the founders of each country choose a federal system? What sort of federation did they want? What sort of federation did the countries have after judicial review? The first part of the article argues that the rise of federalism was related to nineteenth-century trends such as industrialization and the increasing importance of continental as opposed to the coastal territories. The nation-builders required, the author asserts, a constitutional apparatus that could reconcile economic and nationalist motives for expansion with sentiments of historic colonial attachment and local autonomy. A federal division of sovereignty was therefore attractive. The second part of the article examines what the framers specifically wanted from their federations and suggests reasons why these expectations were partially satisfied and partially disappointed According to the author, the division of legal space permitted national expansion while maintaining regional autonomy. However, federalism offered protection and autonomy not just to levels of government, but to the "private" and "public" spheres of federal society. These spheres were dynamic rather than stable. Finally, in the third section on judicial review, the author argues that centralization in both countries was linked to the "expansion of public space " and the rise of interventionist economics and policies. In Canada, however, constitutional protection for the "private " civil law tradition of Lower Canada limited both centralization and federal intervention in the economy.