This article examines the distinctive federal imaginary. An imaginary associated with a concept refers to the worldview that makes it possible and, in turn, to the worldview that it makes possible. It is the repertory of possible actions and thoughts that make sense, that are plausible, that are readily accessible from within the worldview that the artefact concept in question frames. The hermeneutic task at hand in providing an account of the imaginary associated with an institutional framework like federalism can be meaningfully limited to the distinctive assumptions upon which it is based, and the distinctive worldview it contributes in producing. We will thus examine what might be conceived as the distinctive internal point of view of federalism. While analytical jurisprudence tends to stop at looking at the basic structure of the paradigmatic cases of the concepts that it examines, we will push the inquiry further to flesh out what kind of background assumptions make the practice of federalism possible.This article will first explore how political authority is conceived and how we attempt to make sense of its legitimacy in a world that we imagine made of relatively equal individuals who are members of multiple collective agents (I.). In light of the fact that political authorities’ legitimacy in our contemporary world relies on instrumental and existential justifications, we will examine how subjects may react when confronted with authoritative demands that do not appear to satisfy one or another of such justifications (II.). This will highlight the need for distinguishing between institutions meant to embody collective identities – “existential communities” – from institutions perceived as mere “functional regimes”. Indeed, the nature of the standards used to evaluate the actions and powers of each will differ accordingly (III.). In particular, the perception that subjects will have of an institution (i.e. as either incarnating an existential community or as putting in place a functional regime) will determine the acceptability of treating such institution as a mere delegate of a superior political authority (IV.). The distinctive imagined nature of both the central entity and the federated states in a Federation prohibits conceiving either one of them as mere delegation of the other level of government (V.). A Federation is thus a political form that does not rely on the idea of sovereignty (VI.), nor on a somewhat contractual theory associated with confederations. Rather, Federations are political forms built around ideas such as loyalty and solidarity between intertwined, nested, political communities (VII.).