http://italychronicles.com/federalism-in-italy/ Life in the Living Museum Sat, 11 Feb 2012 15:30:06 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://italychronicles.com/federalism-in-italy/#comment-30492 Manuel Reimi Fri, 08 Apr 2011 16:18:51 +0000 http://italychronicles.com/?p=2288#comment-30492 I think you are misinterpreting federalism quite a bit from a strict political science perspective. Federalism is in fact a system of government, as opposed to unitarism. The United States of America enjoys a strong federalist system. Other places like Germany, do not have such a strong federalism but yet they are federations. The "strength" of federalism lies more in the federal constitution of a country than political custom. The United States of America came to exist as the union of several colonies which were for most purposes administered separately by crown corporations. They decided to join first in a form of very weak union called a confederation. Confederations are a hybrid between a politcal entity and a forum of independent entities. The European Union works as a confederation of the several European nation-states. For newly-independent America, this proved to be ill-fated so the states passed the federal constitution the country has kept to this day. The U.S. constitution assigns the powers that the federal government will have in exclusivity, the minimal conditions that all states will guarantee to their citizens and citizens of other states in order to belong to the Union and the matters that will be reserved to the states themselves. It is a form of federal pact. The U.S. federalism is a strong one because the matters reserved to the states are constructed very broadly. That is, in article 10 of the U.S. constitution all powers not given to federal government are given to the states themselves, or the people. The federal government keeps very few powers, mainly to provide common defense, common foreign policy and regulate interstate commerce. The federal judicial branch counters abuses by state governments and by the federal government to make the system effective. Federalism is thus different from decentralization in that the powers are not "devolved" by the central government but rather they are constitutionally protected as state rights. The Italian federalist movement might start by asking for very limited powers re-construed as state rights, such as fiscal powers. However, the fact that it is asking for federalism and not decentralization (even if reform eventually passes as a law by the central government- ergo: devolution of powers) I would interpret to be just the beginning of a wider federal reform in Italy. Considering the principal force behind this movement is the Lega Nord (Italy's historic separatist party) I would expect federalism to include in the future regional constitutions, regional court systems, a federalist upper-chamber of parliament (such as the U.S. Senate) and constitutionally-protected state/region rights. I may be wrong about my predictions for the movement. But certainly federalism goes beyond fiscal decentralization. In my humble opinion, strong federalism might work better for large countries such as the United States, Canada, Mexico; Brazil, Russia and Argentina. In small countries such as Germany and Italy, a federalism with a strong central government (who keeps many functions to itself)might be favored and while the resulting structure might resemble a highly decentralized unitary state such as the UK, they are still fundamentally different. I think you are misinterpreting federalism quite a bit from a strict political science perspective. Federalism is in fact a system of government, as opposed to unitarism. The United States of America enjoys a strong federalist system. Other places like Germany, do not have such a strong federalism but yet they are federations. The “strength” of federalism lies more in the federal constitution of a country than political custom.
The United States of America came to exist as the union of several colonies which were for most purposes administered separately by crown corporations. They decided to join first in a form of very weak union called a confederation. Confederations are a hybrid between a politcal entity and a forum of independent entities. The European Union works as a confederation of the several European nation-states. For newly-independent America, this proved to be ill-fated so the states passed the federal constitution the country has kept to this day. The U.S. constitution assigns the powers that the federal government will have in exclusivity, the minimal conditions that all states will guarantee to their citizens and citizens of other states in order to belong to the Union and the matters that will be reserved to the states themselves. It is a form of federal pact. The U.S. federalism is a strong one because the matters reserved to the states are constructed very broadly. That is, in article 10 of the U.S. constitution all powers not given to federal government are given to the states themselves, or the people. The federal government keeps very few powers, mainly to provide common defense, common foreign policy and regulate interstate commerce. The federal judicial branch counters abuses by state governments and by the federal government to make the system effective.
Federalism is thus different from decentralization in that the powers are not “devolved” by the central government but rather they are constitutionally protected as state rights. The Italian federalist movement might start by asking for very limited powers re-construed as state rights, such as fiscal powers. However, the fact that it is asking for federalism and not decentralization (even if reform eventually passes as a law by the central government- ergo: devolution of powers) I would interpret to be just the beginning of a wider federal reform in Italy. Considering the principal force behind this movement is the Lega Nord (Italy’s historic separatist party) I would expect federalism to include in the future regional constitutions, regional court systems, a federalist upper-chamber of parliament (such as the U.S. Senate) and constitutionally-protected state/region rights.
I may be wrong about my predictions for the movement. But certainly federalism goes beyond fiscal decentralization. In my humble opinion, strong federalism might work better for large countries such as the United States, Canada, Mexico; Brazil, Russia and Argentina. In small countries such as Germany and Italy, a federalism with a strong central government (who keeps many functions to itself)might be favored and while the resulting structure might resemble a highly decentralized unitary state such as the UK, they are still fundamentally different.

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