What Is Federalism?

Federalism is a system of government that shares power in a country between the national government that is the government of the whole country and individual regional governments within the country.

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Federalism does not manifest itself in the exact same way in every country considered to be federal. Instead there are a few hallmarks which are common between these countries. One of these is a constitution, a written document which ensures power is shared out fairly between the national and regional governments. A constitution is agreed to by both sides, and that can’t be changed unilaterally, meaning without the consent of both the national and regional governments. For example in the US, changes to the constitution agreed to by the national government can not be brought into effect without ⅔ of state governments voting for them. Often in Federal systems, the constitution also includes an impartial judicial body which ensures that both national and regional governments are not overstepping their powers. Also, in federal systems, citizens are able to vote for regional legislatures and a national one that represents the entire nation.

How is power actually shared though? Often, regional governments have power over things that have immediate relevance to people like education and public services. The national government on the other hand has power over things that are better managed on a nation level, to provide consistency amongst all regions like foreign affairs, defence, trade, citizenship, and macroeconomic policy.

But why would any country want to adopt federalism? The main advantage of Federalism is that it allows for multiple different cultures to exist under one country. It thus accommodates dissent and disagreement and prevents countries from falling apart from within. Federalism also reduces the number of weak states in an area by having them combine into one and work together, which reduces the chance of aggression between them. It also promotes economic growth between regions by removing barriers to trade. Also, Federalism disperses power centres to ensure individual and regional freedom.

Finally, what are the main disadvantages associated with federalism? One of the reasons why federalism fails is because of a lack of balance. This can be due to disparities in population size between regions that leads to one region dominating the national government and ignoring or openly disregarding the interests of minority regions. For example in the former Yugoslavia, Serbia was by far the largest region in terms of population and it dominated the national government, and ignored the other regions. This fact eventually led to many regions seceding. One way of remedying this problem of having one region that is larger than other regions is by overrepresenting the smaller regions in the national government. In the US smaller states are overrepresented in the Senate in the electoral college which is used to elect the President. Supposedly, this overrepresentation helps to prevent smaller states being dominated by the larger states, smaller states were in the former Yugoslavia.

Another problem often raised about federalism is where to draw the line in the distribution of power between the national and regional governments. In the US many have argued that despite the national government still has a disproportionate amount of power compared to regional governments. This can be best evidenced by the supremacy clause in the US constitution which allows national government to override regional governments if they disagree on a specific topic, a clause which also exists in a similar form in the Indian constitution. This clause was famously invoked in the US in the 19th century when the national government wanted to end slavery, but the South wanted to retain it, leading to the national government overriding the South, and a Civil war starting shortly thereafter. Some might argue that this is an example of the national government having too much power, and forcing itself on the minority. But the alternative, of an impotent national government with power instead completely decentralised has shown to be a failure; the 1781 articles of confederation that preceded the adoption of federalism in the US consisted of 13 colonies with a weak centre that could never hope to vie with the strongly centralised British empire.

Sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRYEhroa19A_nOzpITRySJA2Ua9hoBQxzh7rUs1XeGrtyRMY2jsR0J1-zs5dW2UqilK0QcmL-lfKFUB/pub

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