Local Autonomy in Federal Systems: Comparison Between Switzerland and Canada

Switzerland as a cooperative federalist country and Canada as a dual federalist country have two different ways of considering local governments and their autonomy. Based on the assumption that local autonomy depends on countries’ constitutional organization, we test three hypotheses. First, that Switzerland compare to Canada enjoys a higher degree of local autonomy. Second, since one finds 26 different cantonal constitutions in Switzerland and only one federal constitution in Canada, we should expect to find more institutional heterogeneity in Switzerland and more institutional homogeneity in Canada impacting on their respective local autonomy. However, since local autonomy is a provincial power in Canada, we expect to find an effective heterogeneity. Based on institutionalist theories, our study applies a standardized codebook including eleven dimensions to measure local autonomy. Besides, our analysis provides a good understanding of the position of local governments in the multi-level governance system and their role in policy-making mechanisms.