Federalizing and De-Federalizing Processes: a Conceptual Exploration for a Comparative Agenda

Federalism has long been a major political, institutional and constitutional response to reconciling conflicts that arise from aiming at effective policy making and equipping governance arrangements with popular legitimacy. In recent years, it has returned as a central issue politically in many areas of the world, not just the EU but also the Americas and Asia. Claims about the need for federalism to meet international or global challenges – be these economic, environmental, political or military – have met opposition from populist nationalists citing fear of ‘bureaucratic superstructures’ and desire for greater room for ‘autonomy’. In existing federations such as the US or India and in polities discussing possibly becoming federations, such as the EU, fierce debates have emerged about the legitimacy of federal governance, and what rules should apply federally and which should be decided at lower levels. We provide an agile conceptual apparatus to study these diverse 'federalizing processes' in order to understand which forces and actors drive them and which oppose them. We arer thus open to the possibility that 'de-federalizing processes' may occur along side or in opposition to the federalizing processes that we detect.