A Journey Through the History of Federal

 A Journey through through the History of Federalism Federalism  Is Multilevel Governance Governance a Form Form of Federalism? Federalism?

Frédéric Lépine Chief editor of L’Europe en formation, lecturer of ‘Federalism and Governance’ at the Centre international de formation européenne.

Te general thematic of this issue of L’Europe en formation is about the relevance of federalism in the twenty-first century. Indeed, there is nowadays, a revival in federalist studies. Beyond the classic tradition of comparative studies, this discursive revival addresses mostly the nature of the ‘federal phenomenon’, trying to define new meanings, or to organise the phenomenon into a coherent framework. Tat revival may be traced from the beginning of the 1990s. It has its origins in many reasons, that coincide with the fall of the Berlin Wall Wall and the collapse of the Soviet system. Although all the reasons are not all directly linked to that series of events, the implosion of the communist world and of the bipolar order—and its specific ways to control conflicts—opened politics to new configurations, featuring at the same time integration and devolution and a process of globalisation—and the weakening of the modern state—as well as the emergence of new values.1 Tese new configurations can be followed through the development of contemporary integrative and differentiative political processes: a growing decentralisation in industrialised states; the development of new international organisations coordinating or integrating nation-states—the most prominent case being the European Union—; Union—; the use of federal instruments to manage domestic conflicts or, or, more broadly, broadly, to accommodate multinational states; and last but not least, the attempts to solve the current financial crisis with supranational tools. 1. Ronald L. Watts, Comparing Federal Systems, ird Edition, Tird Edition ed. (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008). 1-7. Dimitrios Karmis and Wayne Norman, “Te Revival of Federalism in Normative Political theory,” in eories of Federalism: A Reader , ed. Dimitrios Karmis and Wayne Norman (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 2-5. Daniel J. Elazar, “From Statism o Federalism: A Paradigm Shift,” Publius: e Journal of Federalism 25, no. 2 Spring (1995). L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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Eventually, this renewed interest in federalism may be traced trough recent publications, from the beginning of the 2000s. Besides numerous scientific articles on the issue, some important monographs or edited books have been published. Tey can be classified in three types. Te first type considers surveys of comparative federalism, and emphasises theoretical developments on the study of federal states.2 A second type is composed of collections of articles attempting to encompass the diversity of the federalist phenomenon, through original papers or selected classical passages. 3 Eventually, a third category clusters monographs especially devoted to new developments of federalism. 4 Whatever is the specificity of each approach, all these works aim at studying federalism in a renewed perspective. However, they seem more to address the polymorphous nature of federalism than setting out a renewed conceptual framework, and raise more questions than they give answers. Tey record the contemporary division of federal studies in several branches: normative and analytical, domestic and international, comparative, regional integration, fiscal federalism, multinational federalism, conflict management, regulatory federalism… In other words, they reflect the difficulty to organise a general federalist conceptual framework from systematic studies of federalist theories and practices. Terefore, a general question addressed by Rufus Davis—and still unanswered by this author—can be raised again: “ How do we capture all this teeming and changing variety in any generality that would serve federal theory, let alone any theory at all? ”5

Te aim of this article is to come up with an attempt to find a way to a general coherence of federalism, a prolegomena to further research on the specificity of federalism in political thoughts.

2. Watts, Comparing Federal Systems, ird Edition . Tomas Hueglin and Alan Fenna, Comparative Federalism: A Systematic Enquiry  (Peterborough,   (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2006).  A Global Dialogue on Federalism, a collection of seven edited books on the federal comparative studies of states, published by the Forum of federations, IACFS, and McGill-Queen’s University Press. 3. Jean-François Gaudreault-DesBiens and Fabien Gélinas, eds., e States and Moods of Federalism: Governance, Identity and Methodology - Le fédéralisme dans tous ses états : gouvernance, identité et méthodologie   (Cowansville (Quebec): Éditions Yvon Blais [co-published by Bruylant], 2005). Dimitrios Karmis and Wayne Norman, eds., eories of Federalism: A Reader  (New  (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). Ann Ward and Lee Ward, eds., e Ash gate Research Companion to Federalism, Ashgate Research Companion (Farnham (Surrey): Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2009). John Kincaid, ed. Federalism , 4 vols., Sage Library of Political science (London & Tousand Oaks (Ca): Sage Publications, 2011). 4. Michael Burgess, Comparative Federalism, eory and Practice  (London   (London and New York: Routledge, 2006). Olivier Beaud, éorie de la Fédération Fédération, Léviathan (Paris: Presses universitaire de France, 2007). And we have to refer as well to the pioneer and most influential book of that approach, although much older: Daniel J. Elazar, Elazar, Exploring Federalism  (uscaloosa (AL): Te University of Alabama Press, 1987). 5. S. Rufus Davis, e Federal Principle: A Journey rough Time in Quest of Meaning  (Berkeley  (Berkeley & Los Angeles (Ca): University of California Press, 1978). 155. L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring Spring 2012 

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Eventually, this renewed interest in federalism may be traced trough recent publications, from the beginning of the 2000s. Besides numerous scientific articles on the issue, some important monographs or edited books have been published. Tey can be classified in three types. Te first type considers surveys of comparative federalism, and emphasises theoretical developments on the study of federal states.2 A second type is composed of collections of articles attempting to encompass the diversity of the federalist phenomenon, through original papers or selected classical passages. 3 Eventually, a third category clusters monographs especially devoted to new developments of federalism. 4 Whatever is the specificity of each approach, all these works aim at studying federalism in a renewed perspective. However, they seem more to address the polymorphous nature of federalism than setting out a renewed conceptual framework, and raise more questions than they give answers. Tey record the contemporary division of federal studies in several branches: normative and analytical, domestic and international, comparative, regional integration, fiscal federalism, multinational federalism, conflict management, regulatory federalism… In other words, they reflect the difficulty to organise a general federalist conceptual framework from systematic studies of federalist theories and practices. Terefore, a general question addressed by Rufus Davis—and still unanswered by this author—can be raised again: “ How do we capture all this teeming and changing variety in any generality that would serve federal theory, let alone any theory at all? ”5

Te aim of this article is to come up with an attempt to find a way to a general coherence of federalism, a prolegomena to further research on the specificity of federalism in political thoughts.

2. Watts, Comparing Federal Systems, ird Edition . Tomas Hueglin and Alan Fenna, Comparative Federalism: A Systematic Enquiry  (Peterborough,   (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2006).  A Global Dialogue on Federalism, a collection of seven edited books on the federal comparative studies of states, published by the Forum of federations, IACFS, and McGill-Queen’s University Press. 3. Jean-François Gaudreault-DesBiens and Fabien Gélinas, eds., e States and Moods of Federalism: Governance, Identity and Methodology - Le fédéralisme dans tous ses états : gouvernance, identité et méthodologie   (Cowansville (Quebec): Éditions Yvon Blais [co-published by Bruylant], 2005). Dimitrios Karmis and Wayne Norman, eds., eories of Federalism: A Reader  (New  (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). Ann Ward and Lee Ward, eds., e Ash gate Research Companion to Federalism, Ashgate Research Companion (Farnham (Surrey): Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2009). John Kincaid, ed. Federalism , 4 vols., Sage Library of Political science (London & Tousand Oaks (Ca): Sage Publications, 2011). 4. Michael Burgess, Comparative Federalism, eory and Practice  (London   (London and New York: Routledge, 2006). Olivier Beaud, éorie de la Fédération Fédération, Léviathan (Paris: Presses universitaire de France, 2007). And we have to refer as well to the pioneer and most influential book of that approach, although much older: Daniel J. Elazar, Elazar, Exploring Federalism  (uscaloosa (AL): Te University of Alabama Press, 1987). 5. S. Rufus Davis, e Federal Principle: A Journey rough Time in Quest of Meaning  (Berkeley  (Berkeley & Los Angeles (Ca): University of California Press, 1978). 155. L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring Spring 2012 

 A Journey Journey through the History of Federal Federalism ism

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Requisites and axioms 

In the search for this general coherence, there is a need to define a method composed of requisites and axioms.  At first, that research is concerned primarily with the discursive approaches of federalism: thoughts and theories that lead to an intellectual formalisation of the federalist practices and values, that is to say an abstract representation of it.  As this article considers itself as a contribution to the evolution of political thoughts in the field of federalism, it aims at paving the way to include the history of federalist thoughts in “ a conceptual framework and a theory at a sufficiently abstract level to cross-cut differences in terminology. At the same time, that theory shall be sensible enough to grasp semantic history. history.”6

Te reasoning should include an historical dimension, and encompass all discourses which, in the history of thoughts, have been related to federalism, either by its semantics or by the type of content. Tus, the prolegomena research should determine how discourses on federalism have influenced each other. We would call it the ‘genealogy’ ‘genealogy’ of federalism, as the tracing tra cing of lineages between these thoughts, ending up with the building of a discrete ‘family tree’ tree’ in the path of its evolution. In the scope of this article, we will concentrate only on the Western political thoughts, as significative linkages can be made between political Western Western schools of thoughts through history, history, and we will take English and American studies as the main axis, as there can be attested a continuity in the succession of approaches. By ‘schools ‘schools of thoughts’, we mean the key approaches considering federalism as an object of studies. It includes the main acknowledged authors on the thematic, as well as scholars connected to each other in a common way to deal with political issues, within ‘scientific disciplines’ or ‘programmes of research’. Te meaning ‘paradigm ‘paradigm’’ can be used as a s well. In its more general perception, the paradigm refers to the basic postulates and concepts that frame a specific method of research. It constitutes a ‘pre-analytical’ approach, “ a system composed of primary  propositions, from from which are are derived secondary propositions, propositions, third propositions and and so on; the derivation being done according to logical and variable processes: deduction, dialectics, analogy, subsumption, etc.” 7

In the framework of this research, we will rather r ather consider schools of thoughts in a sociological way, way, as groups of thinkers or scholars who share the same way to take into account an object of studies and are a re connected to each other. other. Marks and Hooghe refer to it as ‘islands’, as considering that “ the density of communication 6. Gorm Harste, “Society’s War. Te evolution of a self-referential military system.,” in Observing International Relations. Niklas Luhmann and World Politics., ed. Mathias Albert and Lena Hilkermeier, e New International Relations Series  (Abingdon,  (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2004), 158. 7. Daniel-Louis Seiler, La méthode comparative en science politique  (Paris:  (Paris: Dalloz, Armand Colin, 2004). 48. L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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within each of [these groups of scholars] is much higher than that among them ”.8

In the same spirit, Tomas Kuhn had considered that a paradigm has to be found at first through the existence of a specific scientific community: the definition of paradigms and scientific communities are “ intrinsically circular. A paradigm is what the members of a scientific community share, and, conversely, a scientific community consists of men who share a paradigm .”9 Tis sociological definition leaves

opened the possibility to consider that some schools may share common elements to the same approach, consciously or unconsciously, although they do not communicate much with each other, as it will be shown in the article. Eventually, Eventually, any formal approach a pproach is rooted in the time and a nd place of its elaboration, and it is true as well for this article. Tus, the quest for that general coherence must be relevant for the contemporary context, as it is made hic et nunc . In a second part, in order to begin the reasoning, some axioms are required as a starting point. Te first axiom states that federalism can be considered as a specific object of political studies. Te study will be focusing on federalism as a political phenomenon taking into account the organisation of polities. Terefore, it is about public affairs and the distribution of power and authority. On the other hand, federal structure is often used to shape organisations of civil society, society, such as trade unions and grass root movements. In many cases, they can be considered as expressions of the federal phenomenon. However, However, as regard to the extent of this article, they will be taken into account only if they are to contribute, in the perception of some authors, to the organisation of the public sphere. Te second axiom considers that federalism can be studied as a sphere of its own. Te research tries to grasp the historical discursive evolution of the federalist idea through its basic acknowledged features and its semantics. Terefore, it allows observation, comparison and linkages between schools of thoughts that usually ignore each other. We argue that in creating a discrete genealogy of the school of thoughts, we can focus on the development and the process of differentiadifferentiation of the federalist field. Very often, federalism is embodied in the classical fields of studies—legal, political (domestic and international), economic, sociological or cultural—and is considered at best as a subfield of studies, or as a single item of a typology developed within each field. Te first case can be illustrated by federal comparative studies, which consider federal states—and the European Union since recently— to compare them from a political or a legal approach. Te second one appears, 8. Lisbeth Hooghe and Gary Marks, “Unravelling the Central State, but How? ypes of Multi-level Governance,” American Political Science Review  Review  97,  97, no. 2 (2003): 234. 9. Tomas S. Kuhn, e Structure of Scientific Revolutions , Tird edition ed. (Chicago & London: Te University of Chicago Press, 1996). 176. L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring Spring 2012 

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for instance, when the federal state is considered as a specific case of the state in general. At the opposite, this article postulates that the federalist idea—often called the ‘federalist principle’—can be studied by itself, cross-cutting the different classical fields of studies of the society. ‘Federalist’ or ‘federal’? 

Before going further on, a point of terminology has to be clarified, about the adjective to use as regards to the substantive ‘federalism’. Despite the fact that the suffix of the substantive in ‘-ism’ could have limited the use of the word to some normative approaches, the word ‘federalism’ has been generally accepted for all kinds of presentation of the phenomenon, being descriptive, analytical or normative. However, this acceptance has not been extended to the adjective, and the choice between ‘federalist’ and ‘federal’ brings back the importance of the suffix ‘-ist’. In this research, the adjective ‘federalist’ has been chosen, because the suffix might reflect more the reference to discursive approaches, including thoughts and ideas, and integrate the normative dimension, which is usually not the case of ‘federal’, which relates more to a descriptive approach. It has to be said that this choice is purely arbitrary, in order to keep a formal coherence to the writing. It deliberately does not take into account the possible evolution of the semantics of ‘federal’ and ‘federalist’, that have to be left for latter studies. Te article starts by addressing the question of the difficulty to define federalism. After that, it presents the evolution of the history of the federalist thought in three chapters. Te first one takes into account the thoughts previous to the  American experience, or developed out of its influence. Te second chapter considers the consequences of the American experience on federalist thoughts. Eventually, the last chapter is devoted to the latest developments of the federalist thoughts, in the age of the weakening of the modern state. HE QUES FOR HE MEANING

aking preferably recent definitions of federalism, in order to take into consideration the last evolutions of the field, we get to consider federalism of a type of organisation between different levels of communities. In its most general sense, federalism is an arrangement in which two or more self governing communities share the same political space.10 

Tus, federalism is a field of studies difficult to define, as regards to its polymorphism. As it appears at this stage, it seems that federalism embraces all forms 10. Karmis and Norman, “Te Revival of Federalism in Normative Political theory,” 3. L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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of political organisations that do not fit within the centralised state. It focuses on the diffusion of power, rather than on its centralisation. Ronald Watts, inspired by a classical definition of Daniel Elazar, proposes another general definition of federalism, more precise, as:  A broad category of political systems in which […] there are two (or more) levels of government, combining elements of shared-rule (collaborative partnership) through a common government and regional self-rule (constituent unit autonomy) for the government of constituent units.11

Tus, Watts includes an overarching ‘common government’, reducing the perception of federalism to a closed polity, as a modern state, in order to conceptualise federalism for comparative state studies.  Although that definition may seem more operational that the former one, it may reduce federalism to one of its components. Te definition of Elazar himself simply considers federalism as a combination of self-rule and shared rule, 12 which opens the federalist perspective to broader combinations. It may be illustrated by one of the last books edited by Elazar, Federal Systems of the World: A Handbook of Federal, Confederal and Autonomy Arrangements .13 In this survey of federal arrangements, Elazar encompasses all the political combinations that he does consider relevant to self-rule and shared rule, cross-cutting the distinction between domestic and international. Tus, he takes in his survey, besides classical federal states, a broad spectrum of political arrangements, from China, as can be seen there some decentralisation, to the monetary union between France and Monaco. In such an extreme extent of cases, one can address the nature of federalism, and even if there is one. Tis example assesses the difficulty to define federalism, moreover whether it is to identify an operational concept.  Actually, the federalist idea seems difficult to conceptualise, as it is not an ob ject clearly identified. A federalist arrangement is very often a complex political construct, as the result of an attempt to find a solution between antagonist concepts, such as ‘unity vs. diversity’, ‘independence vs. dependency’, ‘coordination vs. subordination’... Tis opened ‘dialectic of antinomies’ had been formulated by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon on the basic distinction of ‘liberty vs. authority’. 14 In the same methodological perspective, Denis de Rougemont wrote one century latter: 11. Watts, Comparing Federal Systems, ird Edition : 8. 12. Elazar, Exploring Federalism: 12. 13. Daniel J. Elazar, ed. Federal Systems of the World: A Handbook of Federal, Confederal and Autonomy Arrangements , 2nd Edition ed. (Harlow, Essex: Longman Current Affairs, 1994).Elazar, Federal Systems of the World: A Handbook of Federal, Confederal and Autonomy Arrangements . 14. Bernard Voyenne, Le Fédéralisme de P.J. Proudhon, vol. 2, Histoire de l’idée fédéraliste (Paris-Nice: Presses d’Europe, 1973). 57-71. L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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I suggest to call ‘federalist problem’ any situation where two antinomic human realities, but equally valid and vital, confront each other, in such way that the solution could not be found in the reduction of one of the terms, nor in the subordination of one to the other, but only in a creation which encompass, satisfy and transcend the requirements of both.15 

Terefore, it appears that the federalist idea can refer to numerous idiosyncratic and pragmatic attempts to solve a political—or even societal—problem. Moreover, in the history of political thoughts, it led to the creation of many school of thoughts referring themselves to federalism, and considering a diversity of theories not related to each other. Moreover a specific understanding of federalism has emerged in each country with a legal or political federalist tradition. Terefore, it seems difficult to choose an elaborate operational concept without taking the risk of loosing a large part of the federal experience. o state again Denis de Rougemont,  Federalism, like all great ideas, is very simple, but not easy to define in a few words or  a concise formula. Tat is because it is organic rather than rational, and dialectic rather than simply logical. It eludes the geometrical categories of vulgar rationalism, but corresponds well enough to the ways of thought introduced by relativist science.16 

Or Kenneth Wheare, at the same time: […] this definition of the federal principle is not accepted as valid by all students on the subject. Some authorities find the essence of federalism in some different principles.17 

Eventually, taking more recent observations:  Any attempt to confine such a complex and dynamic concept as federalism to a single authoritative definition is deeply problematic.18  ere is as yet no fully fledged theory of federalism. 19 

In this context of polymorphous and multicellular nature of federalism, can be addressed the possibility to use properly the federalist idea in political sciences. Four positions can be considered. 15. Denis de Rougemont, Lettre aux Européens  (Paris: Albin Michel, 1976). 118. 16. Denis de Rougemont, “L’attitude fédéraliste” (paper presented at the Rapport du premier congrès annuel de l’Union européenne des Fédéralistes à Montreux, août 1947, Genève, 1947), 10. 17. Kenneth Wheare, Federal Government , Fourth edition ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964). 11. 18. Ann Ward and Lee Ward, “Introduction to the volume,” in e Ashgate Research Companion to Federalism, ed. Ann Ward and Lee Ward (Farnham (Surrey): Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2009), 1. 19. Burgess, Comparative Federalism, eory and Practice : 3. L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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Te  first   position is that federalism cannot be considered as an autonomous political concept. It is rather a pragmatic attempt to reconcile theories with the reality.  As Rufus Davis states, the only common feature to all individuals theorising federalism is the general idea that, “ in life, not all is black and white, that political theory never squares with reality…”20 [As] we pick at the federal idea we become clearly aware that we are exposing not on  single idea but a whole intricate and varied network of interrelated ideas and concepts – of contract, of partnership, of equity, of trusts, of so�ereignty, of constitution, of state, of international law. And as we pick at these in turn we find that each of these concepts is in   fact a multicellular constellation, a molecular compound of its own ideas and concepts. 21

Eventually, for Davis, there is no use to continue to compress multicellular and idiosyncratic—and we would add pragmatic—experiences into one theory.  A second  position is to reduce deliberately the scope of federalism in order to define an operational concept. One exemplary case may be taken from Ronald Watts, in Comparing federal systems.22 Te author defines ‘federalism’ as a normative idea advocating multitiered government combining shared-rule and self-rule. 23 However, he emphasises the definition of one specific category, that he calls ‘federation’. Within the broad genus of federal political systems, “federations” represent a particular species in which neither the federal nor the constituent units are constitutionally  subordinate to the other, i.e., each has so�ereign powers derived om the constitution rather than om another level of go�ernment, each is empowered to deal directly with its citizens in the exercise of its legislative, executive and taxing powers, and each is directly elected by its citizens. 24  […] Tis book focuses primarily on analysing the design and operation of these as a   form of go�ernment which at the beginning of the twenty-first century is pro�ing to be  so widespread. 25

Tus, although Ronald Watts acknowledges the pluralistic approach to federalism, considering in particular the distinction between normative and descriptive dimensions, he focuses mainly on one specific form of organisation, where among others: (a) powers are derived from the constitution, and (b) each level is directly elected by its citizens. 20. Davis, e Federal Principle : 156. 21. Davis, e Federal Principle : 5. 22. Watts, Comparing Federal Systems, ird Edition . 23. Watts, Comparing Federal Systems, ird Edition : 8. 24. Watts, Comparing Federal Systems, ird Edition : 9. 25. Watts, Comparing Federal Systems, ird Edition : 9. L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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It has to bee said that the distinction between federalism and federation had been implicit for a very long time in federalist literature, it is only in 1982 that Preston King’s, in Federalism and Federation, established explicitly a conceptual distinction between both. 26  A third  position takes into account the fact that federalism covers all political bodies in between the unitary state and the constellation of independent states.  Any kind of cooperation between political units that does not lead to the constitution of a new single centralised state can be considered as a federal arrangement. Tat could be derived from a literal reading of the last broad definition of federalism given by Daniel Elazar. As it has been said later by Murray Forsyth: “with sufficient effort, [federalism] can be detected almost everywhere ”.27 However, this position hardly leads to an operational formalisation of the field. Eventually, a fourth position would be to consider that, whatever the difficulties, federalism, in its diversity and flexibility, may constitute a proper field of studies. Although clustering many theories, or being “ by its very nature a ‘cloak of many colors’”,28 federalism deserves a specific attention because all theories and concepts are linked by a common core of matrix combination of values, theories and practices, that one can call an idea, a principle, or a phenomenon. 29 Tis latest position has been chosen as the basic assumption of this article, considering that there is an way to go beyond ‘epistemological obstacle’ to the unification of the field, through a discursive approach. It claims that, despite the numerous political perceptions of federalism in various geographical areas, and the different methodological approaches from discipline to discipline, there is a way to find a unity in the federalist thoughts—at least in their evolution—including political thoughts clearly labelled as ‘federal’ or ‘federalist’, and other ones that follow the same principle. ORIGINS OF FEDERALISM

In order to define the scope of the federalist phenomenon, there is a need to go through the evolution of the history of federalist thoughts, and to take into account what could be their main sources and their most important developments. Many authors consider that the history of federalism starts with the American experience, as it created the first stable federal republic, which was used as a archetype model for federalist studies, as well as a reference for further federal states. 26. Burgess, Comparative Federalism, eory and Practice : 47. 27. Cited by Burgess, Comparative Federalism, eory and Practice : 47. 28. Ward and Ward, “Introduction to the volume,” 1. 29. Bruno Téret, “Du principe fédéral à une typologie des fédérations : quelques propositions,” in e States and Moods of Federalism : Governance, Identity and Methodology - Le fédéralisme dans tous ses états : gouvernance, identité et méthodologie , ed. Jean-François Gaudreault-DesBiens and Fabien Gélinas (Cowansville (Quebec):

Éditions Yvon Blais [co-published by Bruylant], 2005), 100. L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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In the attempt to encompass federalism in its historical developments, though, it has to be taken into account that the intellectual dimension of the  American federalism had been shaped by earlier thinkings. Moreover, other federalist thoughts have been developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, without being linked to the American federalism. Te aim of this section is to present these specific thoughts, as well as the early evolution of the federalist semantics. Montesquieu

Montesquieu is considered as the starting point of this enquiry through federalism, as he was the first to introduce the idea and semantics of federalism in modern political thinkings. Tus, Montesquieu presented in e Spirit of Laws 30 (1748) the first attempt to conceptualise federalism in the modern political era. In politics, modernity can be defined as the development of the modern state. From the French and English experiments as well as from the thoughts of the Enlightenment—with Bodin, Hobbes and Rousseau as prominent authors—political modernity refers to the building of the ‘modern state’ after feudalism, unified in terms of territory, population and administrative apparatus, under the overarching concept of sovereignty. It is in this context that Montesquieu writes e Spirit of Laws , in order to present a systematic study of the different forms of governments and regimes, as well as to promote political liberalism, on the model of the English parliamentarism. His approach is clearly descriptive and normative, and not yet analytical. Considering three political regimes, republic, monarchy and despotism, Montesquieu develops in the case of republics the fact that they have to be small, in order to maintain themselves. Growing too much, they would be destroyed from the inside by corruption. Tus, large states could be maintained only through a monarchic regime, and the largest through despotism. In this perspective, he develops the idea of ‘federative republics’, as unions of republics through a contract that would allow them to be large and strong enough to resist to monarchies. At the same time, the mutual control of the republics of the union on each other ensures that all would keep the same regime.  A specificity of Montesquieu is his excellent knowledge of classic history, mostly Greek and Roman governments of the Antiquity, from where he takes his most striking examples. Although the Ancient Greek did not know the world ‘federalism’ and its derivatives, Montesquieu labels the idiosyncratic unions of Greek city-states as ‘federative’. He was the first to refer to federalism for historical examples that did not use such semantic, and then gave a systematic meaning to 30. Montesquieu, De L’Esprit des lois , 2 vols., vol. 1 (Paris: GF Flammarion, 1979 [1748]). L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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it, as a union of polities. Montesquieu is the first to use federalism-related terms, such as ‘federative republic’ and ‘confederation’ in a way of scientific generalisation, that will be used afterwards by many authors, in order to refer to that phenomenon. It is notably the case of Daniel Elazar, who sees seeds of federalism in in the Hebrew term brit, meaning ‘covenant’ and referring to true peace. 31 Among may other references, on could consider a form of proto-federalism in the British empire, as it as been noticed by Michael Burgess. 32 In e Spirit of Laws , the part devoted to federalism is very limited, as it is the main subject of only the three first chapters of Book IX. However, e Spirit of Laws , as well as its historic references, had an important legacy. Firstly because it gave a theoretical content to the word. Moreover, it took an important place in further debates on federalism in modern times: Te debates about the American constitution (1776-1989) will take into account the history of Greek city-states experiments; furthermore, Montesquieu will be largely quoted in the Federalist Papers ;33 and eventually, until the end of the nineteenth century, the reference to the Greek city-states will continue to play an important role for the understanding of federalism, notably with the book of Freeman History of Federal Government in Greece and Italy .34 Terefore, e Spirit of Laws   constitutes an interesting ground of departure from a theoretical approach as well as from a genealogical approach. However, the semantics of federalism have an history of their own, that start long before the works of Montesquieu. Moreover, other important federalist thinkers have emerged in modern history, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, who cannot be directly linked to Montesquieu’s genealogy. Tese are going to be presented now. Te history of federalist semantics

 A first semantical attempt to define federalism can be made through etymology. Federalism comes from a late Latin word,  foedus , meaning ‘treaty’, ‘compact’ or ‘contract’. Foedus  comes itself from an older Latin word, fides , meaning ‘trust’. Foedus  has been used from the Ancient Roman Republic and Empire; when it was referring mostly to treaties with populations in other parts of the Italian peninsula at the times of the Republic; and with ‘barbarians’ not romanised, liv31. Elazar, Exploring Federalism: 5. 32. Burgess, Comparative Federalism, eory and Practice : 51. 33. Te most important references are in the Federalist No. 9, No. 43 and no. 47. 34. Edward A. Freeman, History of Federal Government in Greece and Italy , ed. J.B. Bury, Second Edition ed. (London: Macmillan & Co., 1893). Freeman was expecting to carry on with a second volume on the federal history of Germany, but he did not live long enough to reach his goal. L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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ing at the Marches at the time of the Empire, in order to protect the limes  of this ever-growing political body. Foedus  has been present as well in the Middle Ages, meaning a treaty of alliance between ‘political’ entities, and referring mostly to peace treaties. St Isidore of Seville, in the sixth century, was mentioning  foedera pacis   for peace treaties. Martinus Garatus Laudensis wrote in the fifteenth century a syllabus on Tractatus de confederatione, pace et conventionobus principum .35 As it can be seen, the linguistic switch had been made from foedus  to confederatio , as well as the distinction between feodus  (alliance) and pax  (treaty) within the respublica christiana .36  And the adjective ‘feudal’ itself, as it was created afterwards to refer to some parts of the Medieval period, might find its origins as well on  foedus , and its set of oaths. It is therefore not surprising that the confoederatio has been commonly used to refer to alliances. Te most striking example is from now of course the creation of the Confederatio Helvetica  (or Switzerland, from earlier than 1291), when there has been a need to translate Eidgenossenschaft   (or oath fellowship) in latin. But it was also the case for numerous leagues of the Middle Ages, among them the Germanic Holy Roman Empire.  A specific attention must be drawn to this last case, as it created a long tradition of studies of federalism in the Germanic cultural world, followed for instance by Puffendorf, von Gierke or Jelinek. A decisive moment might be seen in this tradition at the times of the Westphalian treaties. As presented by Ronald Asch, the Westphalian treaties did not have the same meaning for Germany and for the rest of Europe. While Westphalia is considered as the beginning of international relations in Europe, shaping it into divided sovereign and independent states, it is not been the case for Germany (or Central Europe, as it appeared at the time).  As Asch points out:37 In Western Europe mere noblemen and princes […] lost the ability to take part in international European politics; the sovereign states which enjoyed both full ius foederis and ius belli et pacis were the sole actors left on the European state. Not so, however, in Central Europe, where the Westphalian Peace gave the German territorial  princes a status not altogether dissimilar from that of the sovereign rulers, in spite of the  fact that in theory at least, they remained the Emperor’s liegemen and subjects. 35. See Karl-Heinz Ziegler, “Te Influence of medieval Rioman law on Peace reaties,” in Peace Treaties and International Law in European History: From the Late Middle Ages to World War One , ed. Randall Lesaffer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 36. Ziegler, “Te Influence of medieval Rioman law on Peace reaties,” 147. Randall Lesaffer, “Peace reaties from Lodi to Westphalia,” in Peace Treaties and International Law in European History: From the Late Middle Ages to World War One , ed. Randall Lesaffer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 37. Ronald G. Asch, “Te ius foederis re-examined: the Peace of Wesphalia and the Consitution of the Holy Roman Empire,” in Peace Treaties and International Law in European History: From the Late Middle Ages to World War One, ed. Randall Lesaffer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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 And Asch concludes: […]Lawyers and political theorists in the Holy Roman Empire continued to use ideas and categories of thought in the latter seventeenth century which had largely become obsolete in Western Europe, where the idea of undivided sovereignty as articulated first by Bodin and latter by Hobbes became much more influential. To the extent that political discussions in the Empire were rooted in older traditions of thought, it remained a political system sui generis, that was separated from the modern states of Western Europe by a widening gulf.

Tis conclusion explains why Germany kept on maintaining a very specific approach of federalism—however quite closed to the contemporary international political science—with the exception of the elements brought to the American political science by Carl Friedrich (see below), and of the principle of subsidiarity, brought into the European integration approach. Other founding thinkers

Tis brief presentation of the word  foedus  in the Middle Ages helps to explain the problematic of the genealogy of the federalist idea. Although Montesquieu can be considered a the first to promote the idea of federalism in modern politics, it cannot be seen as the origin of all federalist thoughts in modern history. Tree approaches of federalism, acknowledged as such by federalist scholars, take their origin in the early modern and modern political history, without direct link to Montesquieu. Tese three approaches have been developed by Johannes Althusius, Immanuel Kant and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.  Althusius 

It is in the context of the Germanic tradition described above that Johannes  Althusius (1557-1638) brought a specific model of organisation of society form his book Politica Methodice Digesta , in 1603. Althusius was a Calvinist political practitioner in the city of Emden in Germany, at the border with Te Netherlands). In Politica , he proposes a new organisation of society, in accordance with the Protestant revolts against Catholicism, and in the necessity to reform the organisation of society while the old Germanic system of the Holy Roman Empire was collapsing during the Tirty Years War. 38 38. Tis section on Althusius was mostly inspired by Tomas O. Hueglin, Early Modern Concepts for a Late  Modern World: Althusius on Community and Federalism  (Waterloo (Ontario): Wilfried Laurier University Press, 1999)., Hueglin and Fenna, Comparative Federalism: A Systematic Enquiry . and Tomas O. Hueglin, “Le fédéralisme d’Althusius dans un monde post-westphalien,” L’Europe en formation , no. 312 (1999). L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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 Althusius proposed a bottom-up organisation of society, that he called ‘consociation’, in tiers including families and guilds, cities and provinces and a universal commonwealth, with indirect representation at the higher levels. Te consociations, as organic bodies, should be working on a self-governing base, and the whole system should allow people to live together, resolving conflicts through consensus. Te idea of self-governing consociations, as well as the rule of consensus among them, were going against the development of the modern centralised state that had already started in Western Europe. Clearly, Althusius was against Bodin’s approach of absolute sovereignty, and he declared that there was no right for someone to govern on a perpetual and supreme basis, nor above the laws. 39 Terefore, he would rather be considered as a potential alternative to the latter.  Although his book was very popular at the time, it has been latter censored and totally forgotten, until it was rediscovered by von Gierke by the end of the nineteenth century. Terefore, it is very difficult to integrate him in an international genealogy of federalism, before it was brought to the united States by Carl Friedrich in 1938. Still, it is worthy to mention it as some have considered its consociation as the first modern theory of federalism. 40  Althusius has its own approach of consociational society, based in his specific political and religious thoughts, in a specific context of war, and earlier than the classical federalist thinkers. As such, he did not use the federalist terminology and could hardly be related to it. Nevertheless, once he was brought back in the main streams of political science in the twentieth century, he had some legacy through Carl Friedrich, and the consociational pluralistic democratic theory of Arend Lijphart, who took the name of his theory from Althusius. 41 Te position of Tomas Hueglin is also that the Althusian concepts could be useful to study federalism nowadays. In a globalised world where the sovereign state is hollowing out, the ‘early modern’ concepts of Althusius might find a new interest in the ‘late modern world’. Such assessment follows the line of this article, that in a world featuring at the same time fragmentation and integration, and particularism and universalism, new concepts should be developed for the political organisation and new forms of democracy.

39. Hueglin and Fenna, Comparative Federalism: A Systematic Enquiry : 90. 40. Hueglin and Fenna, Comparative Federalism: A Systematic Enquiry : 90. 41. For instance, Arendt Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in irty-Six Countries  (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999). L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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Kant 

Still in the Germanic world, but later, and with every different perspective, philosopher Immanuel Kant developed his own approach of a ‘federation of free states’. In his “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch”, Kant aims at establishing a state of peace.42 Considering that wars are made mostly by authoritarian sovereigns, at the expense of the people, his approach is grounded on the respect of laws, as it is created by republics constitutions, and as it does implement freedom for citizens and equality among them, which are embodied in the idea of justice.  As the state of nature leads to wars, legislation, or civil constitution, must be imposed and respected in order to achieve that aim. In the first section of his essay, Kant presents six rules to be respected among states in order to prevent war, focusing mostly on preventing the domination of some states by other, and enforcing disarmament. Moreover, he is reluctant to treaties, as they can contain provisions for future wars. In section II, more interesting from our concern, Kant establishes the three definitive articles for perpetual peace. Te first article states that “ e civil constitution of every state should be republican”: for Kant, republics are more pacific than other forms of states, as they have to ask for the consent of their citizens through the means of the separation of the executive and the legislative. Still, these republics might not be confused with democracies, that Kant present as a form of despotism in a philosophical classic Greek tradition. In the second article, “ e law of nations shall be founded on a federation of free states .” As long as the state of nature is ruling the relations between states, Kant advocates the republics—sharing the same civil law—should unite within a federation, that could be extended further on, for a durable peace through international law. He insists on the fact that the association should be a  foedus pacificum rather than a  pactum pacis , as the former is the only one able create an organic legal organisation able to end all wars forever. In his last article, Kant advocates the creation of a world citizenship, limited to the “universal hospitality ”, where legal freedom and equality would spread among the whole human kind, and would reenforce the perpetual peace. In Kant’s approach, peace is a moral imperative, and it has to be build through domestic and international laws.  At this stage, the federalist nature of Kant’s project should be addressed. Kant is dealing mostly with peace, international law and rights of the citizens, but not with the structure of the state. Moreover, his reference to the federation seems to be closer to the classical use of the terms in the Medieval law ( foedus pacificum) 42. Immanuel Kant, “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch,” (1795), http://www.constitution.org/kant/ perpeace.htm. L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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that to the unions promoted by Montesquieu or the American experiment. Eventually, the authors he is referring to, are more related the  Jus gentium than to the internal organisation of the state. On the other hand, some elements are common to the federalist approach. First is the idea of a contract between entities (republics) respecting each other. Second, by preferring the foedus  to the pactus , Kant seems to refer to more organic form of organisation than a simple treaty that could be denounced. Eventually, Kant acknowledges implicitly, through the limitation of world citizenship, that the implementation of peace through a large state goes against the diversity of the people, and that a federation is the only way to regulate peace. Kant deals mostly with the moral imperative, and not with a form of organisation that he does not describe precisely. In fact, the idea of Kant might have been an attempt to relaunch a form of christiana respublica  from the Middle Ages. However, he shows the path to a enforcement of a public international law that might be considered as a form of confederation. Proudhon

Te work of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865) presents a specific position in this section, as Proudhon has been writing his federalist theory by the middle of the nineteenth century, long after the first development of the modern political ideas. However, it appears that it cannot fall within the federalist genealogy of Montesquieu. Living in France, and mostly in Paris, Proudhon knew about Montesquieu, and was contemporary of ocqueville, both being opposed the Constituent Assembly of 1848. However, Proudhon does not take into account Montesquieu’s thoughts, nor his reference the Greek city-states. Neither he talks about Kant or ocqueville.43It may seem surprising that Proudhon does not make any mention of these authors when developing his own approach of federalism. For Dimitrios Karmis, the reason might be found in a “pretension to innovation” of Proudhon, an attitude rejecting the works of his predecessors to emphasise the importance of its own.44  We do not follow that assumption, and do consider the proper originality of Proudhon’s federalism. First of all, Proudhon cannot follow the works of Montesquieu and ocqueville, as, in his nineteenth century socialist perception, he opposes the po43. Dimitrios Karmis, “Pourquoi lire Proudhon aujourd’hui? Le fédéralisme et le défi de la solidarité dans les sociétés divisées,” Politique et Sociét és  21, no. 1 (2002): 46. 44. Karmis, “Pourquoi lire Proudhon aujourd’hui? Le fédéralisme et le défi de la solidarité dans les sociétés divisées,” 46. Tis assumption of Karmis follows the suggestion of Pierre Larousse, author of the Grand dictionnaire universel du xix e siècle. L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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litical and the social approaches, considering that the political approach leads to despotism—even under the name of liberalism—and the social approach to liberty. Terefore, there would be no reason for him to study them, as the modern state appears as a tool for political alienation. Moreover, the federalist semantic appears lately in Proudhon’s works, and is used to name a complex theory developed under the names of anarchism and mutualism. Tus, the ‘federative principle’ appears as the achievement of an original work, rather the evolution of ideas that were actually independent.  According to Pierre Ansart, Proudhon’s thoughts can be divided in two periods. A period of criticism of the society, featuring a deep socialist criticism of the society of his time, using mostly the semantics of anarchism, and a period more mature and moderate, from 1850-60 until his death, developing a federalist lexical choice.45 In the first period, Proudhon analyse the economic property and the capital (“Property is theft! ”), as the opposition of social classes and the State. He goes to the conclusion that the State protects the private property and the capital against the working class, and leads to despotism. In this ‘anarchist’ period, Proudhon focuses mostly on economic structures, and considers the political ones as dependant of the former. In the second period, Proudhon is seeking to find out ways of organising a society of liberty. In this new gradual approach, he takes into account other elements that the ones directly linked to the economic structures. In the complexity of the Proudhonian thought, based on the dynamics of antinomies, very evolutive, sometimes contradictory, nurtured by passions and intuitions, it is difficult to draw a line between the periods. One can consider that it starts by the end of the 1840s, and finds its accomplishment in the 1960s, with the clear introduction of the federalist semantics. One of the elements that drive the evolution of Proudhon is his interest for international politics, stimulated by the European events around 1848. He deduces from them the necessity to introduce a specific field of politics aside from the economic one, considering the dichotomy of war and peace and the principle of nationalities. Tis will introduce a perception of federalism. Proudhon must have been aware of the general idea of the federation as a political regime. However, it is mostly through Switzerland and the events of the Sonderbund   that he takes it into consideration. Proudhon was aware of the Swiss Confederation and its fed45. Pierre Ansart, “Proudhon : Anarchisme ou Fédéralisme ?,” Les cahiers Psychologie politique , no. 16, janvier (2010), http://lodel.irevues.inist.fr/cahierspsychologiepolitique/index.php?id=1412, (Last accessed on 08/04/2012). Te following lines are taken mostly of this recent article where Ansart—renowned specialist of Proudhon—addresses the use of the federalist terminology in Proudhon’s writings. L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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eral terminology: he had spent the first thirty years of is life in the neighbouring French region of Jura, and he makes reference to it in writings from 1847. Eventually, and may be mostly, it is in the use of federalist semantics in and after the French revolution that he finds his inspiration and intuitions. Te federation refers to the association of French cities to present Registers of grievances to the king just before the revolution, which will end up symbolically with the ‘ Fête de la fédération’ in 1790. It refers also to the position of the Girondins against the  Jacobins. On the other hand, ‘federated’ referred also to some military troops of the Emperor. According to Ansart, this contradictory approach might have led Proudhon to refrain using the federalist semantics before the 1860s. 46 Proudhon kept from this period a general sense of federation as a ‘fraternisation’, the natural collective movement of unity, a “ spontaneous harmony of interests ” that would appear necessarily to replace despotism. 47  Tus, the  federative  principle  takes his roots from a Proudhonian intuition of a social tendency, and cannot be located in a federalist genealogy taking its roots in Montesquieu. And the consideration of Karmis seeing the Proudhonian federalism as a mixture of Proudhonian imagination, the new type of federalism (“ federation”) and the old type of federalism (“ confederation ”)48 appears as a contemporary analysis that does not take into account the genesis of the Proudhonian idea.  With this federative principle, 49 Proudhon presents a normative theory of the social organisation of liberty. Te “ Industrial agricultural federation” would be organised bottom-up through “ synallagmatic and commutative contracts ” in which “contracting parties always keep a part of sovereignty and action greater that the one they give up”.50 Proudhon uses federation to oppose it to the top-dow approach of the Jacobine organisation of the French State, and to promote the individual and collective freedom. As such, Proudhon follows the general approach of federalism at the time, as a way to protect the individual and collective rights against the potential oppression of the sovereign state. However, in this new framework, Proudhon contemplate a new vision of the state, saying that it could be released from its despotic feature once it is not centralised anymore, but subordinated to the confederated governments.  A presentation of the legacy of Proudhon would be out of the scope of this article. However, it can be said that it strongly influenced the anarchist movement, 46. Ansart, “Proudhon : Anarchisme ou Fédéralisme ?”. 47. Ansart, “Proudhon : Anarchisme ou Fédéralisme ?”. 48. Karmis, Pourquoi lire Proudhon aujourd hui? Le federalisme et le de fi de la solidarite dans les societes “

   ́

”

divisees, 49.

’

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49. Mostly developed in “La Guerre et la Paix, recherches sur le principe et la constitution du droit des gens ” (1861) and “Du principe fédératif et de la nécessité de reconstituer le parti de la révolution” (1863). 50. Karmis, “Pourquoi lire Proudhon aujourd’hui? Le fédéralisme et le défi de la solidarité dans les sociétés divisées,” 47. L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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as well the early organisation of trade unions in France. His work played also an important role in the creation of the Spanish federal republic in 1873. Eventually, it influenced the federalist perception of some parts of the Federalist European activism after World War II, namely the personalist and ‘integral’ federalism of  Alexandre Marc and Denis de Rougemont. Provisional Conclusion

Te development of the federalist idea before the American revolution, or in parallel to it, in the eighteenth and nineteenth has been significant. However, this set of thoughts is so plural that it seems difficult to find out a common ground to it. It follows diverse idiosyncratic and pragmatic experiences of unions of polities, that can be seen from the Antique world, and have not called themselves federal, or called themselves federal following a semantic developed in the Middle  Ages. It is only in modern times, after the beginning of the conceptualisation of the ‘federative republic’ by Montesquieu, that the development of federalist thoughts really began, with Kant, with Proudhon, and with the Federalist Papers , as it will be shown in the next section.  Although these early federalist thoughts are very different in their nature, they share a common feature: a bottom-up organisation of political entities based on a cooperative contract. Moreover, all these federalist thoughts share elements of a common normative approach, as they are all seeking freedom and justice for the citizens. In different ways, they are all opposed to the centralisation of power and authority developed with the modern state, either to denounce the ‘reasons of the state’ or to balance it with a higher autority. HE DEVELOPMEN OF HE FEDERALIS IDEA IN HE MODERN ERA 

Te American experiment and the Federalist Papers

Te most important achievement of federalism in the modern era has certainly been the innovative constitutional model developed by the American constitution of 1787. Its founding fathers were men nurtured by the philosophy of the Enlightenment, as well as by political experiences of the past and of their times. Eventually, the first American experience of the ‘Articles of Confederation’, written in 1777 and implemented form 1781, paved the way to the writing of the Constitution. It is only after the Constitution that the elements of the debate were formalised into articles gathered into on book, e Federalist , or the Federalist Papers , in L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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1788, written under the common pen name ‘Publius’, by Alexander Hamilton,  James Madison and John Jay. Tis collection of papers, written at first to influence the vote of New York State in favour of the ratification and to prepare to future interpretations of the Constitution, notably through the first amendments. Considering the interest of the argumentation presented, it became quickly a theoretical reference to the Constitution and shaped further theoretical developments to what can be referred to as the ‘American federalism’.  A strong literature has already been written on the American constitutional experience and on the Federalist Papers . Such article does not want to make another survey of it, but to insist on the major theoretical developments brought for further federalist studies.  An interpretation of the Federalist Papers   suggests that the most striking innovations are not about federalism: Te Founding Fathers of the Constitution, and mostly the two main authors of e Federalist —Hamilton and Madison—, would have been mostly concerned by the creation of the first modern Republic, considering as dominant features democracy and liberal thoughts. Somehow, they would have tried to achieve the democratic liberal project included into British parliamentarism, but impossible to complete in London, due to aristocratic structural lockings. Such interpretation seems valid, as a comparative approach of the ‘three revolutions’—English, American and French—could be done without taking into account thoroughly the question of federalism. Terefore, it might be said that modern federalism appeared ‘by accident’, as the American republic was built in a political environment structured by an idiosyncratic federal-related practice. 51 However, from a federalist approach, it appears that the federalist thoughts were highly modified by this new American perception, as they were deeply linked to the new definitions of the American republic and democracy. Moreover, the achievement of the American political project and the growing importance of the United States in world politics led it to become a reference. Tus, this new perception of federalism framed the most important part of modern federalist thoughts. Te first major change, from our concern, is taken from Te Federalist No. 15, where Hamilton writes, while criticising leagues of states, If we still will adhere to the design of a national government, or, which is the same thing, of a superintending power, under the direction of a common council, we must resolve to incorporate into our plan those ingredients which may be considered as forming the characteristic difference between a league and a government; we must extend

51. For more developments on the antecedents of American federalism, see Burgess, Comparative Federalism, eory and Practice : 51-54. L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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the authority of the Union to the persons of the citizens, --the only proper objects of  government.

In such way, Hamilton advocates the Union to be a state by itself, and not only a league of states. Tus he starts to frame the federation as a modern sovereign state. Tere will be resistance to such conception in the Union itself, mostly illustrated by the controversy on nullification developed by John Calhoun. Te debate about nullification and the secession of the Southern American states ended dramatically with the Civil War (1861-1865), reinforcing the role of the federal government. It is interesting to notice that the clear distinction between federation and confederation appears in the English -speaking literature at the end of the nineteenth century, once solved that controversy.  Another element of the federalist debate that could be added to this brief presentation has been presented by Madison in e Federalist  No. 51. In a single republic, all the power surrendered by the people is submitted to the administration of a single government; and the usurpations are guarded against by a division of the government into distinct and separate departments. In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people. e different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself.

Tis argument, already touched by Montesquieu, shows the importance of federalism in the mechanisms of checks and balance of the American constitution, and the reinforcement of the democracy in an anti-Hobbesian and antiRousseauist perspective. Eventually, Stein synthetize the aim of the Federalist Papers in the following way: […] to create an institutional device designed to divide sovereignty and prevent the concentration of authority and power in a single decision-making locus. Its chief objective was to promote political pluralism and maximize liberty. 52 

Many other thinkers have been writing after the Federalist papers about the  American federal system—although it was not still clearly labelled this way.  Among them are ocqueville—in a sociologic approach of the American society 53 and on conclusions for a French liberal system—, Bryce and Dicey. However, as 52. Michael Stein and Lisa urkewitsch, “Te Concept of Multi-level Governance in Studies of Federalism,” in 2008 International Political Science Association (IPSA) International Conference; International Political Science: New eoretical and Regional Perspectives   (Concordia University, Montréal, Québec, Canada2008), 4. 53. Alexis de ocqueville, De la démocratie en Amérique , 2 vols., vol. 1 (Paris: GF-Flammarion, 1981 [1835]). L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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regards to the theory of federalism, there a lot of refinements but not substantial change. Tey all kept in the same methodology, descriptive and normative. We have to wait for the middle of twentieth century to find out a new theoretical approach. Te analytical approach

 An important shift in the American federalist approach takes place by the middle of the twentieth century, when the normative approach (democratic and liberal) is gradually replaced by an analytical approach, aimed at systematic empirical studies. Tat approach aimed at defining a conceptual approach of federalism, in order to use it as a basis for systematic comparative federalism. Te founder of the approach is Kenneth Wheare, in 1946, 54 who developed a legal institutional concept of federalism. 55 He is followed by other scholars, that Rufus Davis calls “the twentieth-centry ‘doctors ’” or “the inspectors of federal systems ”,56 and it leads to a growing corpus of theoretical federal studies, apparently coherent, but plural in the types of approach. In the presentation of the analytical scholars of federalism, which are mostly identified in the English-speaking—mostly American—world, Rufus Davis identifies four different approaches, identified with some founding scholars: Kenneth  Wheare for “Federalism [as] a matter of degree”, William Livingston for “Federalism as a quality of society”, Carl Friedrich for “Federalism as a process”, and Daniel Elazar for “Federalism as sharing”. 57 Eventually, we would add Richard Musgrave and Wallace Oates for “fiscal federalism”. In the scope of this article, the works of Carl Friedrich are of a particular interest, as their approach crosscut the distinction between domestic and international fields. Carl Friedrich: Federalism as a process 

Te work of the German-American lawyer and political scientist Carl Friedrich (1901-1984) has gone through forty years and, as rightly noticed by Davis, has been mostly about “ refinement and restatements in numerous sources ”.58 As

54. Wheare, Federal Government . 55. Michael B. Stein, “Changing concepts of federalism since World War II: Anglo-American and continental European traditions,” (Berlin: XVIth World Congress of the International Political Science Association, 1994), 2. 56. Davis, e Federal Principle : 155,163. 57. Davis, e Federal Principle : 155-203. 58. Davis, e Federal Principle : 173. L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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federalism is concerned, the core of his thought can be found in his major book on the subject: Trends of Federalism in eory and Practice , published in 1968. 59 Te main originality of Friedrich in American political sciences to consider federalism as a  process , more than as a design. rying to broaden the “theoretical scope of federalism”, he seizes it as a “process of federalizing”, as dynamics  rather than a pattern, a structure or a design. Federalism is also and perhaps primarily the process of federalizing a political community, that is to say, the process by which a number of separate political communities enter into arrangements for working out solutions […] on joint problems, and conversely, also the process by which a unitary political community becomes differentiated into a federally organized whole. Federal relations are fluctuating relations in the very nature of things.60 

In this approach, Friedrich gets out of the constitutional theory, dominant in these times, and takes into account the dynamics of changes in political organisations through the lens of federalism. He applies it to the United States, and as well to the Holly Roman Empire, the colonial organisations, and any kind of alliance and decentralisation. Terefore, he crosses over the traditional constitutional border of sovereignty, considering domestic and international political dynamics as phenomenons of the same nature.  We do consider that the work of Friedrich holds a specific place in the studies of federalism in the history of federalist thoughts. Firstly because his theory of dynamics of federalism brings into the American studies of federalism concepts and theories developed in Europe before World War II. Secondly because he is the first one to leave opened a connection between political phenomenons of the domestic field and of the international field. Firstly, Friedrich, born in Germany and speaking fluently German and French, has been able to consider and refine federalist theories coming from the old continent. Te hypothesis of the author of this article—hypothesis that has yet to be confirmed—is that Friedrich has been a bridge between the German and French federalist traditions before World War II and the American political science. From the German tradition, he brought in 1932 into the American political science the work of Althusius, rediscovered by historian Otto von Gierke in Germany by the end of the nineteenth century. 61

59. Carl J. Friedrich, Trends of Federalism in eory and Practice   (New York: Frederick A. preaeger, Publishers, 1968). 60. Carl J. Friedrich, “Te Teory of Federalism as a Process,” in Trends of Federalism in eory and Practice  (New York: Frederick A. preaeger, Publishers, 1968), 7. 61. See i.e. Otto von Gierke, Political eories of the Middle Ages , trans. Frederic William Maitland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1900). L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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More important in our concern, he brought also parts of the legal studies traditions from Germany and France. Tus, he had been influenced by the German tradition of Gierke and Georg Jellinek, and their attempt to comprehend the legal organisation of German States, from the Holy Roman Empire and the Westphalian reaties. As well, the studies of Léon Duguit, Louis Le Fur and Georges Scelle in France influenced his approach. Among others, Proudhon was an important influence for French legal scholars. In both cases, the debates were on the sovereignty of the State, on monism and dualism in international law, and on the specific place of political federalism, attaching a specific importance to historical and sociological dimension. A specific attention might be brought to Georges Scelle: his idealistic approach of law based on an ‘integral monism’ addressing sovereignty; his perception of the ‘federal phenomenon’ lying beyond and outside the State; his conception of a ‘federalism by segregation’, going against the classical approach of federalism by integration; all these concepts paved the way of Friedrich federalist approach. 62  A second important dimension of Friedrich thoughts in federalism is that he is the first to consider openly the necessity to remove the concept of sovereignty to understand federalism. He considers his dynamic approach as “ the beginning of the end of the traditional juristic notions, preoccupied with problems of sovereignty, of the distribution of competencies, and of the structure of the institutions .”63 No sovereign can exist in federal system; autonomy and sovereignty exclude each other in such a political order […] No one has the ‘last word.’ e idea of a compact is inherent in federalism, and the ‘constituent power,’ which makes the compact, takes the place of the sovereign. 64 

However, although Friedrich was a very active scholar in his times, he did not leave a specific school of thoughts after him. Some could consider that the reason was that his concept of federalizing process was not enough defined and too subjective, and therefore unable to reach a high degree of specific theoretical refinements. For instance, it is difficult to define how far a specific policy can be considered as an element of the process of changes. 65 It may be the reason why  William Riker discredited Trends of Federalism in eory and Practice.66  More seriously, Davis argues that the process leaves unanswered the question of the 62. Hubert Tierry, “Te Tought of Georges Scelle,” European Journal of International Law   1, no. 1 (1990). Georges Scelle, Manuel élémentaire de droit international public   (Paris: Domat-Montchrestien, 1943). 63. Friedrich, “Te Teory of Federalism as a Process.” 64. Friedrich, Trends of Federalism in eory and Practice : 6, 8. 65. Davis, e Federal Principle : 178. 66. “Since Friedrich’s book consists of snippets of papers written for various other publications, mostly governmentally sponsored reports, we can ignore his book as a survey of conventional ideas. ” William Riker, “Six Books in Search of a Subject or Does Federalism Exist and Does It Matter?,” Comparative Politics  2, no. 1 (1969): 137. L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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‘pattern’ of theses associations, as the process leaves opened the form a federal organisation should have. 67 Some of these criticisms are to be taken very seriously. For instance, the too general approach of Friedrich does not leave the place for detailed explanatory refinements, but is it the role of macroscopic approach to include all mesoscopic or microscopic developments? Our position would be that Friedrich’s demonstration came too early, in the framework of a scientific community focusing mostly on the patterns of federalism, in a world where the distinction between domestic and international fields was not yet challenged. aking into account the main federalists thoughts developed in Europe before  World War II, Carl Friedrich paved the way for new developments of federalism into the European integration, and for new developments of federalism in the context of globalisation. Daniel Elazar 

Daniel Elazar (1934-1999) is one of the major author on federalism of the end of the twentieth century. Interested in normative as well as in analytical federalism, his thoughts evolved from the fifties to the nineties. Elazar was first known for his definition of the federalism as a ‘covenant’, as a public and moral contract:  A morally informed agreement or pact between people or parties having an inde pendent and sufficiently equal status, based upon voluntary consent, and established by mutual oaths or promises witnessed by the relevant higher authority. 68 

However, he developed also a larger vision of federalism based on a non-centric model, from the American experience, as it is presented in the next section. It led him to a very extensive vision of federalism as self-rule and shared rule, eventually cross-cutting the distinction between domestic and international fields. Considered as self-rule and shared rule, “ federalism […] involves some kind of contractual linkage of a presumably permanent character that (1) provides for power sharing, (2) cuts around the issue of sovereignty, and (3) supplements but does not seek to replace or diminish prior organic ties where they exist .”69

In the same way, Elazar perceived that the evolution of the idea of the sovereign state of political interactions of the post-modern epoch, and the interest to go beyond that idea. Tese elements will be extensively developed in the next section. 67. Davis, e Federal Principle : 180. 68. Daniel Elazar “Te political Teory of Covenant”, Publius , 10:4, 1980. 69. Elazar, Exploring Federalism: 12. L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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Te failure of the holistic analytical approach

Michael Stein has identified an historical decrease in the study of federalism in the 1970s in the Anglo-American scientific tradition. 70 Te analytical approach, after “a period of theoretical growth and flowering ”,71 was challenged as a theoretical and empirical field of studies by strong criticism. According to Stein, the two most important attacks went from William Riker, in 1969, and Rufus Davis, in 1978.72 In an essay published in Comparative Politics   in 1969, William Riker, after evaluating recent contributions to federalism research, challenged the capacity of federalism to be considered as a specific political system. Nine years later, in 1978, the Australian S. Rufus Davis went even further, in his book e federal Principle . After a historical and conceptual analysis of federalism, he concludes that federalism as a concept is hardly able to be defined and applied systematically, as federalism is “ not on single idea but a whole intricate and varied network of interrelated ideas and concepts”. 73

Stein concludes by saying that: It is difficult to assess the impact which these strong critiques of federal theory may have had on subsequent theoretical aspirants in this field. What one may note, however, […] is a decided trend away from general attempts to theorize about federalism among  Anglo-American and English-language writers on federalism by the mid-1970s, and a skepticism or pessimism about the value or potential of such theorizing. 74 

Tus, Stein considers that a trend at least doubtful about general theories of federalism has probably been present in the Anglo-American tradition from the 1970s, with the major exception of Daniel Elazar. It explains the development on the other hand of “ individual or comparative case studies of established federal systems ”. Tis led to a fragmentation of the approach. It is only in from 2000s that new theoretical developments will start again, with new developments in plural federalism and liberal nationalism, through the

70. Stein, “Changing concepts of federalism since World War II: Anglo-American and continental European traditions.” 71. Stein, “Changing concepts of federalism since World War II: Anglo-American and continental European traditions,” 2. Te major authors considered in that period by Stein are K. Wheare, W.S. Livingston, W. Riker, C. Friedrish and D. Elazar. Stein, “Changing concepts of federalism since World War II: Anglo-American and continental European traditions,” 2-3. 72. About the analysis of these two authors, see Stein, “Changing concepts of federalism since World War II:  Anglo-American and continental European traditions,” 6-9. 73. Davis, e Federal Principle : 5. 74. Stein, “Changing concepts of federalism since World War II: Anglo-American and continental European traditions,” 9. L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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work of Will Kymlicka, as well as with new connections between federalism and European studies. FEDERALISM AND MULI�LEVEL GOVERNANCE

Beyond the modern approach

Governance beyond the state 

Te contemporary processes of globalisation and interdependence are addressing federalism with new challenges and potential developments. Daniel Elazar saw it as an opportunity for a federalist revival. In his article “From statism to federalism: a paradigm shift”,75 Elazar records a change from “a world of states ” to a “world of diminished sovereignty and increased interstate linkages ”, through the development of world interdependence and globalisation. Tis change, that could have been perceived from the end of Word  War II, becomes decisive after the collapse of the Soviet Empire. Elazar take as a proof of this change the increasing number of federal states, of processes of decentralisation, as well as of confederal arrangements. He considers it as a way to tackle with the weakening of the state, and advocates a radical change in political paradigm, shifting from statism to federalism, as the goes by the ‘modern epoch’ to the ‘post-modern epoch’. Te expression of the shift from statism to federalism expresses fully a new vision of federalism. Federalism could free itself form the straightjacket of modern state, and express itself fully with the globalisation in what Elazar calls the ‘postmodern’ epoch. Elazar gives only a few hints about the definition of the new political paradigm, considering that goes through the development of self-rule and shared rule, and that he uses the term ‘federal’ “ in its larger historical sense, not simply to describe modern federation but all the various arrangements including federations, confederations and other confederal arrangements, federacies, associated states, special  joint authorities with constitutional standing, and others .”76

 While Elazar is thinking about the development of the federalist development of the ‘postmodern epoch’, another American scholar, James Rosenau, is thinking as well about the challenge of the weakening of the sovereign states in globalisation, and labelled this new organisation according to the title of his first book on the matter Governance without government (1992). By ‘governance’, Rosenau means the regulation of interdependent political bodies, without the overarching

75. Elazar, “From Statism o Federalism: A Paradigm Shift.” 76. Elazar, Exploring Federalism. L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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control of a political authority. 77 Although Rosenau himself is mostly concerned by the international level, further models are developed afterwards to integrate the idea of governance into a model cross-cutting the sovereignty and including domestic and international federalism, or federation and confederation. Eventually, to assess the evolution of politics, one quotation can be taken from Francis Fukuyama: e End of History was never linked to a specifically American model of social or  political organisation. Following, the Russian-French philosopher who inspired my original argument, I believe that the European Union more accurately reflects what the world will look like at the end of history than the contemporary United States. e EU’s attempt to transcend sovereignty and traditional power politics by establishing a transnational rule of law is much more in line with a “post-historical” world than the  Americans’ continuing belief in God, national sovereignty, and their military. 78 

Federalism and European studies 

 As regards to European studies, they included federalism as a main component of their approach only from the beginning of the first decade of the twentyfirst century. Before that, following Ernst Haas (1958)and the neofunctionalist approach of European integration, the European Communities and the European Union was mostly seen as a sui generis   supranational body. Or, following Moravcsik and the liberal intergovernmentalism, it was considered as a part of the international regimes’ two-level game. Te researches applying federalism to Europe were about comparative federalism, and remained quite uncommon, as the main scholars did not address the nature of the European institutional body. 79 It is only when European studies scholars assessed to possibility to free federalism from stathood, by the end of the 1990s, that federalism was eventually taken into account into European studies. 80 In these regards, a specific attention must be drawn to of Fritz Sharpf. In 1988, his article on “Te Joint-Decision rap” 81 investigates the comparison between the decision making-process in the German two-level system, and in the Euro-

77. James N. Rosenau, “A Transformed Observer in a Transforming World,” Studia Diplomatica  LII, no. 1-2 (1999). 78. Francis Fukuyama, “Te history at the end of history,” e Guardian (2007). 79. A brief description of this period can be seen in: R. Daniel Kelemen and Kalypso Nicolaidis, “Bringing Federalism Back In,” in Handbook of European Union Politics , ed. Knud Erik Jorgensen, Pollack, Mark A., Rosamond, Ben (London: Sage Publication, 2007), 301. 80. For more details, see Kelemen and Nicolaidis, “Bringing Federalism Back In,” and Michael Burgess, Federalism and the European Union: e Building of Europe, 1950-2000  (London and New York: Routledge, 2000). 81. Fritz W. Sharpf, “Te Joint-Decision rap: Lessons from German Federalism and European Integration,” Public Administration 66, no. 3 (1988). L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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pean one. As such, he is considered by some scholars as the first author taking into account multi-level governance, though he does not use this terminology. 82 Eventually, as described below, some theoretical normative developments can be found within the European activism, 83 but quite isolated from the mainstream of European studies. Multilevel governance as an approach of federalism

Te position of this article is to consider that the only approach that could reconcile the different dimensions of federal arrangements is the multilevel governance, and that it has the potential for a renewal of the federalist theory in the ‘post-modern epoch’. Te seminal article creating the semantics of multilevel governance has been written in 1993 by Gary Marks, in the context of the first developments of the Maastricht treaty, but also in a political context favouring the vision of ‘Europe of the regions’. 84 Trough the implementation of new structural policy procedures—namely the Cohesion fund—and the creation of the Committee of Regions, Gary Marks perceived the European Union to integrate the sub-national regions as new actors of the decision-making process. Tis was challenging the traditional two-level game approach of the European integration and could lead to new functional perspectives, at least in low politics. I suggest that we are seeing the emergence of multilevel governance, a system of continuous negotiation among nested governments at several territorial tiers—supranational, national, regional and local—as the result of a broad process of institutional creation and decisional reallocation that has pulled some previously centralized functions of the state up to the supranational level, and some down to the local/regional level.85  To put it more speculatively, the experience of structural funds suggests that it might be fruitful to describe the process of decisional reallocation to European community institutions merely as one aspect of a centrifugal process in which some decisional powers are shifted down to municipal, local and regional governments, some are transferred  from states to the EC, and (as in the case of structural policy) some are shifted in both directions simultaneously. 86 

82. See for instance Stein and urkewitsch, “Te Concept of Multi-level Governance in Studies of Federalism,” 3. 83. For instance, the ‘integral federalism’ of Alexandre Marc. 84. Gary Marks, “Structural policy and Multi-level governance in the EC,” in e State of the European Community: e Maastricht Debate and Beyond , ed. Alan W. Cafruny and Glenda G. Rosenthal, State of the European Community ; vol. 2  (Boulder (Colorado), Harlow (England): Lynne Rienner Publishers, Longman, 1993). 85. Marks, “Structural policy and Multi-level governance in the EC,” 392. 86. Marks, “Structural policy and Multi-level governance in the EC,” 407. L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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Going beyond intergovernmentalism as well as neofunctionalism, Marks is suggesting a new approach to European integration, switching from the strategic and explanatory perspectives to a systemic approach, emphasising the dynamics of the creation of a structured and functional polity. Moreover, many hints in his presentation could lead to think about multilevel governance in a federalist perspective. Firstly, linkages can me made with the ‘process of federalisation’ of Friedrich. Secondly, he is considering the whole European Union as a multi-tiers polity. Tirdly, in a long term perspective of federalism, he is freeing his European model from the sovereign distinction between domestic and international. Eventually, he is referring explicitly to a distribution of competencies within the EU, a programme that will be developed much latter in the context of the White paper of the European Commission on “European Governance” (2001) and of the Convention on the Future of Europe (20012004). In the framework of this article, on could wonder why Marks did not consider his multilevel governance approach as a form of federalism.  A possible answer could be that federalism—the “F-word”—was not popular at the time of his first article on the topic. In the political context, the reference to the ‘federal objective’ (‘ finalité fédérale’ ) of the European integration, proposed by the French government to be included in the Mastricht treaty, had just been strongly rejected by the British government. 87 In the scientific context, the European field of studies had no yet integrated the idea of federalism in its main stream. Federalism was associated with statehood, which was missing from the European institutional body. Terefore, a federalist approach of the European Union was considered as a “ semantic distraction”.88 Using the semantic of ‘federalism’ would have raised once again the question of the nature of the European polity and the debate about the definition of federalism.  As stated by Kelemen and Nikolaidis, “some associate federalism with statehood and emphasize that because the EU lacks key elements of statehood, it cannot be studied as a federation. Such scholars have developed a new conceptual vocabulary associated with ‘multi-level governance .”89

Eventually, it must be stressed that in the European context, federalism was mostly considered as a political  finalité , a strategy for European integration, rather than a principle or a pattern for the present analysis. After World War II, the leaders of the European activism, most notably Altiero Spinelli and Alexandre Marc, had shaped a vision of federalism as the ultimate objective of European 87. See, for instance, Gilles Andreani, “Le fédéralisme et la réforme des institutions européennes,” in Annuaire  français des relations internationales: Volume 2  (Bruxelles: Bruylant, 2001), 168. 88. Kelemen and Nicolaidis, “Bringing Federalism Back In,” 301. 89. Kelemen and Nicolaidis, “Bringing Federalism Back In,” 301. L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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integration, in the project of the ‘United states of Europe’. However, they were hiding strong divergences about what the final nature of the polity should be, between a rather pragmatic Spinelli and the ideological Marc. It has to be noticed that a close fellow of Alexandre Marc, Swiss Denis de Rougemont, following the same trend of personalist federalism, has from its part developed the vision of ‘variable-geometric regions’: functional regions ignoring the administrative and political borders, and whose size would change according to the problematic to solve. 90 Tis general activist approach lost its political strenght by the end of the 1970s. A new attempt to develop a federalist vision of European integration will be presented later, in the 1990s by Jacques Delors, through the oxymoron of “federation of nation-states”.  At this stage, the question of the federalist nature of the multi-level governance an be raised, as it received refinements form the original article. Is it still possible to consider the multilevel governance as a federalist approach? Te answer depends upon the perception of federalism. However, to follow the common theme of this article, the historical evolution of the semantic might be as well of interest. Te link between federalism and multilevel Governance: the matrix model of Elazar

 As it has been said already, the classical American approach of federalism kept itself in the framework of the statehood, with the major exception of Friedrich and Elazar. However, from then, some theories could be taken into account to create a genealogy between the analytical studies of federalism that have emerged after World War II, and the multilevel governance. Such connection could reinforce the link between the general federalist idea and the theory of multilevel governance. One connection can be found in the works of Daniel Elazar, and mostly his ‘matrix model’, conceived as a non centralised form of federalism. Tat matrix model has gone through many refinements, from when it was first stated by Elazar in 1976 91 and refined in 1987 92, to its last developments in 1994.93Before this last refinement, Elazar had already talked about the shift to the “post-modern epoch”, and he could then introduce the new approach by free90. François Saint-Ouen, “Denis de Rougemont,” L’Europe en formation, no. 296 (1995): 14. 91. Daniel J. Elazar, “Federalism vs. Decentralization: Te Drift from Authenticity,” Publius: e Journal of Federalism  6, no. 4 Fall (1976). 92. Elazar, Exploring Federalism. 93. Daniel J. Elazar, “Introduction,” in Federal Systems of the World: A Handbook of Federal, Confederal and Autonomy Arrangements , ed. Daniel J. Elazar (Harlow, Essex: Longman Current Affairs, 1994). L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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ing himself from the idea of statehood, as the matrix model of 1976 was mostly linked to the United States, and the last one of 1994 could be perceived in an domestic and international perspective. In his theory, in order to give an appropriate understanding of federalism, Elazar develops a new theory of political relationships, which “ is challenging the dominant Jacobin-Marxian view on a number of fronts ”.94 Elazar firstly defines the centre-periphery model of development of polities, where the sovereign power is concentrated in a single centre, and reflects the idea of the Jacobin nation-state. A second model is the one of the pyramid, strictly hierarchical, developed through the empires, and focusing on an authoritarian administrative state. Tese two models, according to Elazar, are leading inevitably to the centralisation of the state, would it be authoritarian or democratic.  A last model of Elazar, which constitutes the basis of development of a new perception of federalism, is the matrix model. In this model, the relations between political bodies are not concentrated in one arena of political relationship. In this case, “ authority and power are dispersed among a network of arenas ” within a common framework. Teir “ organisational expression is non-centralisation”, and lead to a polity composed of entities preserving their own integrity. 95  According to the author, the matrix model could find a new dimension in the era of globalisation, as the occurrences of federalism in domestic and international frameworks could be reunified in a common matrix. Te arenas of political debates could cross-cut the borders of sovereignty, as more international treaties constitutionally binding for the internal domestic levels are developed. Tis matrix model, non centralised, can be considered as a model of development of political communication nowadays, through the globalisation of communication and of economic matters. If we accept to follow Elazar to this stage we disagree on the origin of this model. Elazar refers mostly, through the main authors and currents of liberalism in the modern era, to the expression of the matrix model in the American experience. However, as it as already been said, we would rather argue that it is embodied within all perception of federalism, as a combination of self rule and shared rule. Moreover, one can consider that the intuition of Elazar was too much linked to to the state model to realise that the development of the matrix model, in its complexity, and out of the sovereign nation-state, would raise the problem of representativity of the people, through a network composed of a multiplicity of decision arenas. 94. Elazar, “Introduction,” xii. 95. Elazar, Federal Systems of the World , Longman, 1994, xiii L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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Te question to be raised now is to see whether the non centralised model of multi-level governance can be considered as a new expression of federalism. Multi-level governance studies mostly authorities or governments interacting with each other and crosscutting the distinction between domestic and international levels. Although this theory has been specifically developed in the context of the European integration, the matrix of interaction between different actors at different levels and the global connections between the domestic and international levels seem to make it quite close to some federalist organisation. General definition of multilevel governance

Te model of multilevel governance, as it has been developed from the first definition of Gary Marks, is basically framed into European studies. It is obvious that in the process of complexification of a globalised world, through ongoing processes of integration and fragmentation, it is in the European union that this double process has received the most elaborate institutional answer. Te reallocation of decision making upwards and downwards asserts the weakening of the modern sovereign state. However, this “ turn in the governance ” 96is expected by its authors to be used at a larger scale, as a general model of understanding the evolution of politics. Hooghe and Marks show examples in political relations still encapsulated within the modern state, as in the United States and Switzerland. 97 And other examples can be given in the international arena, with the enforcement of new competencies for supranational and transnational actors, 98 without excepting the role of subnational actors in the international and supranational spheres, as for Belgium or Switzerland. Te main features of multilevel governance include the multi-tiered governance including domestic as well as international field, the functional approach, the cooperative dimension and the role of non-state actors. Te main object of multilevel governance is to identify and study the different decision making locus in a global approach, bypassing the modern state, through a structure of multiple layers of political entities interconnected through their functions. Tus, the aim of multilevel governance is to propose a new model of political relations, encompassing domestic as well as international relations. In one of their fundamental articles on theoretical refinements of the multilevel governance, “Unravelling the Central State, but How? ypes of Multi-level Governance”, Hooghe and Marks define two types of multilevel governance. 96. Stein and urkewitsch, “Te Concept of Multi-level Governance in Studies of Federalism,” 8. 97. Hooghe and Marks, “Unravelling the Central State, but How? ypes of Multi-level Governance.” 98. See, for instance, Tomas Hale and David Held, eds., Handbook of Transnational Governance: Institutions and Innovations   (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2011). L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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MLG type I describes a model based on multi-level structure of a limited number of general purpose jurisdictions, non intersecting, in a durable architecture, and quite difficult to reform. MLG type II is more task-oriented, with task-specific  jurisdictions with intersecting memberships, and a flexible design with no limitation to the number of levels. 99 Te multiplicity of overlapping and intersecting jurisdictions leads to a complex pattern. In the same spirit than Elazar, the multilevel governance scholars describe a polycentric non hierarchical model where decisions in one locus can be influenced by interdependence. Like in the latest version of the matrix model, the model is not encapsulated anymore into a ‘state framework’ but crosscut the borders of the state to cover the domestic as well as the international framework. In a short term perspective, multilevel governance is mostly interested to explain why some decisions are taken in some locus, and how have to be taken into account the interdependence with other decision making processes. However, in a middle term perspective, are scrutinised the transfer of competencies from one  jurisdiction to another, as well as the creation of MLG ype II institutions. Following the federalist path, contractualism can be considered as the basic instrument organising the multilevel governance, as constitutions and international treaties can be considered as a specific form of contracts. It is through contractualism that competencies are settled and new institutions created.  A specific attention may be driven to constitutions as ‘social contracts’. Te multilevel governance approach can be considered mostly as functional, or taskoriented, as it deals mostly with processes and outcomes, and not so much with the structure. A large part of the structure is given for granted, as it is the case for most ‘historical general jurisdictions’, and the interest focus mainly in a functional approach. However, these historical jurisdictions—modern states and statepattern organised entities—are not only dealing with the functional dimension of the state, but also with its legitimacy and its democratic accountability. Tis lack of interest to the nature of the general jurisdiction may explain also why multilevel governance is perceived mostly as co-operative, and not so much in the opposition ‘conflict vs. cooperation’, or ‘competition vs. cooperation’, as it is the case in federalist studies. In fact, the aspect of ‘conflict’ or ‘competition’ is already embodied within the general jurisdictions. Seeking new outcomes, multilevel governance scholars give more emphasis to the solution of the ‘federalist problematic’, as the new task-oriented jurisdictions are about finding solutions to contingent problems. Eventually, following the general meaning of ‘governance’, multilevel governance integrates non-state non-public actors in the decision making processes in 99. Hooghe and Marks, “Unravelling the Central State, but How? ypes of Multi-level Governance,” 236-239. L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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each locus. It includes within decision makers: corporation, NGOs, social actors, international organisations, and supranational institutions. Links with federalism

Many linkages can be made between federalism and multilevel governance.  At first because multilevel governance can appear as a ‘broadening of the classical concept of federalism’ 100 with more than two tiers of government. In such perspective, multilevel governance can be related to the matrix model of Daniel Elazar. Tis can be reinforced by the presentation of the early article from Fritz Sharpf, “exploring the similarities between joint decision making (‘Politikverflechtung’) in German federalism and decision-making in the European Community ”,101 leading to the conclusion that, in some areas, the similarities “ are so obvious as to be trivial ”102 and considering that “ these cases may be instances of a universal decision logic inherent in particular ‘patterns’ […] of institutional arrangements ”.103 Searching for connections between federalism and multilevel governance, Stein and urkewitsch went to the conclusion that “ the causal arrow between [federalism and multilevel governance] is more correctly viewed as a two-way interaction  process which operates in both directions. In the initial phase of ‘multi-level governance’ studies in political sciences, from the mid -1980s until the mid-1990, there was a strong historical and analytical influence that theories of federalism had on the definition and evolution of ‘multi-level governance’. But in the more recent period  from the mid-1990s to the present, the insights of ‘multi-level governance’ theorists have begun to impact significantly on theories of federalism.”104

In the approach of this article, such assertion must receive some criticisms. Te first one is that Stein and urkewitsch consider federalism and multilevel governance as two distinct concepts, which is not the position of this article. Tis is due to the fact that they define federalism as derived directly from the American constitution 105 and is close to a pattern-approach of it, talking in terms of comparative studies. Furthermore, in their research, they compare both concepts in the framework of European studies. Nevertheless, their argument enforce a strong connection between both ideas.

100. Stein and urkewitsch, “Te Concept of Multi-level Governance in Studies of Federalism,” 7. 101. Sharpf, “Te Joint-Decision rap: Lessons from German Federalism and European Integration,” 239. 102. Sharpf, “Te Joint-Decision rap: Lessons from German Federalism and European Integration,” 251. 103. Sharpf, “Te Joint-Decision rap: Lessons from German Federalism and European Integration,” 271. 104. Stein and Turkewitsch, “e Concept of Multi-level Governance in Studies of Federalism,” 3. 105. Stein and urkewitsch, “Te Concept of Multi-level Governance in Studies of Federalism,” 4. L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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More strikingly, Hooghe and Marks state clearly that “ the intellectual foundation for Type I governance is federalism”. 106 Such assumption reinforce the possible federalist genealogy of multilevel governance. However, the definition they give to federalism refers clearly to a pattern-approach of federalism: “ Federalism is concerned chiefly with the relationship between central government and a tier of nonintersecting subnational governments ”.107

Moreover, in the framework of this article, MLG type II could refer as well to federalism. It holds the main feature of contractualism to create the new body, the autonomy of the body, and a large application of the principle of subsidiarity to define the appropriate level for each task. Stein and urkewitsch talks about a ‘shared federalism’. Te main difference is that the jurisdictions are not based anymore on general ‘political’ entities, but on adapting the form of to the efficiency. Terefore, can one consider MLG type II as a part of the ‘federalist phenomenon’?’ Certainly not on the basis of a state-like federal pattern. However, in a larger vision of federalism, as a principle rather than a pattern, it can fit in the general evolution of federalism. It has to be said that the question of efficiency—as a form of ‘functional federalism’—is not so far away form the federalist interests. Te fiscal federalism studies devote a large part of their concern to the adaptation of political structures to efficiency. Te non territorial federalism, attached to some personal rights of individual citizens, could be related as well to that question. Eventually, the Rougemont’s vision of variable-geometry regions fits in that approach, and has been sometime used as a reference to some administrative organisations.108 Interest of Multilevel Governance in a Federalist Approach

Now that the relation between federalism and multilevel governance has been established, one could address the federalist nature of multilevel governance. In this new model, there is clearly a semantic shift, although it does not refer directly to federalism, or doesn’t dare to do so. Te reasons of this semantic shift has been explained earlier, considering the connotations of the use of federalism in European studies. However, as it has been showed in the historical evolution, we can find in multilevel governance the main features of the federalist idea. Multilevel governance is based on a multiplicity of voluntary contracts by self-governed entities. Te cooperation between the entities is stimulated through contractualism, and 106. Hooghe and Marks, “Unravelling the Central State, but How? ypes of Multi-level Governance,” 236. 107. Hooghe and Marks, “Unravelling the Central State, but How? ypes of Multi-level Governance,” 236. 108. See, for instance, Christophe Koller, “La fonction publique en Suisse : analyse géopolitique d’un fédéralisme à géométrie variable,” Pyramides: revue du Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches en Administration publique , no. 15 (2008). L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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the distribution of competencies is made through these contracts, allowing in particular the creation of task-oriented organisations. o refer once again to the rhetoric of Elazar, the improvement of multilevel governance is in the ‘paradigm shift’ of the distribution of power. Te multilevel governance model presents an approach taking into consideration the weakening of the modern state and the fact the sovereignty is not anymore the basic norm of the distribution of power. Terefore, it can be argued as an hypothesis that multilevel governance follows the last refinement of the federalist idea, considering the weakening of the sovereign state, and that politics are freeing from the concept of state, which could lead to some ‘post-modernity’. Moreover, the multiple refinements of the multilevel governance might integrate the various developments of federalism through complexification of modern societies. However, in the perspectives of this article, the interest of multilevel governance is not so much the one of the explanatory theory, but a new framework—or a new general paradigm—encompassing all political relations. Tis is why the term ‘model’ is used rather than ‘theory’ throughout this article. Multilevel governance appears more as a descriptive model than an explanatory theory. 109 In order to understand the interest of multilevel governance for further federalist studies, it has to be considered multilevel as a meta-theory, a new conceptual approach of a federalist nature to think out politics in the ‘post-modern epoch’. Multilevel governance does not create anything new, but shape an overarching model on the basis of the federalist approach to consider a post-state world.  As regards to this article, the most important feature of multilevel governance is the task-oriented, of functional, dimension. It gives the plasticity of the multilevel governance model, as a task-oriented approach can be considered as an holistic one: it can encompass and re-interpret theories and concepts, regardless of their structures and values. It can be the base of the interconnections between different fields of studies, and shows an overarching interdisciplinary framework for different studies on federalism, as an omnibus overall model. Te plasticity of the multilevel governance model allows the integration into one framework of many political science thoughts and theories. Te different fields of research of multi-level governance encompass the different subfields of studies covered by the different branches of federalism studies (political, economic, sociological, domestic and international), considering them all in their unity. In fact, in can reconcile all school of studies that go against the centralisation of power, from the international as well as the domestic approach, or to quote Hooghe and Marks, that share the postulate that: “ dispersion of governance 109. Stein and urkewitsch, “Te Concept of Multi-level Governance in Studies of Federalism,” 10. L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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across multiple jurisdictions is more flexible than concentration of governance in one  jurisdiction”.110

For Hooghe and Marks, it does reconcile all ‘islands’ of studies that share the idea of diffusion of authority. Tey identify five of these: European Union Studies, International Relation Scholars, Federalism, Local and metropolitan governance, and Public policy. Eventually, the multilevel governance approach appears as a potential synthesis of most of the approaches of federalism in this article, and mostly the different schools of studies of the analytical approach: it does consider federations and federal states (general jurisdictions) as well as federal institutions created for a specific purpose (task-oriented jurisdictions); it is able to reconcile domestic and international fields; and, eventually, it sets federalism free from the archetype  American model and its inherited values.  As such, it can be considered as a model for ‘a new era of federalism’. Its main limit is normative, and has to be found in its functional approach. It does not take into account the values and principles that are at the basis of the ‘general purpose jurisdictions’, nor the prior organic ties of the historical entities structured in multilevel governance. Moreover, the functional and non hierarchical structure proposed by multilevel governance does not favour the development of a normative overarching set of values. Terefore, it does not take into account the general interest and misses a societal ontology. Considering the modern state in its functional dimension, it appears clearly that it looses the origin of the nation-state, as the democratic component of the modern state. Terefore, it does not consider the democratic legitimacy and accountability of the institutions created. Te concept of demos  in its modern way has been linked to the modern definition of nation, as it is defined by the boundaries of the modern state. In the multilevel governance functional approach, the polycentric approach, out of the frame of the state, looses that dimension. Tus the normative question to whom a jurisdiction is accountable for, can be addressed. However, it might be enlarged to the normative problems related to the demos , as political legitimacy, participation and representation, social and fiscal solidarity, new definition of territory… Elements of answers to these questions can be found within multilevel governance studies in the book of Simona Piattoni, e eory of Multi-Level Governance .111 Outside that field of studies have been raised the question of cosmopolitan citizenship and democracy on the glo-

110. Hooghe and Marks, “Unravelling the Central State, but How? ypes of Multi-level Governance,” 235. 111. Simona Piattoni, e eory of Multi-level Governance: Conceptual, Empirical and Normative Challenges  (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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balised word, and the possibility of a democratic system beyond the state, following the path of Kant. 112  Without going into a broader debate, which would exceed the size of this article, some simple comments might be taken into account. Peters and Pierre have talked about a “Faustian bargain” as regards to multilevel governance and democracy, considering that “ the core values of democratic governments are traded  for accommodation, consensus and efficiency in governance ”.113 Tis comment seems to underestimate the role of consociational democratic theories, which consider that in divided societies, where majoritarian electoral systems are not applicable, accommodation and consensus are essential components of the system, and ‘core values’ of the democratic system. Tus, that need for accommodation and consensus could be extended to multilevel governance.  Another limit of the multilevel governance model is more factual: although the power of the modern states has weakened, the state has not disappeared. Elazar rightly stated that the model of governance in the postmodern epoch is not about the disappearance of the sovereign state, but about its integration in a new dimension. In the development of biding contracts between the different actors of the multilevel governance, the central government of the states—that is to say the one where relies legal sovereignty in its international dimension—still plays a significant role. In this new perception of federalism, and as we are dealing with metaphoric models, the matrix model of Elazar, developed in the framework of the federal state, should be replaced by a sandglass model, or a matrix with a narrow bottleneck in the middle, through the sovereign state, which is coordinating more than ruling. CONCLUSION

From time to time, theories and models have to be revised, in order to take into account the evolution of the topic and, as far as social sciences are concerned, the growing complexity of the world. In particular, there has been in the past decade a revival in federalism studies, addressing not only the federal state, but the whole nature of federalism, in a political world featuring two opposite trends of globalisation and fragmentation. However, so far, this revival has not led to a clear new answer and a new perception of federalism.

112. For instance the works of David Held and Jürgen Habermas. See also: Daniele Archibugi, “Cosmopolitan Democracy and its Critics: A review,” European journal of International Relations  10, no. 3 (2004). 113. Guy Peters, Jon Pierre, “Multi-level Governance and Democracy. A Faustian Bargain?”, cited by Stein and urkewitsch, “Te Concept of Multi-level Governance in Studies of Federalism,” 10-11. L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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In the context of this article, we argue that federalism cannot be seen in a new perspective as long as it is attached to the archetype pattern of the American pattern, developed form the Constitution of 1787 and the Federalist Papers . Tis model has framed the development of federalist studies for two centuries with reference to the modern state—and to the nation-state—featuring sovereignty and the values of democracy and liberalism. Confederations and non democratic federal states are considered in this framework as unachieved forms of federalism. In the past decade, world politics has known new developments, distinguished by a growing interdependence, the development of the European Union, as well as the increase of federalist solutions in conflict management studies, taking into account non homogeneous states and international guarantees. In order to be able to free federalism out of the straightjacket of the American experience, this article considers that federalism must be studied in the long range historical perspective, considering earlier developments than the American one, as well as parallel historical developments. Our position is that, in order to be able the understand federalism in the ‘post-modern era’, where the sovereign state has been weakening, one should consider the evolution of federalism in ‘pre- or early- modern era’, as well as the alternative to the American experiment. Tat approach postulates federalism as an autonomous field of studies, in its concepts as well as in its semantics.  Analysing what are the constant features of federalism, it cannot be seen as a concept or a theory, as the formalisation of federalism in concepts and theories reduce the scope of study of the field. Te historical presentation has shown the plasticity of federalism and the difficulty to encompass all developments of federalism into one concept or one theory. Terefore, federalism must be seen in a meta-theoretical perspective, as a general approach of politics, or a paradigm considered in its more general sense. Tis is what can be called the ‘federalist idea’ or the ‘federalist principle’. Te basic features of the federalist idea are made up of some general norms: 1. Federalism is based on a voluntary contract between collective entities (would it be called treaty, constitution, covenant, compact…). 2. Tus, it considers the self-governance—or autonomy—of the entities in each level of a two or muti-tier organisation. 3. Eventually, federalism considers that the diffusion of power is preferable to its centralisation.  All other aspects of a federalist organisation are left to the adaptation of the principle to the specific contingencies of the environment where it take place. By L’Europe en formation nº 363 Printemps 2012 - Spring 2012 

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‘contingencies’, we understand the context in which the ‘contract’ takes place or is amended. Te word ‘contingencies’ might appear as excessive, as it does include elements that have structured federalism for decades or centuries . We can think in particular of territoriality, sovereignty or democracy. However, if federalism has to be taken in a large historical perspective, these ‘contingencies’ are elements that appear and/or disappear in the evolution of the federalist thoughts. Eventually, in such perspective, there is no historical teleology in the federalist approach. Political societies do not necessarily evolve towards a federalist organisation. Rather, federalism has to be considered as a method, a specific way to organise plurality in a non-centralised way. In this general approach, the historical evolution of the federalist idea reflects the changes of its perspectives, in a growing complexity. Before the modern era, most of the federalist unions where idiosyncratic and pragmatic experiences, mostly task-oriented towards defensive measures.  A first attempt to formalise these experiences was made by Montesquieu in a descriptive approach by 1748 in L’Esprit des lois . It influenced the American constitution and the next major work of the federalist idea, the Federalist Papers , in 1788. Te work of Hamilton and Madison presented a descriptive and normative vision of federalism, embodied into a liberal and democratic republic. In the same period, two other federalist normative projects were proposed by Kant and Proudhon. However, it is in the American context that was developed a tradition of federalist studies, which led to the development of analytical studies, from World War II, beginning with Kenneth Wheare. Although mostly analytic, these studies keep a normative influence, through their perception of the American pattern as the archetype. Eventually, the collapse of the communist world led to a new perception of world politics. We argue the innovative federalist model developed afterwards is multilevel governance, as the latest attempt to formalise the federalist idea, or the first attempt in the post-modern era. In this historical perspective, the evolution of the federalist schools of thought can be seen as a ‘genealogy’ of the federalist thoughts, and this path has to be interpreted.  A first phase can ben seen with Montesquieu, in a descriptive approach of federalism and the first introduction of federalism into a systematic typology of political systems, in a historical survey of the political organisations. Although the work of Montesquieu is highly normative, the part considering federalism is mostly descriptive. Te normative approach appears afterwards, in the thoughts of the Federalist Papers, Kant and Proudhon. Tis normative approach remains until the 1940, when is starting the analytical approach. Te analytical approach

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