C HA IRE I NBEV - B A ILL ET L A TO UR
Union européenne - Russie
UCL - KUL
DISSIMILAR POLITIES, ONE SIMILAR INSTITUTIONAL DESIGN.
FEDERALISM: A COMPLEX POLITICAL SCIENCE NOTION
Literature review
Florina-Laura NECULAI
PhD student
Université catholique de Louvain
Belgium
ABSTRACT
This paper starts from the general observation that demo-geographically similar
polities, but historically formed differently and in different historical timeperiods, all use the same tool in their institutional design – federalism – in order
to pursue specific aims depending on the specificities of each polity, of which
the major goal is maintaining diversity within a territorial unity.
This paper is extrapolated and adapted from the context of a larger paper; it is
intended to be a (modest) literature review that tries to show that federalism is a
complex tool; and that its complexity resides, first, in the divergence of opinions
on defining what federalism is, and, second, in the multitude of forms that
federalism takes when implemented.
2
… four observations are paramount:
firstly, there is no one ideal form of federalism;
secondly, structures founded on these principles [the fundamental principles of federalism]
do not form the hierarchical order exemplified in a centralized state;
thirdly, the formation of a federation depends on the existing political cultures and
institutions and proceeds to redistribute responsibilities and powers, according to the
capabilities of the constituent units;
fourthly, the federalist method is open to change: it responds to the conditions of the
integration process and is an advantage in the climate of the new technological and social
upheavals.’
(Prof. Dusan Sidjanski, 2001:5)
3
Dissimilar Polities, One Similar Institutional Design.
Federalism: A Complex Political Science Notion
CONTENT
Page
Introduction (in English)…………………………………………………………...…………5
Introduction (in French)………………………………………………………………...…….6
I. DISSIMILAR POLITIES, ONE SIMILAR INSTITUTIONAL DESIGN
1. Confederal and federal institutional organization in the Antiquity……..…………………...8
2. The U.S., EU, Russia-dissimilar by formation, similar by institutional design
2.1. The United States of America – the first modern federal republic with representative
democracy………………………………………………………….…………..…...11
2.1.1. From the American Confederation to the American Federation……………..12
2.1.2. A ‘republic’, not a ‘democracy’; a ‘federation’, not a ‘confederation’……....14
2.1.3. From the ‘United States are…’ to the ‘United States is’-the Civil War……..15
2.1.4. The European philosophical and political influence………………………... 17
2.2. The 19th century: Europe and Russia-a centralized and monarchical tradition;
confederal and federal endeavours……………..………………………………17
2.3. The 20th century: Europe and Russia-confederal and (quasi-) federal endeavours...21
2.3.1. Europe’s first steps towards economic and political union…………………..21
2.3.2. Europe’s failed attempts of a federal political union ………………………..22
2.3.3. Europe’s steps towards a federal political union…………………….………23
2.3.4. The Draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe………….……....…25
2.3.5. Russia towards federal institutional structure in the post-communist era…...27
2.3.6. The period December 1991-December 1999: history’s legacies, Yeltsin’s
reforms……………………………………………………………………..27
2.3.7. The period from December 1999: Yeltsin’s legacy, Putin’s reforms……….28
2.4. The 21st century: Russia and the European Union-federal endeavours…………...29
2.4.1. President Putin’s federal institutional reforms………………………………29
2.4.2. Europe’s Presidents’ federal institutional reforms…………………………..30
II. FEDERALISM: A COMPLEX POLITICAL SCIENCE NOTION
3. Federalism: A Complex Political Science Notion to define……………………………….34
3.1. Federalism: the etymology of the term…………………………………………..34
3.2. Federalism – definitions………………………………………………………….35
3.3. Federalism vs. Federation. Examples (the U.S., the EU and Russia)……………36
3.4. Federalism vs. unitary (de)centralized. Examples (the U.S.)…………...………..36
3.5. Federalism vs. confederalism. Examples (the U.S. and the EU)………………...38
4. Federalism: A Complex Political Science Notion to implement…………………………..40
4.1. Symmetrical and asymmetrical federalism. Examples (the U.S., the EU and
Russia)…………………………………………………………………….………41
4.2. Dual federalism. Example (the U.S.)…………………………………………….42
4.3. Executive and intergovernmental federalism. Example (the EU)………………..43
4.4. Ethnic federalism. Example (Russia)…………………………………………….45
4.5. Other forms of federalism. Examples……………………………………………46
Conclusions (in English)…………………………………………………………….…….…46
Conclusions (in French)……………………………………………………………….……..49
References……………………………………………………………………………………52
4
Dissimilar Polities, One Similar Institutional Design.
Federalism: A Complex Political Science Notion
Introduction
The interest in the study of federalism increased in the last years. And so were the arguments
pro and against implementing federalism in practice. World polities from the most diverse,
from viewpoints from the most diverse (e.g. territorial size, population size, formation as a
state, economic development, political regime, etc.) look towards federalism as to an
institutional tool able to solve political issues from the most diverse, such as: maintaining
population diversity within territorial unity, peace, democracy, etc.
For example, the United States of America is the first federal republic with a
representative democracy in modern history, following a war of independence, a civil war and
a long process of integration closed at the middle of the 20th century with the accession of
Alaska and Hawaii. The history of the federal building of the United States, and in particular
the debate for the ratification of its federal constitution, contains normative arguments in
favour of a federal institutional framework. Furthermore, in some of the arguments developed
during the debates on the ratification of the constitution, the Founding Fathers of the United
States of America referred to similar institutional examples provided by the Antiquity; the
American federal institutional design being adapted to the American necessities from the
beginning of the modern history.
Another example is the European Union. Following a long history of wars between
states, and in particular following the Second World War, six of the Western European States
approached the functionalist method of economic integration pursuing the continental peace.
However, there were and there still are initiatives of institutional reforms in order to bring into
the European institutional framework more democratic principles, among which some are
principles of federalism, although the term of ‘federalism’ is not mentioned in the most recent
European treaty, the ‘Treaty of Lisbon’. The European Union tends to develop towards a
federal institutional framework that is built in such a way to answer the best the institutional
deficiencies provided by its own particular context.
The European Union’s eastern neighbour, Russia, has passed at the beginning of the
1990s from a so-called ‘quasi’- federal institutional structure inherited from the communist
period, to a federal one. The Putin Administrations initiated and undertook a series of
institutional reforms, in particular because federalism is seen as a concept that goes hand in
hand with democratization.
This paper starts from the observation that (large) entities formed in different ways and in
different time periods of history, use the same institutional tool – federalism – in order to
pursue specific aims depending on the specificities of each polity. The question addressed in
this paper is the following: What makes federalism a complex political science notion
considered that it may provide some institutional practical solutions to a wide range of
polities (historically) formed differently and in (historically) different time periods?
This is the question to which this paper tries to find a viable answer. In this sense, this
paper will focus on three entities that are similar by territorial size, all being continental or
almost continental large, as well as a large and diverse population; but they are all three
different by the way they were (historically) formed, and all three are formed in different
(historical) time periods. These polities are, from West to East: the United States of America,
the European Union and the Russian Federation. This paper refers to other polities, too, but
these three are the main focus.
5
This paper will unfold as follows: a first part will briefly show that the confederal
and/or federal institutional building is an old discovery that goes back to the Antiquity. The
second part will point in more details, but still not detailed enough given the complexity and
the lengthy, that the United States of America, the European Union and the Russian
Federation are three entities dissimilar from the point of view of the (historical) formation but
which constantly aimed and some are still aiming towards a (federal) institutional structure
that matches their own specificities, undertaking different reforms in this sense. This part is a
short literature review of the histories of the three polities. This paper focused on the main
points of the history, unfortunately, leaving aside a lot of interesting details. The third part
will explore the complexity of the concept of ‘federalism’ when defined, while the fourth part
will explore the complexity of federalism in practice, the different forms federalism takes, in
particular based on the examples of federalism provided by the U.S., the EU and Russia; and
not only.
The argument of this paper starts from the premise that federalism was and still is a
complex political science notion that, in practice, works differently in different contexts. And
that the complexity of federalism is provided in particular by the flexibility it proves when
implemented in practice. This paper tries, as much as possible, to argue that the complexity of
federalism resides, first, in the divergences of opinion on defining what federalism is, and,
second, in the multitude of forms that federalism takes when implemented.
The last part will conclude.
The topic on the reasons why federalism is so often invoked as a practical solution in
institutional building of different polities has been previously explored. This paper is more
like a (modest) literature review on the topic of federalism, as well as on history of the
(federal) institutional building of the United States, the European Union and the Russian
Federation; it addresses mainly the younger students and younger researchers in this field who
would like to have an introduction in order to understand and/or to go further in exploring the
topic of federalism.
Des Entités Dissemblables, Un Seul Dessein Institutionnel.
Le Fédéralisme: Une Notion Complexe de Science Politique
Introduction
Au cours de ces dernières années, l’intérêt pour l’étude du fédéralisme s’est accru; de même,
les arguments en faveur et contre l’implémentation du fédéralisme. Diverses entités des divers
points de vue (ex. superficie du territoire, population, formation comme entité,
développement économique, régime politique, etc) considèrent le fédéralisme comme un outil
institutionnel capable de résoudre un nombre important de problèmes, comme ceux liés à la
maintenance de la diversité dans une unité territoriale, la paix, la démocratie. Voici trois
exemples d’entités juridiques ayant choisi ou s’inspirant du modèle fédéral.
Suite à une guerre d’indépendance, une guerre civile, et un long processus d’intégration
finalisé au milieu du 20ème siècle avec l’adhésion de l’Alaska et d’Hawaii, les Etats-Unis
d’Amérique sont devenus la première République Fédérale avec une démocratie
représentative de l’histoire moderne. L’histoire de la construction fédérale des Etats-Unis, et
plutôt le débat sur la ratification de sa constitution fédérale, contiennent des arguments
normatifs en faveur d’un cadre institutionnel fédéral. Lors des débats pour la ratification de la
Constitution Fédérale, les Pères Fondateurs des Etats-Unis ont développé des arguments qui
6
se référaient à des modèles institutionnels de l’Antiquité; le dessein institutionnel fédéral
américain étant adapté aux nécessités américaines du début de l’histoire moderne.
Après plusieurs guerres et surtout après la Seconde Guerre Mondiale, six Etats d’Europe
Occidentale ont créé la Communauté Economique Européenne afin de consolider la paix en
Europe en utilisant la méthode fonctionnaliste d’intégration économique. La construction
européenne s’est fait et continue de se faire au fur et mesure de réformes institutionnelles
tendant à introduire plus des principes démocratiques dont quelques-uns des principe du
fédéralisme dans le fonctionnement de l’Union Européennes bien que le mot ‘fédéralisme’ ne
soit pas mentionné, pas même dans le plus récent traité, Traité de Lisbonne. L’Union
Européenne tend à évoluer vers un cadre institutionnel fédéral construit tel qu’il puisse
répondre le mieux aux carences institutionnelles fournies par son contexte particulier.
Le voisin oriental de l’Union Européenne, La Russie, est passé au début des années 90
d’une structure institutionnelle qu’on appelle ‘quasi-fédérale’ héritée de la période
communiste, à une structure institutionnelle fédérale. Les administrations Putin ont initié et
entrepris une série de réformes institutionnelles, en particulier parce que le fédéralisme est vu
comme un concept qui va de pair avec la démocratisation.
Cette étude part de l’observation que des (larges) entités formées selon des modalités
différentes et à des moments différents de l’histoire utilisent le même outil institutionnel, le
fédéralisme, afin de poursuivre des buts spécifiques en fonction des spécificités de chaque
entité. La question à laquelle nous tenterons de répondre est la suivante: Qu’est-ce que rend le
fédéralisme une notion complexe de science politique considéré qu’il pourrait fournir des
solutions institutionnelles pratiques pour des entités (très) différentes par la manière de
formation historique et par le moment historique quand elles se sont formées?
Afin d’essayer de trouver une réponse adéquate, nous nous concentrerons sur trois
entités similaires par leur grande superficie, par leur population importante et différente, mais
dissemblables dans leur histoire et leur processus de formation. Il s’agit de l’ouest à l’est des
Etats-Unis d’Amériques, de l’Union Européenne et de la Fédération Russe. Nous ferons
également référence à d’autres entités pour l’exemple.
Cette étude est organisée de la manière suivante: la première partie montrera brièvement que
la construction institutionnelle confédérale et/ou fédérale remonte à l’Antiquité. Ensuite dans
la deuxième partie, nous verrons plus en détails sans pour autant être exhaustifs que les EtatsUnis, l’Union Européenne et la Fédération Russe sont trois entités dissemblables aux vues de
leur histoire et de leur formation mais que chacune aspire à une structure fédérale pouvant
répondre à leurs caractéristiques. Nous nous concentrerons sur les évènements historiques
principaux. La troisième partie explorera la complexité de définir le concept de fédéralisme
alors que la quatrième partie étudiera la complexité de mise en œuvre du concept de
‘fédéralisme’, ses multiples formes, en prenant pour sujets d’étude les Etats-Unis, l’Union
Européenne et la Russie.
L’argument de cette étude part de la prémisse que le fédéralisme a été et il est toujours
une notion complexe de science politique qui, en pratique, fonctionne différemment dans des
contextes différents. En plus, la complexité du fédéralisme est fournie en particulier par la
flexibilité qu’il possède quand implémenté en pratique. Cette étude essaie, autant que
possible, d’argumenter que la complexité du fédéralisme réside, premièrement, dans la
divergence d’opinions sur la définition du fédéralisme, et, deuxièmement, dans la multitude
des formes que le fédéralisme prend en pratique.
La dernière partie conclut.
Les raisons pour lesquelles le fédéralisme est tellement souvent invoqué comme une solution
pratique dans la construction institutionnelle des entités différentes n’est pas un sujet
7
nouveau. Ce travail est plutôt comme un résumé (modeste) de la littérature sur le sujet du
fédéralisme, aussi que sur le sujet de l’histoire de la construction institutionnelle (fédérale)
des Etats-Unis d’Amérique, de l’Union Européenne et de la Fédération Russe; il s’adresse en
principal aux jeunes étudiants et aux jeunes chercheurs qui aimeraient avoir une introduction
pour comprendre et/ou explorer plus en détail le sujet du fédéralisme.
I DISSIMILAR POLITIES, ONE SIMILAR INSTITUTIONAL DESIGN
1. Confederal and federal institutional organization in the Antiquity
There is no novelty to anyone anymore that the Antiquity has provided the first theorization
of the concept of democracy and a first implementation of the democratic form of government
strongly linked to the social and political realities of the Antiquity. And the Antiquity has,
also, provided the first implementation of a confederal and of a federal institutional structure.
For example, let us not forget that the Greek Antiquity provided the example of two major
leagues: the Delos League and the Peloponnesian League which were more the examples of
confederations with a military purpose.
The Delos League was gathering over 100 city-states led by Athens; it was founded in
Delos, in the 5th century B.C. with the main aim of continuing the military campaign against
the Persian Empire. The Congresses were held yearly in Delos and each member state had an
equal number of votes; each of the member states was contributing to the common budget.
Maffre (2004:30) reminded that the Delos League became an instrument of hegemony for
Athens that started to have imperial ambitions. In this sense, when leaders of other city-states,
such as the city-state of Naxos (469 B.C.) and, later on, the city-state of Thasos (466-465
B.C.) asked to leave the league, Athens sent a fleet to stop the ‘intolerable secession’.
The Peloponnesian League was gathering Greek city-states led by Sparta; it was
founded in the 6th century B.C. with an initially (military) defence purpose against the Persian
Empire; and, later, it had an offensive purpose in the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.)
against Athens. The Peloponnesian League had a Council of Allies formed of two bodies: an
Assembly and a Congress (where each state had one vote); contributions were paid to the
common budget by the member (city-) states only during war times.
Jean-Jacques Maffre mentioned (2004:72) the existence of a federation in the Ancient world:
the Boeotia community (koinon) reconstructed around Thebes, Orchomenus and Tespiae, as
well as a federal league: the Chalcidice League.
He explains that Boeotia was divided into eleven districts depending on the number of
the population, each of the districts having an Assembly that was electing each, one
representative for the federal executive branch. The government was the supreme commander
of the army (main task). The army was formed of contingents coming from each district. Each
of the eleven districts were, also, sending sixty representatives in the federal Council which
was acting more like a Parliament with competencies in foreign affairs and finances. Boeotia
had a Federal Court of Justice, too.
The Chalcidice League was formed around the city of Olynthus, in the year 430 B.C.
Its citizens shared a common citizenship. It had a federal army and a federal budget (from
federal taxes). From a territorial point of view, it was divided into four tetrads, each of them
run by a tetrad, elected yearly. A federal assembly held sovereign competencies in foreign
policy and in finances; it elected a supreme magistrate who was supported in its activity by
other federal magistrates with military competencies.
There is no novelty to anyone anymore that at the national level, the Antiquity practiced the
direct democracy, where citizens participated directly to collective decision-making or, in
other words, ‘an exercise of sovereignty by free citizens’ (Muscã, 1999:5, my translation).
8
From an administrative point of view, the city-state is a form of political organisation
with a relatively small territory and a small population who was sovereign and where the
political power was initially divided in three branches1 legitimized by the sovereign people.
However, not all the people could participate in the process of collective decision-making, the
classic democracy having, also, an exclusivist character.
More or less in the same time period, the Roman Republic was extending its territories
through conquests. In comparison to Athens, Rome was, also, giving citizenship to the
conquered peoples, but the Romans ‘had never adequately adapted their popular
governmental institutions to the increasing number of citizens and to the great distances from
Rome’ (Dahl, 2003:17, my translation): the Roman public debates were held only in Rome,
which limited the participation of those citizens living on territories at great distance from
Rome. Dahl points (2003:21) that what Rome was lacking, meaning a representative
government, took shape independently of the previously experiences in Athens and Rome, in
Northern Europe (e.g. Great Britain, Scandinavia, Low Countries) and in Central Europe (e.g.
Switzerland) around the year 900 A.C. In these countries the political administration was
passing from local and regional gatherings to national gatherings shaping, in this way, the
future parliaments that were formed in these countries before they were formed in other
countries.2
Whether or not the confederal or federal alliances and/or unions were approved or
disapproved in the Antiquity, it is difficult to say. However, the concept of ‘democracy’ was
disapproved by the Antiquity’s authors. In spite the disapproval of the term itself, the credit
for having discovered both democracy and the notion of politics as the ‘art of reaching
decisions by public discussions and then of obeying those decisions as a necessary condition
of civilized social existence’ belongs to the Greeks (Finley, 1985:14).
Both the term and the practice of the classical democratic form of government
disappeared and appeared in other places during the medieval period. And so was federalism
which has been theorized in the 16th century and started to be implemented in practice in
Western Europe, and later on, in the 18th century, in the American colonies engaged in a long
process of federal state building whose outcome is the United States of America.
***
Democracy acquired a modern connotations starting with the 18th century and the formation
of the United States of America. A series of events with a historical and philosophical
character first took place in Great Britain; they favoured the development of a parliamentary
and constitutional monarchy that further favoured the first modern representative federal
democracy in the United States. The setting up of the parliamentary monarchy in Great
Britain is the consequence of a series of events that took place in the larger European context
of thinking streams such as Humanism, Renaissance, and the Enlightenment.3
All European monarchies were passing through a (social) crisis phase at the end of the 16th
century and the beginning of the 17th century. This crisis had different political implications.
Although the causes were similar, the solutions that the monarchies adopted to solve the crisis
1
The three branches were: a) an executive body that was elected every year; b) a judicial branch (Areopagus); c)
people’s assembly (Ecclesia) – the legislative body that was encompassing all citizens. With the passage of time,
this division had changed, due to the reforms undertaken; new institutions were created. A particular importance
played the reforms of Pericles (495-429 B.C.).
2
My translation.
3
The authors of the Antiquity were re-discovered and re-studied during the Middle Ages; new thinking streams
evolved in the larger European context (and Russia), and the Antiquity terms of ‘demos’ and that of ‘kratos’
were acquiring modern connotations.
9
were different. For example, following a political crisis marked by civil wars in the period
1648-1653, opposing the French monarchy to those who were against it (La Fronde
movement), the French monarchy got out of the crisis and Louis XIV became the strongest of
all the European monarchs, and the most absolutist of all (Berstein and Milza, 1998:223).
On the other hand, though, the absolute monarchy did not find a good ground for
development in Britain. In spite the attempts to make Britain an absolute monarchy (e.g.
Jacob I Swart (1603-1625) and his son, Charles I (1625-1649), these attempts were strongly
opposed by the Parliament. This is, probably, one of the greatest differences between the
social movement in France and that in Great Britain: those who opposed absolutism in Britain
were, also, represented in the Parliament.4 Great Britain became a constitutional monarchy
and its new king committed to respect ‘An Act Declaring the Rights and the Liberties of the
Subject and Settling the Succession of the Crown’, or shortly, the ‘Bill of Rights’ (1689). The
principle of the parliamentary monarchy in Great Britain was that king is ruling but it is not
governing; the governing was based on a division of powers between the king, the cabinet and
the Parliament, each of them having precise competencies.5
Still at the beginning of the 17th century, in 1603, the king of England, resumed the previous
efforts to colonise America starting with Maine and going south; and starting with 1606, the
British Parliament created British companies (e.g. ‘London’, ‘Plymouth Viriginia’ in 1606,
and ‘London Company’ in 1607) in order to support the colonisation of America (Jenkins,
2002:29). Towards the middle of the 17th century, the British presence on the North American
soil was having 27,000 residents; and in 1660 100,000 residents; in 1700-250,000 residents,
and to the end of the 19th century, the resident population grew with 3 per cent per year
(Jenkins, 2002:40).
In the 18th century, in 1717, the British government decided to send to the American
colonies, as labour force, those prisoners convicted to the death penalty (Jenkins, 2002:30).
The British governments were willing to better organize the American colonies; all colonies
had a governor that was named by the King or by the owner of the colony, they all had a
bicameral legislature on the Westminster model, and the law the legislatures provided needed
the signature of the monarch (Jenkins, 2002:43). At the first American census in 1790 over
one million immigrants came voluntarily to America from Western Europe and 89 percent of
the total number of immigrants coming from England and Scotland; other immigrants were
coming from Germany (less than 6 percent), as well as from Ireland, The Netherlands, France
and the Scandinavian countries (Kivisto, 2002:48).
It is noteworthy the fact that in spite of the democratic changes in Britain, the American
colonies were not represented in the British Parliament. For example, the different economic
decisions that Britain took had an impact on the American colonies without them having a
word to say. A particular decision, of an increase in taxes, provoked discontent among the
colonists who decided not to pay any tax without their consent: ‘No taxation without
representation.’ More precisely, it is about the Sugar Act (1764), the Stamp Act (1765) and
the Townshend Act (1767).6
The political changes, as well as further developments towards a parliamentary regime
in Great Britain, developed in Europe a growing admiration on behalf of the European
philosophers. The incipient British political system was admired by French philosophers such
as Voltaire, Rousseau and Montesquieu. Classicism is slowly replaced by another
4
The civil war (1642-1651) opposing the king and the Parliament ended with the victory of the Parliament.
The process of granting more and more power to the Parliament had been a long process that had started long
before, in the Middle Ages, with the ‘Magna Charta’ (1215).
6
Jenkins mentioned (2002:58) that in spite of the Townshend Act (a law imposing custom taxes on tea and
paper), the American colonies were bringing 300 pounds to the Britain treasury, while the costs to keep the
military presence in the colonies reached 170,000 pounds.
5
10
philosophical movement: the Enlightenment. While Europe’s both economy and population
was growing, while its Enlightened ideas were crossing Europe from North to South, from
West to Sankt-Petersburg, the French philosophical debate on the form of government that
best favoured democracy influenced the political philosophy of the American personalities
such as Thomas Paine, James Madison, etc.
For example, Thomas Paine is a British citizen who immigrated to America, as well as
a French citizen, that Montchamp (2005:17) called ‘[a] true son of Liberty, an anti-slavery
militant and a feminist precursor, he was a strong partisan of the universal suffrage. And he
was the man who invented the name “United States of America.” A European citizen!’. In his
pamphlet, ‘Common Sense’ (January, 1776), Thomas Paine developed arguments to support
the independence cause of the American colonies from the British Empire; he, also, explained
the reasons why the (classic) direct democracy cannot be suited for the modern times, reasons
that are on the same line of ideas with the other Founding Fathers of the United States.
First, he considered ‘fallacious’ the argument that the American colonies would be
prosperous only if they continue to be in connection with Britain (Paine, 2003:19). He was
not supporting the argument on the protection that Great Britain was offering to its American
colonies because he did not see Great Britain being motivated by attachment, but by interests
in protecting its American colonies (idem, 19). Nor was the ancestry affiliations between
Britain and the American colonies a sustainable argument to justify the American colonies’
dependence on Britain. He explained this as follows: ‘But admitting, that we were all of
English descent, what does it amount to? Nothing. (…) The first king of England, of the
present line (William the Conqueror) was a Frenchman, and half the Peers of England are
descendents from the same country; wherefore, by the same method of reasoning, England
ought to be governed by France’ (Paine, 2003:20).
Second, he identified a series of disadvantages in continuing the dependence of the
American colonies on England, such as the direct involvement of the American continent ‘in
European wars and quarrels; and set us at variance with nations, who would otherwise seek
our friendship, and against whom, we have neither anger nor complaint’ (idem, 21).
Furthermore, besides the ‘absurdity’ that he saw in a continent being governed by an island,
he considered this governing inefficient due to the long distance that was separating the two:
‘To be always running three or four thousand miles with a tale or a petition, waiting
four or five months for an answer, which when obtained requires five or six more to
explain it in, will in a few years be looked upon as folly and childishness – There was
a time when it was proper, and there is a proper time for it to cease’ (Paine, 2003:23).
Due to the advantages that he saw in the independence of the American colonies from
England, correlated to what was evident to him that England and America belonged to
separate systems, he openly concluded: ‘let us come to a final separation’ or, more
metaphorically, ‘England to Europe, America to itself’ (Paine, 2003:23).
***
2. The U.S., EU, Russia – dissimilar by formation, similar by institutional design
2.1. The United States of America – the first modern federal republic with representative
democracy
The American colonies declared independence from the British Empire on July 4th, 1776
following the adoption by the Continental Congress of the ‘United States Declaration of
Independence’ drafted by Thomas Jefferson declaring (and justifying with reasons7) the
7
The ‘United States Declaration of Independence’ explained why the thirteen American colonies declared
independence by exposing a series of examples to justify that the whole ‘history of the present King of Great
Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an
absolute Tyranny over these States’. Here are some examples taken from the ‘United States Declaration of
Independence’: ‘He has refused his Assent to Laws …’, ‘He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of
11
independence of the thirteen American colonies situated on the West coast of the United
States. These thirteen colonies were, also, called ‘British colonies’ and encompassed (from
North to South): New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York,
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina,
and Georgia. The ‘United States Declaration of Independence’ is known to have been inspired
by Enlightenment ideas, as well as, the ideas of the social contract:
‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are
instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the
Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its
foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall
seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness’ (from ‘The United States
Declaration of Independence’).
2.1.1 From the American Confederation to the American Federation
The process of uniting the American colonies, initially started as an independence war from
the British Empire, was a long, progressive and with an innovative outcome. Here it is, in
short, the events: in September 1774, an American Continental Congress agreed to boycott
the English products; in April 1775, the British Crown sent troops in the American colonies to
stop the protests; in 1776, the document written by Thomas Jefferson is adopted by the
Continental Congress and declared the independence of the American colonies; in 1777, the
Continental Congress adopted the first written constitution called the ‘Articles of the
Confederation and of the Perpetual Union’ ratified by the member states on March 1st, 1781.
This was the first step towards the Constitution of the United States ratified on March 4th,
1789 that is in power until today, after being amended several times.8
The ‘Articles of the Confederation and Perpetual Union 1777’ was providing a certain
legal status to the newly-born confederal union of only thirteen9 of the American colonies that
committed to a ‘firm league of friendship’ (Art. 3). According to this legal document, each of
the member state could send two to seven representatives that were appointed every year for a
maximum of three years (Art. 5). Each state had one vote in the Congress (Art. 5), which
made big states (with a large population) being equally counterbalanced by small states. But
the member states retained their sovereignty, freedom and independence (Art. 2), without
leaving many tasks for the Congress of the confederal Union, which made the United States
more like ‘an international alliance rather than a true federal system’ (Jenkins, 2002:63). The
Congress of the confederal Union had some general powers on decisions regarding war and
peace, to sign treaties and alliances, or to coin money (Art. 9), and its President had loose
powers. However, the Confederation that was run by a Continental Congress proved to be a
week union of states that could not manage properly the domestic policy issues, as well as the
war for independence. For example, each member state paid a tax to the common treasury, tax
that was ‘laid and levied by the authority and direction of the legislatures of the several states
within the time agreed upon by the united states in congress assembled’ (Art. 8), but there is
no mention of the mechanisms to use in case any state refused to pay its contribution to the
immediate and pressing importance…’, ‘He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large
districts of people…’, etc.
8
The last amendment brought to the US Constitution of 1789 is the 26th amendment ratified on July 1st, 1971. It
acknowledges the right to vote to all the citizens of the United States who are at least 18 years old.
9
The American Confederation was formed of thirteen states: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island,
Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South
Carolina, and Georgia.
12
treasury of the Confederation. The shortcomings of the American Confederation were
threatening the existence of the Union itself:
‘Without a strong central government, however, centrifugal forces started to pull the
state apart. Instead of working together, some states began coining their own money
and erecting trade barriers, and the state governments were too weak on their own to
ensure the rule of law’ (Schram, 2005:373).
Given the difficulties to operate under the provisions of the ‘Articles of the Confederation and
the Perpetual Union’, the Congress called a Constitutional Convention to revise the articles of
this first document that united only thirteen of the independent American states. More
precisely, as Giraud stated (2001:656), at the origin of the Constitutional Convention was a
commercial litigation between two states, Virginia and Maryland, which was followed by a
more general meeting on regularizing commerce between the American states. This meeting
took place in 1785, at the initiative of James Madison (who was Virginian) and was followed
by another more formal meeting in 1786, at the initiative of James Madison and Alexander
Hamilton, to convene the representatives of the thirteen members of the American
Confederation in order ‘to render the Constitution of the Federal Government adequate to the
exigencies of the Union.’10
The new Convention convened fifty-five delegates11 from twelve states12 in
Philadelphia in May 1787 with the agreement of the Continental Congress in order to amend
the ‘Articles of the Confederation and Perpetual Union.’ Referring to the American
Constitutional Convention, Alexis de Tocqueville underlined the ‘double chance’ that the
United States had in its process of becoming a federation with representative democracy: on
the one hand, to had had a small constitutional assembly (fifty-five members), and on the
other hand, to had had it with the participation of remarkable figures that had, also, previously
contributed to the ‘Articles of the Confederation and Perpetual Union’. Giraud pointed
(2001:656) that the initiative of the Constitutional Convention was the work of a small group
of ‘inspired and courageous personalities’ and he reminded the words of Jefferson who
referred to the composition of the Convention as ‘an assembly of semi-gods.’
The Constitutional Convention was chaired by George Washington, as President of the
Convention. Its works were organized on committees, which were debating two projects. On
the one hand, there was the project drafted at the initiative of the Virginian delegation
(‘Virginia Plan’), in particular at the initiative of James Madison and Edmund Rudolph. On
the other hand, there was the project drafted at the initiative of the New Jersey delegation
(‘New Jersey Plan’), in particular of William Paterson, and that was proposing that more
power to be left at the State level. The suggestions of the two plans, as well as the supporters
of the two plans, reached, what in history is known as, the ‘Great Compromise’ (or the
‘Connecticut Compromise’).13 Following this compromise, the lower chamber, the House of
Representatives encompassed a number of representatives directly proportioned with the
number of the state population, as proposed by the ‘Virginia Plan’, as Virginia was one of the
most populous states14 and this decision was serving its political interests in decisional
10
Fragment from the Annapolis address to the States in Giraud (2001:656), as footnote (2).
Every delegation to the Constitutional Convention had one vote, regardless of the number of delegates that
every state had in the Constitutional Convention.
12
The Constitutional Convention gathered the representatives of twelve of the thirteen member states of the
American Confederation because the state of Rhode Island refused to participate.
13
Another important compromise is known in history as the ‘Three-Fifths Compromise’ settled between the
Northern and Southern American states. It settled the quota of the slaves to be counted as being part of the
Southern population, and, therefore, settling the number of seats that the Southern states could have in the House
of Representatives where the states get a number of seats directly proportional to the number of its population.
14
According to the data provided by Philip Jenkins in the Table 2.1. (2002:67), following the census of 1790,
Virginia was the state with the largest population: 748,000 inhabitants, followed by Pennsylvania with 434,000
inhabitants and North Carolina with a population of 394,000 inhabitants. At the opposite side, there were Rhode
Island with a population of 69,000 inhabitants, Delaware with 59,000 inhabitants, and the smallest state was
Tennessee with a population of 36,000 inhabitants.
11
13
matters. And the upper chamber, the Senate, encompassed two senators from each state
regardless of the number of its population, as it was proposed by the ‘New Jersey Plan’.
The Constitutional Convention drafted a new Constitution that is considered the
Second Founding of the United States of America. It was voted by the Convention on
September 17th, 1787. And it was followed by a ratification process in each of the member
states.
2.1.2. A ‘republic’, not a ‘democracy’; a ‘federation’, not a ‘confederation’
The novelty with the American form of government was the attempt and the success in
creating a federal republic with a representative (indirect) democracy. The debate that took
place within the pages of ‘The Independent Journal’ and that became known as the ‘Federalist
Papers’15 helped to better define the concept of ‘federal republic’ with a representative system
of government.
Why a Union as a ‘republic’ and not as a ‘democracy’, understood in the terms of the ‘classic
democracy’? The previous models of direct democracy that characterized the organization of
the political life in the Athenian and Roman Antiquity could not be applicable to the political
organization of a whole continent with a constantly growing population.16 Alexander
Hamilton made a conceptual distinction between ‘democracy’ that is synonym to ‘pure
democracy’, on the one hand, and is characteristic to the Ancient political organization where
the small number of citizens that made the Ancient Greek society ‘could assemble and
administer the government in person’; and, on the other hand, the concept of ‘republic’ that
was more appropriate for the modern political organization. He defined the ‘republic’ as ‘a
government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and
promises the cure17 for which we are seeking’ (Federalist no.10). Furthermore, in a ‘republic’,
people ‘assemble and administer it [the government] by their representatives and agents’
(Federalist no. 14) who led to Hamilton’s conclusion (Federalist no.14) that a democracy ‘will
be confined to a small spot’, while a republic ‘may be extended over a large region.’
Why a Union as a federative republic with a representative system of government? Madison
was convinced that the republican spirit is more appropriate to the United States and he
expressed it as follows in ‘Federalist no. 39’:
‘It is evident that no other form would be reconcilable with the genius of the people of
America; with the fundamental principles of the Revolution; or with that honourable
determination which animates every votary of freedom, to rest all our political
experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government.’
And it is still Madison in ‘Federalist no.39’ who explained what to understand by republican
government. He started from the confusion raised by governments of other countries such as
15
The ‘Federalist Papers’ are a collection of 85 articles written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and
John Jay in the period from October 1787 to 1788.
16
Thomas Paine developed, also, arguments concerning the political organization of the American colonies,
which obviously demonstrate that he favoured a representative government that he considered fit for a constantly
growing population (Paine, 2003:9). Paine envisioned the system of government for the American continent to
be a proportioned system, where the number of the representatives to grow directly proportioned with the
increasing population of the colony. He shaped the concept of accountability by envisioning a system of frequent
elections, in order to insure a ‘frequent interchange’ between those who govern and those who are governed. He
saw in this link, between representatives and electors, the element that ‘will establish a common interest with
every part of the community, they will mutually and naturally support each other’ in order to obtain a strong
government and happy citizens (Paine, 2003:10).
17
By seeking a particular ‘cure’, Hamilton referred to the dangers of factions that a ‘firm Union’ can prevent.
He defined ‘faction’ as follows: ‘a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the
whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of
other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community’ (Federalist no.10).
14
those of Holland, Poland, England, that are also called republican – although encompassing
characteristics from other forms of government as well – ‘a government which derives all its
powers directly or indirectly from the great body of people, and is administered by persons
holding their offices during pleasures, for a limited period, or during good behaviour. […]
[O]therwise, every government in the United States, as well as every other popular
government that has been or can be well organized or well executed, would be degraded from
the republican character.’
Although a republican form of government was argued to be more suited for the
modern political organization of the American society, the question raised is a confederate
republic or a federative republic? As Hamilton reminded, a confederative political
organization is not a new idea, on the contrary, ‘[i]t has been practiced upon in different
countries and ages, and has received the sanction of the most approved writers on the subject
of politics’ (Federalist no.9). A ‘confederate republic’ is defined as an association of two or
more states into one, but whose authority is not subordinated to the authority of the Union.
The new Constitution of the United States proposed, instead, a ‘federal republic’:
‘The proposed Constitution, so far from implying an abolition of the State
governments, makes them constituent parts of the national sovereignty, by allowing
them a direct representation in the Senate, and leaves in their possession certain
exclusive and very important portions of sovereign power’ (Federalist no.9).
As Madison argued (Federalist no.40) the ‘new Constitution’ was not quite a new document
because the ‘great principles’ within this new document, following the works of the
Constitutional Convention, were more an ‘expansion of principles which are found in the
articles of Confederation.’ What made this new document to resemble a new Constitution
were the principles of the Articles of the Confederation that were ‘so feeble and confined to
justify all the changes of inefficiency which have been urged against it, and to require a
degree of enlargement which gives to the new system the aspect of an entire transformation of
the old.’
2.1.3. From the ‘United States are…’ to the ‘United States is’-the Civil War
In 1789, when George Washington became the first U.S. President, the United States of
America was the first modern state with a federal structure based on a representative
democracy, but far from being an accomplished American nation and federal state, and still
far from having the new federal capital, Washington D.C. It was followed by a long
ratification process of the U.S. Constitution, by several waves of accession of new member
states to the Union, as well as, by a Civil War (1861-1865).
The states of Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey ratified the U.S. Constitution in
1787; in the following year, 1788, the Constitution was ratified by other eight states, and the
Union enlarged with the accession of the following eight states: Georgia, Connecticut,
Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia and New York. And
other states ratified the U.S. Constitution and acceded in the following years to the Union:
North Carolina (1789), Rhode Island (1790), Vermont (1791), Kentucky (1792), Tennessee
(1796), Ohio (1803), Louisiana (1812), Indiana (1816), Mississippi (1817), Illinois (1818),
Alabama (1819), Maine (1820) and Missouri (1820), (Jenkins, 2002:72, Table 2.2).
The United States were a Union of twenty-four member states with a federal
institutional framework adapted to its large territory, as well as to its large and diverse
population. The population of the United States increased from 116,000 inhabitants in 1700,
to 400,000 inhabitants in 1740, and then to 1,046000 in 1770 (Jenkins, 2002:41, Table 1.2). In
1790, the population of the United States raised to 3,930000 inhabitants; it reached 5,300000
inhabitants in 1800, then, 7,200000 inhabitants in 1810, and 9,600000 inhabitants after the
census of 1820 (Jenkins, 2002:82, Table 2.5). In 1820, the United States were world’s number
one producer of cotton that was mainly planted and manufactured in the Southern states of the
United States (Jenkins, 2002:90); this implied a large use of slave work. Jenkins mentioned
15
(2002:30) that the first people from Africa for slave work were brought in the British colonies
in America in 1619, but it is from 1680 that the slave work started to represent a major force
work. Therefore, in the period 1700-1790, the British colonies in America brought 3,000
people from Africa per year, but starting with 1760, the number was almost 7,000 people per
year, so that in 1775, for example, one-third of the population of Virginia (almost 500,000
people) and Maryland (250,000 people) altogether had its origin in Africa (Jenkins, 2002:3031). The institution of slavery was the main cause for the cleavage North (which was
opposing slavery) – South (which was supporting this institution) and the main cause of the
Civil War between North and South.
The abolishment of slavery in the North had implications on the number of its
population, as well as on the economic development of its cities. In this sense, the population
increased from 12,9 million inhabitants in 1830, to 17,1 million in 1840, to 23,2 million in
1850 and 31,4 million in 1860 (Jenkins, 2002:94, Table 3.1). The northern cities were the
most populous: New York had 200,000 inhabitants in 1830, Philadelphia and Baltimore had
80,000 inhabitants, while Boston 60,000 inhabitants. Three decades later, in 1860, New York
had 800,000 inhabitants and other eight cities had a population over 100,000 inhabitants;
Rhode Island’s population grew ten times in the period 1820-1860 (Jenkins, 2002:96). From
the Southern cities, only New Orleans with its 100,000 in habitants in 1840 could compare
itself with the Northern cities. The industry started to develop quickly towards 1830 in the
manufacture sector and the iron industry; starting with 1840, the underground resources are
more exploited (Jenkins, 2002:94). The railroad developed, too: the railroad Baltimore-Ohio
(1827) was extended; in 1840, there were 3,300 miles18 of railroad, it rose to 17,000 miles in
1854, while other 12,000 miles were under construction (Jenkins, 2002:95).19
The Civil War opposing the Northern and the Southern states of the United States of America
for four years in the period 1861-1865, saw the Union falling apart and the creation of a new
confederation. The beginning tone was given by South Carolina which seceded from the
Union in December 1860; in January-February 1861 other countries seceded: Florida,
Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas; in May 1861, North Carolina,
Tennessee, Arkansas and Virginia seceded, too (Jenkins, 2002:130-132). The civil war was
imminent. The situation is said to have been worsened by James Buchanan, the predecessor of
Abraham Lincoln to the U.S. Presidency.
James Buchanan (1857-1861) opposed war and did not find, in right time, solutions to
stop the secessionist states. Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865), although elected President in
November 1860, could not take any measures until its investiture on March 4th, 1861, when
the secessionist wave reached many states and the war was imminent. Vianu mentioned
(1973:113-114) that the Alabama Congress held in Montgomery at the end of January and
beginning of February 1861 proclaimed the formation of a new independent state: the
Confederation of the Southern States grouping the seven slavery-system states,20 with a
Constitution of its own, a new government, a President (Jefferson Davis) and a Vice-President
(Stephens Alexander Hamilton). The public seem to have been in favour of the creation of a
new independent Southern State; and so was the President of the United States, James
Buchanan (but Abraham Lincoln).
In four years of civil war, the United States lost more people than in the two World
Wars altogether, but the great achievement was that fact that after the end of the Civil War, in
1865, the verb used with the ‘United States’ is at singular (Jenkins, 2002:139). And the Union
started to enlarge with the accession of a number of twelve states from the period after the
18
One mile equals 1,609 km, therefore, 3,300 miles represents approx. 5,311 km; 17,000 miles represents
approx. 27,359 km; and 12,000 miles represents 1,9312 km.
19
Jenkins mentioned (2002:95) that in 1850 the railroad was widely developed on the eastern cost of the United
States, reaching cities of the Middle West (e.g. Cincinnati, St. Louis).
20
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas.
16
Civil War to the 20th century, as follows: Nebraska (1867), Colorado (1876), North Dakota,
South Dakota, Montana and Washington (1889), Idaho and Wyoming (1890), Utah (1896),
Oklahoma (1907), New Mexico and Arizona (1912), (Jenkins, 2002:147, Table 4.1). The
states of Alaska and Hawaii acceded to the United States of America in 1959 (Jenkins,
2002:224).
2.1.4. The European philosophical and political influence
In spite the fact that Alexis de Tocqueville noticed that the American people were not
interested in the European ‘schools of thought that divide Europe; [and] they barely know
their names’ (de Tocqueville, 2005:9, vol.II),21 America was initially populated by people
coming from Europe. Despite their different cultural, professional and social backgrounds, the
fact that the most of the immigrants from the first waves were British immigrants, correlated
to the legacy of the British colonial rule ‘stamped the British heritage on the political,
cultural, and social fabric of the emerging nation. […] British laws, institutions, and political
sensibilities were transplanted to America’ (Kivisto, 2002:48). Furthermore, the early
immigrants were, also, sharing relevant communalities, such as language, culture, religion,
and so on.
The Founding Fathers of the United States are known to have been influenced by the political
and philosophical ideas that were taking place in Europe, as well as by the political
transformations that took place all over Europe, in particular in Britain.
For example, the representation system of the American legislative power, following
the Connecticut Compromise, where each state has two representatives in the Senate and
several representatives in the House of Representatives, depending on the number of its
population, had a precedent in the British Parliament.
Another example is the U.S. ‘Bill of Rights’ proposed to the U.S. Congress by James
Madison to be introduced in the U.S. Constitution in 1789. The United States ‘Bill of Rights’
is a document that encompasses the first ten amendments to ‘The Constitution of the United
State of America’ introduced in 1791 following the ratification of the member states. It
mainly protects the fundamental freedoms of human beings, as well as it limits the powers of
the federal government. Indeed, it was initially inspired by the ‘Virginia Declaration of
Rights’ (1776) but, let us not forget that there is also a British ‘Bill of Rights’ (1689).
A third example is the European/British parliamentary system influence on the
American political system is the system of checks and balances between the three political
branches in order to avoid any possibility of abuse from any of them.
2.2. The 19th century: Europe and Russia-a centralized and monarchical tradition;
confederal and federal endeavours
In the 19th century, the United States of America was a newly born democratic republican
state with a federal institutional structure, while, in Europe and in Russia, monarchy was
flourishing. The first half of the European 19th century is mainly characterized by the fight for
independence of those nations living under the rule of the different European monarchies.
The Russian Tsar, Alexander I (1801-1825) is one of the main characters of the
European politics due to the alliances he made with the European monarchs to protect the
interests of his own empire, as well as for winning over Napoleon and for his intention,
expressed at the Vienna Congress (1815), to make ‘a federation of European states that he
himself would run’ (Bernstein and Milza, 1998:15, vol.4); Austria and Great Britain showed
concern about this project of the Russian Tsar (Berstein and Milza, 1998:15, vol.4). In the
end, the three empires formed a military alliance that played an important role in maintaining
the status-quo established by the Congress of Vienna, by fighting any movement for
21
My translation.
17
independence.22 Following an economic crisis in the period 1846-1848, a wave of revolutions
for independence took place in different corners of Europe: Italy (run by Giuseppe Mazzini),
in Romania (run by Nicolae Balcescu and Avram Iancu), in Hungary (run by Ludovic
Kossuth), etc.
The visions of the exiled leaders of the revolutions of 1848 went beyond the national
independence: their visions went towards confederal and federal projects. In this sense,
Giuseppe Mazzini considered that the liberal and democratic ideals could materialize by
going beyond the national unity towards a federation of nation-states: ‘In his vision, each
European nation has its own state. European unification could be realized by the common will
of these independent nation-states’ (Lakatos, 2007:13). Nicolae Balcescu shared similar
vision of a European federation of nation-states with a federal core formed by countries of the
Danube states (Lakatos, 2007:13). Kossuth’s confederal and federal vision was closer to
Balcescu’s one, and was developed in a draft constitution (1851) for the Hungarian Crown:
‘This Constitutional project represented the key elements of Kossuth’s federalist ideas. At
their heart was the plan for a Danube Confederation made up of the independent nation-states
of Eastern and Central Europe’ (Lakatos, 2007:14). Therefore, by the 1848, Switzerland was
the only federal country in Europe.
In Russia, a first decentralization reform was introduced in the 1864 by the tsar
Alexander II, by the introduction of the so-called zemstvo. However, the Tsarist Empire was
under constant administrative organization since the first Russian state, a Slavic federation
with the capital in Kiev, in the 9th century A.C. (Warnes, 2001:8).
A constant concern in the formation of the modern Russia was the policy of new
conquests for new territories, as well as the fight against the Mongol invasions mostly run by
the Moscow Kremlin.23 In the 15th and 16th century, similarly to France and Britain, Russia, as
well tried to reform its administration by centralizing it.
For example, Ivan III (1462-1505) tried to organize the central administration by
naming some secretaries of state (diaki) with lots of work experience in order to administer
the finances and the foreign affairs (Warnes, 2001:28). For example, the Duma of the
‘Boiare’24 – the traditional council of the knez – initially encompassed three to five people,
but in time, it reached even sixteen members in 1538, as well as a permanent character
(Kondratieva, 2000:93). He is the first to have established a code of laws (sudebnik) in 1479
(Ziegler, 2000:45). His successor, Vasili III (1505-1533) continued to make new territorial
conquests and to reform the administration of the provinces by making them be run by some
governors nominated by the prince and through whom the prince could exercise his control in
domestic affairs (Warnes, 2001:28). His successor, Ivan IV (1533-1584), continued the
reforms of the administration by replacing the old taxing system (kormlenie) with the system
of zemstve that were rural and urban associations run by old and respectable men (Hosking,
2001:48). Hosking explained (2001:48) that the reform was imperfect by not being applied in
areas with a high conflict potential and by the lack of coordination and communication
between the assemblies. Later during his reign, Ivan IV divided the territory into two: on the
one hand, opricinina (encompassing land from North and East) that he was administering
with unlimited power, and, on the other hand, zemşcina run by a council of noblemen
(Duma), (Hosking, 2001:50-1). He limited the judicial authority of the provincial governors
(namestniki) on the nobility and provincial aristocracy, and created a Tribunal of Petitions –
an administrative body in charged with analysing complains of the poor segments of the
22
Movements for independence took place in Greece, Serbia, Walachia, etc.
Daniel Warnes reminded (2001:22) that the first attestation of Moscow was in 1147. Each state had its own
‘Kremlin’; the word ‘kreml’ means, in Russian, fortress.
24
Tamara Kondratieva mentioned (2000:93) that the terms ‘boiarin’ (singular) and ‘boiare’ (plural) was a title
that was awarded only by the prince.
23
18
population. He created the People’s (Land) Assembly25 (Zemski Sobor) – an institutional body
with no decisional authority that was gathering occasionally and whose main task was to
support the policies promoted by the prince and his advisers; and by 1550, he passed a
Judicial Code26 (Sudebnik) – that was judging corruption cases of judges and tax collectors
and was limiting the power of the local governors (Warnes, 2001:33). During the reign of
Ivan IV, an institution was conceived as a bridge between the monarch and its people: the
Council; it was an ad hoc group whose main task was to watch over the government’s
functioning, and it contributed to imposing the authority of the young monarch (Kondratieva,
2000:104).
The People’s Assembly was less and less consulted especially after 1622 of the reign
of the Tsar Mikhail27 (1613-1645), while the Duma of the ‘Boiare’ was deprived of some
attributions (Warnes, 2001:65). He created new eleven state departments (prikazî) with
specific competences, but which did not survive long. His attempts of centralization of the
state were not successful particularly due to the wide territory that the empire had, and the
local administration was mainly in the hands of military governors whose competences
extended over the administrative, judicial and financial realms (idem, 66).
It is Peter I or Peter the Great28 (1682-1725) who replaced the Duma with the Senate,
in 1711. The Senate was formed of nine officials. Some of its competences were the
following: to administer Russia while the Tsar was away, to watch over the work of the
provincial governors, as well as to give the Tsar’s legislative ideas a concrete legislative form.
The first of all institutional reforms, once he became Tsar, was the creation of Ratusha or
Burmistrskaia palata – an institutional body whose main task was to collect the taxes coming
from the thirteen territorial divisions (prikazî) that had later become similar to a central
Treasury (Swift, 2003:85-6). In this way, elected bureaucrats (burmistrî) replaced those who
were collecting the taxes before Peter I became Tsar, the so-called voevodî, that were military
governors (Swift, 2003:91), but who ‘were not more efficient or more honest’ than their
predecessors (Swift, 2003:92).
Through the reform of 1708, the Tsar replaced the territorial division based on prikazî
with eight territorial divisions (guberny) with a high degree of autonomy, that were run by a
governor and whose main competences were: the public safety, roads, justice and taxes. In
1718, the Tsar Peter the Great reorganized the central administration in nine Colleges
(ministries): Foreign Affairs, Justice, War, Marine, Taxes, Public Spending, Financial
Control, Commerce, Mining and Manufactures (Swift, 2003:89). Due to the fact that the
guberny were too large to be efficiently administered, the Tsar, inspired by the Swedish
model of administrative organisation, reorganized, in 1719, the territorial division of the
empire. He replaced the system based on guberny by dividing the territory into forty-five
territorial divisions run by a governor who had advisors to support his work (Swift, 2003:92).
Each of the provinces was subdivided into districts run by a district commissary. In 1721, the
Tsar tried the organization of a system of local government, but these reforms proved difficult
to succeed within the context of a lack of educated personnel.
The forty-five territorial divisions became fifty in 1775 when Ekaterina II or Ekaterina
the Great (1762-1796) passed the law on ‘The Status on the Administration of the Provinces’.
25
Tamara Kondratieva mentioned (2000:105) the year of 1549 as the year when the People’s Assembly held its
first reunion, but she argued that this date is not unanimously accepted by the specialists as the date of the first
reunion of the ‘zemski sobor’ because the terms ‘zemski sobor’ are not mentioned in the historical documents of
the 16th century and are rarely mentioned in the historical documents of the 17th century.
26
Gudrun Ziegler mentioned (2000: 45) that Ivan IV asked for a new code of law to be made, seventy years after
the first code of law was established by Ivan III; the two codices were often revisited in the following years.
27
Gudrun Ziegler wrote (2000:32-3) that Mikhail Romanov was announced by the Zemski Sobor that he would
be the new tsar of Russia on February 21st, 1613.
28
Gudrun Ziegler mentioned (2000:90-1) that Peter I was named by the Senate ‘Father of the country’ (and ever
since Peter I is also known as ‘Peter the Great’) on the October 20th, 1721 following the victory over the Swedish
army run by Charles XII which gave Russia open access to the Baltic Sea.
19
And the number of the governor rose to fifty (Ziegler, 2000:141). The provinces were run by
a governor that was nominated by the empress and directly accountable to her. The governors
had the right to create the so-called welfare social committees whose primarily tasks were to
build schools, hospitals and other public institutions. Each of the provinces was again subdivided into districts, each of them having a court and court of appeal (Warnes, 2001:135).
Warnes (2001) explains further that some of the Colleges created by Peter the Great were
abolished29, but a new one was created: the Medical College (1763); she strengthened the role
of the Senate and that of the local administration. The reforms that Ekaterina the Great
implemented in the administration of the empire were not successful for the same reasons the
administrative reforms of his predecessors were not successful: the lack of a qualified
personnel to handle the administrative positions.
Inspired by the European Enlightenment authors, Ekaterina the Great wanted to
introduce liberalism in Russia: she succeeded in creating a Legislative Commission formed of
representatives of the nobility, people living in cities, peasants as well, non-Russian tribes,
and so on, to whom she presented her legislative propositions to make a new code of law,
known as the Balshoi Nakaz. But in spite of being inspired by the ideas promoted by the
Enlightenment, her propositions were not defining Russia as liberal; it defined Russia, in the
18th century, as an absolute monarchy (Warnes, 2001:132-133).
In the 19th century, Russia undertaken other administrative reforms under the reigns of Paul I
(1796-1801), Alexander I (1801-1825), Nicholas I (1825-1855), Alexander II (1855-1881),
Alexander III (1881-1894) and Nicholas II (1894-1917). From all these tsars, the Tsar
Alexander II is the ‘Tsar of the Great Reforms’ and he is, also, named the ‘Liberator Tsar’.
Educated by his grandmother, Ekaterina the Great, Alexander II was inculcated some
liberal values. During his reign, censorship was diminished, other eight ministries were
created and the ministries were appointed and dismissed by the Tsar himself; the Senate could
require annual reports and to question the ministries (Warnes, 2001:152).
On 19 February 1861, the Law of Emancipation was passed and serves were given
land. The emancipation of serves created a new level at local government level, the district
(volost) and in 1864, a new system of regional councils is created, the so-called, zemstvo
(Warnes, 2001:179). The period of ‘Great Reforms’ was followed by a period of ‘Counter
Reforms’ following failed attempts to assassinate the Tsar. The laws passed in the period
1866-1867 limited the prerogatives of the Zemstvo, although in 1870, the Tsar Alexander II
passed a law which allowed cities a limited self-rule (Warnes, 2001:184). Some of his
measures of giving back to the Zemstvos some of the prerogatives, as well as diminishing
censorship, succeeded in reducing the political tensions. However, in pursuing a personal
goal,30 Alexander II agreed to create a new institutional body, a commission formed of
representatives of the zemstvos and of the towns, to be in charged with drafting legislation
suggested by the Tsar (Warnes, 2001:187).
During the reign of Alexander III, the representation within the zemstvo was changed by a law
passed in 1890. It increased the number of those coming from among the nobility, a measure
which restrained the vote of the peasants and which brought the zemstvos under the central
government’s control; a similar law passed in 1892 restrained the activities of the town
Dumas (Warnes, 2001:189). By the end of his reign, in 1894, the political opposition was
weak and divided; Russia entered the period of a rapid industrialization (Warnes, 2001:195).
The first railroad was built under the reign of Nicholas I, despite the opposition of his
Ministry of Economy; it was connecting Sankt Petersburg to Tarskoie Selo (23 km) and was
29
One of the Colleges created by Peter the Great and abolished by Ekaterina the Great was the Economy
College; it was in charge with the administration of the Church properties and not popular from the beginning.
30
After the death of the wife of Alexander II, Maria Alexandrovna – the mother of Alexander III – Alexander II
wanted his second wife, Katia Dolgorukaia, to become empress.
20
inaugurated on October 1837; it was, then, prolonged to Moscow until 1851 (Ziegler,
2000:176). This so-called ‘Line Nicholas’ was only the beginning of the industrialization of
the country. The Tsar Alexander III extended the network of railroads and new industrial
units were created with credits taken from Western Europe. This created a new social
category (powerful industrial people), as well as new social contradictions (Ziegler,
2000:201). Another social class is created: the industrial proletariat. It started to follow the
Western model of organizing strikes for improving their living conditions; and, in great
secret, the Intelligentsia tried to organize itself in political parties, following the Western
model, too (Ziegler, 2000:206).
In spite the industrialization, during the reign of Nicholas II, there was still a lot of poverty.
However, the reforms in education initiated centuries before by his predecessors provided a
significant number of people with the necessary education to take in public positions. In 1895,
Nicholas II took away from the zemstvos the hope that they can play a more significant role in
government. In 1898, the opposition became more organized and different Marxist
organizations unified creating the Social Democrat Russian Working Party which split in
1903 in two factions: the Bolsheviks (led by V.I. Lenin) and the Mensheviks. In the following
year, 1904, the zemstvos’ leaders together with a liberal political movement newly created, the
Liberation Movement, were asking the Tsar the creation of a parliament (Duma) with
legislative powers (Warnes, 2001:201). In the ‘Manifest’ from 17 October 1905, the Tsar was
promising its people civil rights and a legislative assembly (Hosking, 2001:280) and on 27
April 1906, the Tsar was welcoming the first deputies of the First Russian State Duma (idem,
298). The prerogatives of the State Duma were very much similar to those of the German
Reichstag, or to the legislative assemblies of Austria and Japan (idem, 299). But the Tsar
Nicholas II thought of the State Duma and of the State Council more like as some instruments
that accentuated the gap between the Tsar and its people (idem, 308).
Hosking noticed (2001:298) that at the beginning of the 20th century, Russia began, in
a more or less conscientious way, a ‘remarkable experiment’: to transform a large multinational empire into a nation-state, and an autocracy into a constitutional monarchy. But
starting with 1905, Russia entered a revolutionary period in which the Bolshevik faction of
the Social Democrat Russian Working Party had a major role to play in the fall of the
monarchy in Russia.
2.3. The 20th century: Europe and Russia-confederal and (quasi-) federal endeavours
By the 1918 when most of the nowadays European nation-states were born, the federal
institutional framework was still a project for most of the European states. For example, in
Austria this federal project of the Emperor Charles I became real by the Austrian Constitution
of 1920 after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and during the first Austrian
republic (1918 – 1933/34), (Sturm, 2005:46). The German Empire was a federation of 25
states (Hrbek, 2005:151), but Belgium was still highly centralized. And so was the case of
other Western European countries.
2.3.1. Europe’s first steps towards economic and political union
Although not new, the idea of European Federal (political) Union took more concrete shape
when politicians started to put forward this idea in the interwar period (e.g. Coudenhove
Kalergi, Aristide Briand, etc.). For example, Sidjanski argues (2000:8-9) that the panEuropean idea put forward in 1922 by Richard Coudenhove – Kalergi (with his work ‘PanEuropa’) and the creation of the Pan-European Union, as well as the approval of the PanEuropean Manifesto (1924) marked the shift from federalist ideas to action.
In the process of emergence of the political European Union, there are two important data that
cannot be left aside: the Montreux Congress (August 27-31st, 1947) and The Hague Congress
21
(May 7-10th, 1948). Sidjanski also noted that although before The Hague Congress there were
different means for the political Europe goal and a socioeconomic dimension to this project,
the cultural/educational dimension at European level was missing. Furthermore, The Hague
Congress was dominated by the debate on two perspectives on the future of Europe. On the
one hand there was the ‘unionist’ way (run by W. Churchill) who ‘believed in a loose kind of
union, based on the idea of international cooperation that would fully respect that sovereignty
of individual states’ (Sidjanski, 2000:19); on the other hand, there was the federalist way.
Among the outcomes of the latter congress are the creation of the Centre Européen de la
Culture (Geneva, Switzerland) and the creation of the European Movement (Sidjanski,
2000:18).
The ‘Schuman Declaration’ of the 9 May 1950, showed that Europe had chosen the
(neo-)functionalist approach of integration. The method that Robert Schuman and Jean
Monnet promoted, the so-called ‘Monnet method’ (or ‘the communitarian method’), was in
favour of an economic integration assuming that the economic integration is followed by the
European political one. Sidjanski argues (2000:30) that in spite of this functionalist character,
the foundation of the European Community was a stable foundation to the future of the
European federation.
2.3.2. Europe’s failed attempts of a federal political union
A series of events that followed the ‘Declaration’ of Robert Schuman (1950) and the creation
of the European Coal and Steel Community (1951) shattered down the chances of having a
European federation. These events are as follows: the failure of the ‘European Defence
Community’ (1954); the rejection of the ‘Fouchet Plan’ (1962); and the rejection of the
‘Tindermans Report’ (1976).31
The ‘European Defence Community’ was a treaty of (the member) states and peoples;
it formulated concrete measures for an institutional structure establishing a supranational
character to the young European community (Sidjanski, 2000:34).32 This project is considered
to have had ‘all the hallmarks of federalism’ because it promoted the European integration
through a simultaneous integration process of both the economy and the political (Sidjanski,
2000:40). This project of political union was approved by five of the six members of the
European Community: its failure is due to the rejection by France (through the vote taken by
its National Assembly) in 1954.
The ‘Fouchet Plan’ was initiated in September 1960 by France. Its President, Charles
de Gaulle, envisioned a confederation of European states (Sidjanski, 2000:45) including a
provision that called for a revision of a three-year project experimental time (idem, 52). The
draft proposed was significant through the references to supranational institutions and its
precise prerogatives, especially the relevance of a Council; it was ambitious by having
formulated as a goal a common European foreign policy (Sidjanski, 2000:46), and adaptable
to the political reality of the time by not specifically prescribing ‘any particular form for the
political organization of Europe’ (idem, 43). It also had a negative aspect by having ‘proposed
an intergovernmental secretariat with the misleading title of the European Political
Commission’ (idem, 48). There were numerous and hard debates on the ‘Fouchet Plan’
between France and its other five European project partners that led to the drafting of a new
document by the five member states. The ‘Fouchet Plan’ was dropped as the negotiations
among member states were terminated through Charles de Gaulle’s speech on May 15th, 1962
concluding that ‘the truth is that we cannot guarantee Europe’s economic development
without it being politically united (…)’ (Sidjanksi, 2000:51).
The ‘Tindemans Report’ drafted by the former (Flemish) Belgian Prime-Minister, Leo
Tindemans, was based ‘on the Rome Treaties and sought to supplement and strengthen them,
31
For more details on the European political project in general, and on the failed attempts to make a political
union, in particular, please see Jean-Claude Masclet (1973).
32
For more details on the European failed attempts of political union, please see Dusan Sidjanski (2000:33-58).
22
adding to them the spheres of external policies and security, proposing to confer more
importance on the Commission with a new procedure for nominating its president, and
attributing a power to initiate legislation to a European Parliament elected by direct suffrage’
(Sidjanski, 2000:56). The Report proposed institutional reforms for a greater efficiency of the
European decision-making procedure by simplifying it and by the use of the majority vote in
the Council decisional process (idem, 55).
While the European political process failed, the European Communities have enlarged
from six members to nine by the accession in 1973 of other new members: Denmark, Ireland
and the United Kingdom and it continued the integration process with the neo-functionalist
approach. However, major steps on the European political project were made with the ‘Single
European Act’ (1987), the ‘Treaty of Maastricht’ (1993), the ‘Treaty of Amsterdam’ (1999)
and later on, with the Convention on the Future of Europe that proposed a ‘Draft Treaty
establishing a Constitution for Europe’ (2003).
2.3.3. Europe’s steps towards a federal political union
The Single European Act (1987)
The ‘Single European Act’ is the outcome of the European Parliamentary Union Plan (or
‘Spinelli Plan’ 1981-1984). At its turn, the European Parliamentary Project was initiated by a
number of nine33 members of the European Parliament who succeeded in convincing the
European Parliament on the necessity of rewriting ‘the treaties of Paris and Rome (…),
aiming to strengthen Community institutions and extend their fields of activity’ (Sidjanski,
2000:109). This project was approaching the European integration through a so-called ‘global
method’ that was based on few federalist principles: the principle of subsidiarity, the double
participation of people and states, and the principle of democracy (Sidjanski, 2000:102-105).
The reforms proposals formulated in the ‘Spinelli Plan’ was adopted by the European
Parliament, ‘after a long and difficult struggle’ (Delors, 2004: 218), on February 14th, 1984.
At the European Council meeting in Milan on June 28th-29th, 1985 there were under
discussion this draft treaty as approved by the European Parliament (of a federalist influence),
as well as the Dooge Committee Report (of a functionalist influence) as initiated by the
European Council following its summits in 1984 (Brussels and Fontainbleu). Negotiations
among the European member states were concluded in December 1985 when ‘the European
Council decided to bring together the two dimensions of the [previous] negotiations –
political cooperation and amendments – in a single act: hence, the expression ‘Single
European Act’” (Sidjanski, 2000:112). Although, Spinelli was critique to the ‘Single
European Act’, Jacques Delors underlines in his ‘Mémoirs’ (2004) the significant role that
Spinelli project had in terms of institutional reforms brought by the ‘Single European Act’:
‘…this treaty had indisputably played a political influence, especially on the Parliament, and
on myself. Personally, I believe that without this initiative of Spinelli himself and of the
Parliament, it would not have been possible for me to insert so many elements of progress in
the revision treaty approved in December 1985 (…) (Delors, 2004: 218).34 The ‘Single
European Act’ ratified by all ten European member states on July 1st, 1987, was generally, in
the same line of ideas with the ‘European Parliamentary Union Plan’ or the ‘Spinelli Plan.’
The Treaty of Maastricht (1993)
33
It is well known that the nine members of the European Parliament who have initiated the European
Parliamentary Union Plan are known as the ‘Crocodile Club’ from the name of the restaurant where they used to
meet.
34
My translation. The original texte in French is as follows: ‘…ce traité a exercé une influence politique
indiscutable, notamment sur le Parlement, mais aussi sur moi. Personnellement, j’estime que sans cette action de
Spinelli lui-même et du Parlement, il ne m’aurait pas été possible d’insérer autant des facteurs de progrès dans la
révision du traité adopté en décembre 1985 (…).
23
The Treaty of Maastricht that entered into force on November 1st, 1993 continued the series of
institutional reforms meant to improve the functioning of the European supranational
institutions. For example, it transformed the European Court of Auditors into a European
institution; and it created new institutions: the European Central Bank and the Committee of
the Regions, a new advisory35 body. The Treaty of Maastricht is known to have increased the
role of the European Parliament in the European decision-making: the cooperation procedure
was extended to all areas where the Council decided by majority vote; the codecision
procedure was extended to a greater number of the policy fields; and the assent of the
European Parliament is needed in those policy areas in which the Council decides by
unanimous vote. In which concerns the European Commission, the Treaty of Maastricht
brought no change at its numerical composition, but increased its mandate to a five-year term
and brought changes to the procedure of electing the President of the European
Commission.36
The Treaty of Maastricht changed the institutional architecture of the European Union by
setting three pillars: first pillar: European Community; second pillar: Common Foreign and
Security Policy; third pillar: Justice and Home Affairs. It introduced two concepts that are
common to federal countries: common citizenship and common currency; and introduced few
federal principles: the principle of subsidiarity and the principle of participation. For example,
by putting the principle of subsidiarity at the core of the European Union was meant to
increase efficiency of and the citizens’ participation in the decision-making, as well as to
bring closer the European Union to its citizens.
The Treaty of Amsterdam (1999)
The Treaty of Amsterdam was signed by the European member states on October 2nd, 1997
and entered into force on May 1st, 1999. It took the form of amendments and protocols added
to the previous treaty making the document difficult for the ordinary European citizens.
In which concerns the institutional reforms, the Treaty of Amsterdam extended the codecision procedure to almost all areas where the Council decides by majority vote,37 making
the European Parliament and the Council co-legislators in most policy areas. In the Council’s
decisional process the use of qualified majority vote is extended to more policy fields,
although there were still policy areas that remain subject to unanimous decision (e.g.
Common Foreign and Security Policy). For the European Parliament, the new treaty
established that the number of its members after enlargement would rise to seven hundred.
The Treaty brought some reforms concerning the commissioners’ appointment, and a new
role was given to the President of the European Commission. The Treaty of Amsterdam
improved the legitimacy of the decision-making procedure; it brought more transparency in
the Council’s work; and it introduced the method of ‘closer cooperation’.38
The Treaty of Nice (2003)
The Treaty of Nice was signed by the representatives of the European Union’s member states
on November 26th, 2001 and entered into force on February 1st, 2003. The main aim of the
Treaty of Nice was to work out older institutional issues left unsolved by the Treaty of
Amsterdam, as well as to initiate new institutional reforms concerning the European
35
The first advisory body of the European Union was the European Economic and Social Committee founded in
1957 by the Treaty of Rome.
36
For more details on the procedure of nominating the President of the European Commission provided by the
Treaty of Maastricht, please see Dusan Sidjanski (2000:246).
37
Two policies in which the Council decides by majority vote are not included in the co-decision procedure: the
agriculture policy and the competition policy.
38
The ‘closer cooperation’ allows a small number of the European member states to use the Union’s institutions
in order to go further with the integration process (e.g. the Eurozone-encompassing certain member states whose
currency is the Euro; the Schengen-encompassing states that agreed on the free circulation of people).
24
supranational decisional level because on May 1st, 2004, ten new members were to join the
European Union. Broadly, there were three ‘Amsterdam leftovers’ that needed to be tackled
by the new treaty: a) the number of commissioners per country in the European Commission
when the European Union would count more than twenty member states; b) the weighting of
votes that each European member state would have in the European Council after the
enlargement; and c) the qualified majority voting.
Therefore, in terms of number of seats, the Treaty of Nice settled that each member
states must have one commissioner; it increased the number of the members of the European
Parliament to 732. The Treaty of Nice, also, settled the number of votes that each member
state has in the Council after the enlargement.39 In which concerns the qualified majority vote,
there were some later adjustments to the Treaty of Nice: the Council considered necessary to
make new clarifications in a document40 issued on January 4th, 2007 on the occasion of two
new member states joining the European Union: Romania and Bulgaria. According to this
new document, the qualified majority vote in the Council of the European Union when acting
on a proposal coming from the European Commission is 255 votes out of a total of 345 votes
from at least 14 out of 27 member states, representing 62 percent of the European Union’s
total population. On the other hand, the qualified majority vote in the Council of the European
Union is two-third out of the 27 member states, representing 18 members, when the Council
is not acting on the European Commission proposal.
The Treaty of Nice increased more the powers of the European Parliament by
extending the co-decision to new policy areas; it brings significant reforms in the judicial
system and human rights; it proclaimed the ‘Charter of Fundamental Rights;’ and it extends
the right to ‘closer cooperation’ to the three pillars, but still under strict conditions.
The Treaty of Nice was signed at the Laeken European Council on December 11th,
2000. On this occasion, it was agreed by the Heads of States or Governments to convene a
European Convention whose transparent work with a wide range of actors (e.g. members of
the supranational institutions, national and regional decision-makers, ordinary citizens, etc.)
would provide a constitutional document.
2.3.4. The Draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe
The European Convention on the Future of Europe, or shortly, the European Convention,
started its works in February 2002. The European Convention had a total of over 100
members;41 and it was chaired by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.
The European Convention worked organized in working groups with one or two
plenary meetings per month that took place in the European Parliament in Brussels. The goals
settled by the European Convention on the Future of Europe – more democracy, more
transparency and more efficiency – matched the goals for which the European federalists had
been militating for half a century. The European federalists continued their campaign for a
Federal European Constitution on different ways. One of the ways was a series of six
‘Federalist Letters to the European Convention’ following, in this way, the example of the
39
The weighting votes is as follows: Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom-29 votes; Spain and
Poland-27 votes; Romania-14 votes; The Netherlands-13; Belgium, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Portugal12 votes; Austria, Sweden and Bulgaria-10 votes; Denmark, Ireland, Lithuania, Slovakia and Finland-7 votes;
Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Luxembourg and Slovenia-4 votes; Malta-3 votes.
40
This
document
can
be
found
on
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/en/misc/92363.pdf.
41
The Convention was formed of one representative from each Member State at the level of the Heads of State
or Government (15), one representative from each candidate Member State at the level of the Heads of State or
Government (13), two representatives from each of the national parliaments of the Member States (30), two
representatives from each of the national parliaments of the candidate States (26), 16 members of the European
Parliament, two representatives of the European Commission. There were representatives of the advisory bodies:
three representatives of the Economic and Social Committee, and six representatives of the Committee of the
Regions; and the European Ombudsman was invited to attend as observer.
25
‘Federalist Papers’ and the role they played within the process of formation of the United
States of America. The European federalists proposed ‘A Federalist Plan for the
Convention’42 in order to ‘transform the Union into a federation’ and to be a starting point for
future debates.43
After sixteen months of work, the European Convention on the Future of Europe came with a
‘Draft Treaty establishing a constitution for Europe’ on June 23rd, 2003 to be submitted to the
Intergovernmental Conference on June 18th, 2004.44
The Constitutional Treaty settled the democratic life of the Union to be based on the
principle of democratic equality, the principle of representative democracy and the principle
of participatory democracy. According to this last principle, citizens can also initiate
legislation, after having gathered one million signatures from a significant number of member
states, by inviting the European Commission to formulate a legislative proposal (Art. I-47/4).
The Constitutional Treaty settled as fundamental principles, the principle of
subsidiarity, the principle of proportionality, as well as the principle of conferral. Article I11/2 settled that ‘under the principle of conferral, the Union shall act within the limits of the
competences conferred upon it by the Member States in the Constitution to attain the
objectives set out in the Constitution. Competences not conferred upon the Union in the
Constitution remain with the Member States.’ Furthermore, a clear division of competencies
was settled between the Union and its member states, as follows. The Union has exclusive
competence in the following policy areas: ‘custom union; the establishing of the competition
rules necessary for the functioning of the internal market; monetary policy for the Member
States whose currency is the euro; the conservation of marine biological resources under the
common fisheries policy; and common commercial policy’ as well as in the conclusion of
international agreements (Article I-13). The Union has shared competences in the following
policy areas: ‘internal market; social policy, for the aspects defined in Part III; economic,
social and territorial cohesion; agriculture and fisheries, excluding the conservation of marine
biological resources; environment; consumer protection; transport; trans-European networks;
energy; are of freedom, security and justice; common safety concerns in public health matters,
for the aspects defined in Part III’ (Article I-14/2). And in the policy areas of protection and
improvement of health; industry; culture; tourism; education, youth, sport and vocational
training; civil protection; administrative cooperation’ (Article I-17) the Union has only a
supporting, coordinating or complementary action competencies.
The principle of subsidiarity and the principle of proportionality are fundamental
principles regulated by a ‘Protocol on the Application of the Principles of Subsidiarity and
42
The ‘Federalist Plan for the Convention’ tackled those areas in which the EU was democratically deficient.
The ‘Federalist Plan’ proposed that the European Convention adopt: a final text consisting of one single
document that incorporates all the previous treaties and the ‘European Charter of Fundamental Rights’; that the
European Commission be transformed into a European Government nominated by the European Parliament, and
that will have the ‘political colours’ of the European Parliament; that co-decision should be the decision
procedure in all the policy fields; and that all decisions in the Council of Ministers should be taken by some form
of majority vote and its debates made public.
43
—, ‘A Federalist Plan to the Convention’, Federalist Letter to the European Constitutional Convention, no. 2,
March 19th, 2002, on http://www.federalunion.org.uk/europe/fedletter/fl_1.shtml#
44
In the last plenary session concluding the works of the European Convention, on 9-10 June 2003, the Chair of
the European Constitutional Convention, Valérie Giscard d’Estaing, pointed that ‘the Convention method was a
success and that it should be maintained as the method that guaranteed the greatest transparency, effectiveness
and legitimacy.’ At their turns, the Vice-chair of the European Convention, Guiliano Amato stressed that ‘the
Convention minored Europe in building upon relations between people who share the same roots and the same
cultural heritage, enabling them to understand one another and to share unique political and human experiences’,
while Jean-Luc Dehaene stressed that ‘the Convention was a decisive stage in building Europe: a stage which
made it possible to turn the reunification of Europe into reality and whose success had enabled greater progress
to
be
made
than
at
any
intergovernmental
conference’,
on
http://register.consilium.eu.int/pdf/en/03/cv00/cv00853en03.pdf, pp.6-7.
26
Proportionality’ annexed to the Constitutional Treaty. The ‘Protocol’ also underlines the need
to ensure that the European institutions will act with a ‘constant respect for the principles of
subsidiarity and proportionality’ (Art. 1). Furthermore, the ‘Protocol’ settled that if at least a
quarter of the national parliaments45 of the Union’s Member States consider a legislative act
as not respecting the principle of subsidiarity, the legislative act must be reviewed (Art. 7).
However, the word ‘federalism’ itself had been left out of the ‘Draft Treaty establishing a
Constitution for Europe’ at the insistence of those that feared that it might imply more
centralization at the European supranational level. Speaking about the fact that the word
‘federalist’ was left out of the Constitutional document, Sidjanski mentioned that:
‘Diversity, which implies a common ground and common values, corresponds to the
spirit and nature of federalism. It is not surprising that the European Constitution
expressed this need by adopting as its motto “united in its diversity”. This reflects the
Swiss motto “union dans la diversité”. Without mentioning federalism or the federal
way in which the Union shall exercise its competences, the Constitution adopted the
general motto of federalism (…)’ (Sidjanski, 2005: 90-91).46
2.3.5. Russia towards federal institutional structure in the post-communist era
By the time the European Union was having the Treaty of Maastricht (1991) and was making
the first steps towards the common currency, and it was getting its supranational mechanism
working into three pillars; in Russia communism was collapsing followed by the difficulties
of the transition process to democracy and the building up of a federal institutional system
that suits best its own specificities.
The federal institutional architecture, as well as the concept of ‘federalism’ was not a
novelty for the post-December 1991 Russian Federation, the official successor of the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics. But it is from this date that federalism has started to know a
practical implementation with the afferent difficulties which characterize the shift from
communism to democracy, from a quasi-federal institutional structure to a federal institutional
design. The post-communist Russian administrations chose to continue reforming the
institutional structure of Russia by maintaining its federal character because federalism is
considered as an essential element that goes hand in hand with democracy, or as Busigyna
(2002:7) put it: ‘federalism was considered to be the most successful direction of the
democratic reforms in general.’
2.3.6. The period December 1991 – December 1999: history’s legacies, Yeltsin’s reforms
The post-communist Russia inherited several difficult legacies, such as: the complicated
institutional structure of the RSFSR settled in 1918, a high external debt, the ethnic problem,
the lack of democratic traditions, etc. After the collapse of the USSR, the Yeltsin’s
administration initiated a series of reforms meant to transform the country into a federal
democracy with a market economy.
For example, as long as the external debt of Russia is concerned, specialists like
Charles Rock and Vasily Solodkov reminded that two-thirds from the total external debt of
Russia in 2002 constitute loans taken in the period from mid-1980 to the collapse of the soviet
regime, at the end of 1991 (Rock and Solodkov, 2002:21). The two specialists also mentioned
that there were some reductions of the Russian foreign debt following six years of
negotiations with the London and Paris Clubs and that ‘[t]he Russians would like to see a lot
more reductions of this legacy of the collapsing economy under the then president
Gorbachev.’
45
The ‘Protocol’ also settles, in Article 7, that each national parliament has two votes. In case the national
parliaments are bi-cameral, the ‘Protocol’ settles that each chamber has one vote.
46
Dusan Sidjanski, ‘Postscript’, in Neculai, Florina-Laura, What Would A Federal Europe Look Like?,
(Mechelen: Mechelse Drukkerijen, 2005), pp. 90-91.
27
The building of a federal structure in the post-communist Russia seems to have been a
difficult process. Iryna Busygina (2002:1) noted the words of a well-known Russian politician
and deputy of Russia’s Federal Assembly, V. Ryzhkov: ‘No political actors in Russia have a
clear perception about where to move, by what rules to play and which goals to achieve.’
In spite of all the difficulties, the overall territoriality of the Russian Federation was preserved
following the signing of the Federation Treaty signed on 14 March 1992. The Federation
Treaty had its own inconsistencies. Kahn noticed (2002:128) that one of the major
inconsistencies was the ‘broad overlap between executive federal powers and shared powers.
Eight of the twelve concurrent powers listed in the first section of Article II were closely
paralleled by clauses in Article I granting nearly identical powers exclusively to the federal
government.’ In comparison with the Federal Treaty of March 1992 that only diminished the
chances of a disintegration of the newly democratic country (Busygina, 2002:2), the Russian
Constitution of 1993 brought, also, some institutional innovatins and put the basis of a federal
institutional structure.
The next step in the development of federalism in Russia represents the signing of the
bilateral treaties between the Federation and its subjects in order to clarify the competencies
for the federal level and those of the subjects. This involved a lot of negotiations. As the
regions in Russia are not all having the same underground resources, the outcome resulted in
an asymmetrical federal state. Furthermore, lots of contradictions have been noticed between
the Federal and the federative constitutions.
As an overall, during Yeltsin’s administration, ‘federalism did not strengthen the openness of
society, did not increase transparency of the political system, but on the contrary, had led to a
situation where the regional level has been separated from the federal level while the latter
was also separated from the system of local self-government’ (Busygina, 2002:8). Busygina
also argued (2002:5-6) that in spite the fact that during Yeltsin’s administration federal
elements could be identified in the legislation and in the institutional design, they were
unstable and unclear, and this made foreseeable more centralization or a loose confederation.
2.3.7. The period from December 1999: Yeltsin’s legacy, Putin’s reforms
By the end of Boris Yeltsin’s term, federal reforms in Russia were an imperative in order to
save the country from disintegration. As Sakwa reminded (2002:215-216) with the
sovereignty declaration of Russia from the Soviet Union, its own subjects declared their
sovereignty, as follows: North Ossetia on July 20 (and proclaimed itself a Union republic),
Karelia on August 9, Khakassia on August 15 (and proclaimed itself autonomous republic),
Komi on August 29, Tatarstan-August 30, Udmurtia-September 20, and Yakutia on
September 27.
Furthermore, Larisa Kasputina argued (2002:66-68) that in the period until 1999, there
were two stages in the development of the relations between the centre and the regions in
Russia. She explained that the first period, until 1995, is the period when the economy of
Russia became a regional economy; the period when the subjects became sovereign; the role
played by the regional institutions on administering the territory under their jurisdiction grew,
too; the balance of power shifted from the centre to the regions. And it is the period when a
new Constitution was voted by referendum in December 1993, proclaiming the equality of all
subjects of the federation, but following the bilateral treaties, it resulted in an asymmetric
federation; it is a period when the position of the centre decreased and the tendencies to
disintegration increased; etc.
The second stage is situated in the period 1996-1999, when in 1996 the regional
governors are elected directly by the people (which increased more the autonomy idea), the
28
economy remained regional and there were more and more favourable conditions for
secession: ‘by the beginning of 1999, Russia had entered the critical period in the
development of an established constitutional-contractive federation’ (Kapustina, 2002:68).
An article from June 1999 in The Wall Street Journal Europe’s Central European Economic
Review, ‘A Fading Czar’, referring to Boris Yeltsin’s term and wondering about the successor
of Boris Yeltsin after the end of his term in June 2000 or earlier (as it actually happened),
concluded that ‘[h]e seems totally disinterested in leaving a legacy of a functioning
government and parliament behind him. It will fall to Mr. Yeltsin’s successors to begin
building state institutions that have any chance of lasting’ (The Wall Street Journal Europe’s
Central European Economic Review, p. 8).
Boris Yeltsin is the first President of post-communist Russia who – as the above
mentioned article said, too – ‘promised to revolutionize Russia’, but transition from
communism to democracy, the reforms undertaken, associated with increasing health
problems became, probably, overwhelming for the President of Russia who resigned on the
31 December 1999. Following Boris Yeltsin’s resignation, Russia’s Prime Minister became
Russia’s interim President and appointed by Boris Yeltsin as his successor. As the above
mentioned article foresaw, the successor of Boris Yeltsin has the major and the urgent task to
build viable state institutions in order to maintain the diverse population of Russia in unity.
And the successor was Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
2.4. The 21st century: Russia and the European Union – federal endeavours
2.4.1. President Putin’s federal institutional reforms
On March 26th, 2000, a percentage of 52,94 per cent of the Russian electorate chose Vladimir
Putin, who was serving Russia as an interim President since December 1999, for the position
of President of the Russian Federation. Russia is the largest state in the world, with a
population of 144 071 000 inhabitants (in 2002) on an area of 17 075 200 km square; it is
organised in 89 constituent units (21 republics, 49 regions (oblasts), 6 territories (krais), 10
autonomous areas (okrugs), 1 Jewish Autonomous Region (oblast) and two cities of Federal
Significance that are Moscow and St. Petersburg (Wilson, 2005:275).
Putin’s first reforms as a newly elected President were federal-administrative reforms
in order to strengthen the so-called ‘vertical executive’ power; and, as Bjorkman noted
(2003:52), the newly elected President Putin gave a special attention to reducing the powers
of the regional governors and to ‘gathering back into the Kremlin some of the power that had
flowed out to the governors and the oligarchs [during the Yeltsin period].’ There is no
surprise that the newly elected president has decided to focus on these issues for two reasons.
First, there is a wide-spread opinion on the difficult legacy inherited by Vladimir Putin from
both the historical circumstances and from his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin. And second,
Vladimir Putin had previously worked with the Russian regions while working in Sankt
Petersburg before his working in the Kremlin and he was familiar with the system and its
limits, as Andrew Jack noted (2006:205).
The declarations of independence from the USSR and Yeltsin’s encouragements towards the
republics to ‘take as much sovereignty as they can swallow’, provided often examples of
violations of the Russian Constitution (1993). Some authors mention the existence of
‘thousands of violations of the Russian Constitution found in the various regional
constitutions and legislations’ (Hahn, 2003:115). In a television broadcast (May 2000),
Vladimir Putin ‘claimed that more than 20 per cent of regional legislation was
unconstitutional – and swore to combat it’ (Kahn, 2002:245). The method of combat the
violations of the federal law is the so-called ‘harmonization’ process of the constitutions of
the subjects of the Russian Federation with the constitution of the federation.
29
The harmonization process of the federal and regional laws implied a larger reorganization on a federal territorial-administrative basis, and in particular of the relations
between the federal level and the regional one. There are several federal laws that have been
passed in order to secure the modernization of the Russian federal institutional structure.
First, Vladimir Putin signed a presidential ‘Decree on Federal Districts’ authorising
the creation of seven federal districts: Central, Northwest, North Caucasus/Southern, Volga,
Ural, Siberia and Far East (Kahn, 2002:241; Wilson, 2005:271). The seven districts were
settled to be run by ‘plenipotentiaries’, or, more common, ‘presidential envoys’, or polpredy.
They are ‘federally-appointed presidential representatives who are primarily responsible for
overseeing the activities of the constituent units and making sure that regional laws comply
with their federal counterparts and the federal constitution’ (Wilson, 2005:271).
Second, Vladimir Putin reformed the upper chamber of the Russian Federation’s
Federal Assembly,47 the Federal Council with the purpose to make it more effective and more
efficient decisional body (Wilson, 2005:271). The upper chamber of the Russian Assembly
was not efficient: it was meeting several days per month; it was, also, democratically
deficient: in the period 1993-1995, in the context where there were not direct elections, some
of the representatives in the Federation Council were directly appointed by the then president,
Boris Yeltsin, which created an overlap between the legislative and executive powers (Jack,
2006:205). Putin Administration’s reform of the Federation Council was the third reform
since the collapse of communism in Russia.48
This third reform of the Federation Council undertaken by the Putin Administration
through the federal ‘Law on the Order of Formation of the Federation Council of the Federal
Assembly of the Russian Federation’ (August, 2000), aimed at changing the representation in
the Federation Council by preventing that the same two persons to cumulate simultaneously
more than one public position. The Federal Council continues to have the same number of
senators and the same system of representation, one appointed (by the executive) and one
elected (by the legislative), but the great difference is that following this federal law, the
regional governors do not attend the meetings of the Federation Council, but each of them
name one representative. For the ex-Senators, a new forum was created, the State Council.
Kapustina argued (2002:69) that the creation of the State Council ‘has not compensated the
regional leaders for their loss of status. The governors have been removed from big politics,
and, according to the logic of the centre, had to concentrate exclusively on resolving the
economic problems in their regions and searching for internal sources for their regional
budgets.’ The State Council is a consultative body for the President of the Russian Federation
who is, also, the Chairman of the State Council; it is formed of all eighty-nine regional
leaders. Structurally, besides the Chairman, the State Council has, also, a Presidium that is
composed of the leaders of the seven federal districts; and it meets four times per year to
discuss diverse but highly important state issues.
2.4.2. Europe’s Presidents’ federal institutional reforms
If in the case of Russia, one can analyse the institutional reforms supported and/or initiated by
the Presidents of Russia in a given period of time, in the case of the European Union, the
concept of ‘presidency’ was, until the entering into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, an original
concept that answered European Union’s particularity.
The Presidency of the European Union was a European Member State – represented
through its Foreign Affairs Minister – for a six-month mandate and it rotates among all the
47
The Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation is the legislative branch at the federal level. It is a bi-cameral
Assembly formed by a lower chamber, called Duma, where 450 deputies represent the Russian people following
direct elections at every four years; and an upper chamber, called the Federation Council, formed by 178
senators, two representatives from each of the 89 subjects of the Russian Federation.
48
The first reform of the Federation Council occurred in 1993 through the Russian Constitution. The second
reform was settled by the ‘Law on Forming the Federation Council’ passed in December 1995.
30
EU member states based on a pre-established order on the 1st of January and the 1st of July of
every year. Therefore, starting with the year 2000, the Presidents of the European Union were
as follows: 2000 – first half: Portugal, second half: France; 2001 – Sweden and Belgium;
2002 – Spain and Denmark; 2003 – Greece and Italy; 2004 – Ireland and Netherlands; 2005 –
Luxembourg and United Kingdom; 2006: Austria and Finland; 2007 – Germany and Portugal;
2008 – Slovenia and France; and, 2009 – Czech Republic and Sweden.49
The reform of the European Union’s supra-national institutions in order to insure a
more democratic decision-making procedure, a more efficient and transparent decisional
process, has been a constant preoccupation of the European Union’s Presidencies. And federal
principles have been included in the reforms in order to insure a more democratic European
governance.
For example, the Belgium Presidency of the European Union (June-December, 2001)
proclaimed the so-called ‘Laeken Declaration’ whose prospects ‘mark a decisive step for the
citizen towards a simpler Union, one that is stronger in the pursuit of its essential objectives
and more present in the world.’ It opened up the way towards the European Convention on
the Future of Europe. And it was during The Netherlands Presidency (June-December, 2004)
when the text of the ‘Draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe’ was signed in Rome
by the Heads of State or Government of all the European Union’s Member States, and was
followed by the ratification procedures.
During Luxembourg Presidency (January-June, 2005) when Bulgaria and Romania
signed the Accession Treaty on April 25th, 2005 opening the way for the fifth European
enlargement, France and The Netherlands rejected the Constitutional Treaty by the
referendums from May 30th, 2005 and from June 1st, 2005. Following the French and the
Dutch negative votes in the referendums, the European Council of June 18th, 2005 declared ‘a
period of reflection’. In this time period, the European Commission has launched three
initiatives: 1) the ‘Plan – D for Democracy, Dialogue and Debate’; 2) the ‘Action Plan on
Communicating Europe’; and 3) the ‘White Paper on Communication Strategy and
Democracy.’ These three initiatives go hand in hand as their purposes are intertwined: Plan –
D’s objective is ‘to stimulate a wider debate between the European Union’s democratic
institutions and citizens’; the Action Plan’s main objective is ‘to ensure more effective
communication about Europe’; and the White Paper ‘invites a lively and open discussion.’
The Austrian Presidency (January-June, 2006) welcomed both the various initiatives
of the Member States who launched debates on the future of Europe at the national level, as
well as the communication initiatives taken by the European Commissions. The Austrian
Presidency acknowledged the importance of respecting the subsidiarity and proportional
principles for an increase confidence of the European citizens into the European project, as
well as the importance to involve more the national parliaments into the process of policy
formulations at the supra-national European level, welcoming, the decision of the European
Commission to inform the national parliaments on all new proposals and consultation papers.
On the ‘Draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe’, the European Council decided a
two-track approach. ‘On the one side, best use should be made of the possibilities offered by
the existing treaties in order to deliver the concrete results that citizens expect. On the other
hand, the Presidency will present a report to the European Council during the first semester of
2007, based on extensive consultations with the Member States. This report should contain an
assessment of the state of discussion with regard to the Constitutional Treaty and explore
possible further developments.’
The German European Presidency (January – June, 2007) acknowledged the positive
role of the period of reflexion following the French and Dutch no votes on the ‘Draft Treaty
establishing a Constitution for Europe’, the European German Presidency decided that it was
49
The list of the Presidents’ names of all the Presidencies of the Council of the European Union since 1998 can
be
found
on
the
website
of
the
Council
of
the
European
Union
at
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/cms3_fo/showPage.asp?id=695&lang=EN&mode=g
31
time for the European Union to move on. In this sense, it agreed on convening a new
Intergovernmental Conference and gave a mandate to the next European Presidency to draw a
draft Treaty to be discussed by the IGC.
The Portuguese European Presidency (July – December, 2007) welcomed the
agreement of the Intergovernmental Conference reached on October18th, 2007 and the
signing of the Reform Treaty or the Treaty of Lisbon on December 13th, 2007. The
Portuguese Presidency stressed in the ‘Conclusions’ of the Portuguese Presidency that: ‘The
Lisbon Treaty provides the Union with a stable and lasting institutional framework. We
expect no change in the foreseeable future, so that the Union will be able to fully concentrate
on addressing the concrete challenges ahead, including globalization and climate change
(…).’
The Treaty of Lisbon is not a document to be read in itself, as the ‘Draft Treaty
establishing a Constitution for Europe’, but it is a series of amendments brought to the ‘Treaty
on the European Union’ and the to ‘Treaty on the European Communities’. It re-states
principles of organization of the European Union supra-national institutions, it settles a series
of reforms from concrete measure to democratize the European decision-making procedure, to
bring it closer to the European citizens by involving more both the national legislatures and
the citizens directly, to simpler decisions of name changing.
For example, European Union is no more working into three pillars, but all three
pillars are merged into one; it was considered the procedure through which the European
Union to get one single legal personality. The Treaty of Lisbon re-iterates the main aim of the
Union ‘to promote peace, its values and the well-being of its people’ (Article 3 §1 from the
‘Consolidated Version of the Treaty on the European Union’) and underlines in Article 4 §1
that the competences that were not conferred to the European Union remain within the
competencies of the Member States. The European Union is governed by the principles of
conferral, of subsidiarity, of proportionality, as well as the principle of representative
democracy. It, also, mentions the principle of sincere cooperation and of mutual respect in
providing mutual assistance.
The novelty with the Treaty of Lisbon is the creation of the position of President of the
European Council embodied in a person replacing the old system of six-month mandate held
by a European Member State. In order to ensure more continuity in the European policies, the
mandate of the President of the European Council, unofficially called, the President of
Europe, is of 2,5 years, renewable once (Article 15, §5). The President of the European
Council is elected through qualified majority by the European Council who can also terminate
its mandate (Article 15 §5).
The European Parliament jointly decides with the Council on legislative and budgetary
issues. The number of the European Parliament members is limited to a maximum of 750
members,50 elected directly for a five-year renewable mandate by the citizens. Representation
of the citizens is ‘digressively proportional’ with no more than 96 representatives per state
(currently the maximum number of representatives is 99), and no less than six representatives
for small states (currently the minimum number of representatives in the European Parliament
is five), (Article 14, §2 from the ‘Consolidated Version of the Treaty on the European
Union’); the President of the European Parliament is elected from among its members (§4).
A limitation on the number of members was settled for the European Commission,
too. It was initially settled that the European Commission appointed in the period from the
entering into force of the Treaty of Lisbon and the 31 October 2014 will be composed of one
representative per Member State (plus the President of the European Commission and the
High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy), (Article 17 §4)
from the ‘Consolidated Version of the Treaty on the European Union’) and starting with
November 1st, 2014 the European Commission to have a number equal to two thirds of the
50
With the accession of Bulgaria and Romania on January 1st, 2007, the number of the members of the European
Parliament raised to 785.
32
total members of EU Member States based on an equal rotation system, unless the European
Council decides otherwise through unanimous vote (§5). Furthermore, the position of
European Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbouring Policy was
merged with the one of High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy in
order to create the new position of High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and
Security Policy that will, also, be the vice-president of the European Commission.51
The innovation of the ‘Treaty of Lisbon’ consists in the nomination of the President of
the European Commission which involves more the European Parliament.52 The newly
elected President must come to a common agreement with the European Council on the
formation of its cabinet. Paragraph (8) settles that in case a motion of censure of the European
Parliament on the European Commission is carried, the latter should resign as a body
including the High Representative. Otherwise, as settled in paragraph (6), one member of the
European Commission can resign individually if the President of the European Commission
requires it; the High Representative can also resign if it is asked to do so by the President of
the European Commission following a certain procedure that is similar to the investiture
procedure of the High Representative: the European Council acting by qualified majority and
with the agreement of the President of the European Commission, appoints/can dismiss the
High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (Article 18 §1) from
the ‘Consolidated Version of the Treaty on the European Union’.
The innovation that the ‘Treaty of Lisbon’ carries is the so-called ‘European
membership withdrawal clause’ which allows European Member States to cease their
membership to the European Union (Article 50 §1). In this sense, the Member State wishing
to withdraw from the European Union shall first notify the European Council (§2).
Furthermore, the European Member State which withdrew from the European Union can
decide to re-join (§5) and shall address its requirement to the European Council who will
decide based on a majority vote; the agreed document between the European Council and the
(acceding) State is further submitted to ratification in all Member States following their own
ratification procedures (Art.49).
The Treaty of Lisbon was initially projected to enter into force starting with the 1st of January
2009 if ratified by all the European Union Member States. Most of the EU Member States
decided to ratify it through parliamentary procedure, but Ireland organized a referendum in
order to comply with a Constitutional requirement. The referendum organized on 12 June
2008 showed that the Irish citizens rejected the Treaty of Lisbon with 53,4 per cent against
and 46,6 per cent in favour of the Reform Treaty.
The French European Presidency (July – December, 2008) reaffirmed ‘that the Treaty
of Lisbon is considered necessary in order to help the enlarged Union to function more
efficiently, more democratic and more effectively including in international affairs’ and
confirmed having taken into consideration the reasons of the Irish no vote on the Treaty of
51
Article 36 of the ‘Consolidated Version of the Treaty on the European Union’ states that ‘[t]he High
Representative shall regularly consult the European Parliament on the main aspects of the basic choices of the
common foreign and security policy and the common security and defence policy and inform it of how those
policies evolve. He shall ensure that the views of the European Parliament are duly taken into consideration.’ At
its turn, ‘[t]he European Parliament may ask questions of the Council or make recommendations to it and to the
High Representative. Twice a year it shall hold a debate on progress in implementing the common foreign and
security policy, including the common security and defence policy.’
52
The European Council proposes the European Parliament a candidate for the position of President of the
European Commission. The European Parliament must vote through a majority vote on the proposal; if it rejects
the proposal, the European Council, acting by qualified majority, has one month to propose another candidate for
the Presidency of the Commission who will again be subject to an investiture vote of the European Parliament.
33
Lisbon included as the Annex I of the Presidency Conclusions – Statement of the Concerns of
the Irish People on the Treaty of Lisbon as set out by the Taoiseach.53
The provision in the Reform Treaty on reducing the number of the members of the
European Commissioners has been, also, mentioned as one of the causes for the Irish citizens
having rejected the Treaty. Therefore, the French Presidency of the European Union stressed
that ‘[t]he European Council agrees that provided the Treaty of Lisbon enters into force, a
decision will be taken, in accordance with the necessary legal procedures, to the effect that the
Commission shall continue to include one national of each Member State.’54
II. FEDERALISM: A COMPLEX POLITICAL SCIENCE NOTION
3. Federalism: A Complex Political Science Notion to define
It is widely acknowledged that ‘federalism’ means different things to different people
(Barthalay, 1981:5). Defining the notion of ‘federalism’ is the first challenge one faces when
approaching this concept because ‘there is no universal definition of federalism’ (Croisat,
1999:11).55 The different definitions that federalism knows, correlated with the different
forms federalism takes in practice amplifies the difficulty of giving one single and widely
accepted definition. The main implication of not having one single definition of the concept
of ‘federalism’ is the difficulty to operate using this concept. Elements that define federalism
exist over political and philosophical writings. Therefore, ‘federalism’ can be defined as a
new ideology, as a political theory, as a political movement, as a model of governance or, an
idea or a concept. In political sciences, ‘federalism’ is neither considered by all academia a
political theory, nor is it studied as a political ideology. However, it is studied with other
ideologies as trying to provide ‘concrete solutions to the problem of the international failure
of liberalism, democracy and socialism’ (Bosco, 1991:3).
3.1. Federalism: the etymology of the term
The word ‘federal’ comes from the Latin words foedus/foederis, and it means ‘treaty’. In
dictionaries, it is usually shortly defined next to words such as: ‘federal’, ‘federalist’,
‘federation’, ‘to federate’, etc. Indeed, they are related, but the conceptual distinction between
the concept of ‘federalism’ and that of ‘federation’ is a fact. In general, the notion of
‘federalism’ refers to a complex of principles that can be implemented in polities that did not
necessarily reach the ideal of federalism that is the ‘federation’. The ‘federation’ denotes,
usually, a state with a particular institutional arrangement able to accommodate a diverse
population living on a certain territory (from the smallest to as large as continents are) on
which the federal and the constituent states are sovereign and whose competencies are divided
according to a written Constitution. In other words, a federation is the institutionalisation of
the principles of federalism.
Etymologically, the term ‘federalism’ means ‘treaty’ and Thomas Clough Daffern (1991:69)
related it further to fidere meaning ‘to trust’. And in his analysis of the term, he gave a more
detailed definition: ‘The term “federal” itself came into many European languages from the
53
This Statement referred to reasons such as: Irish traditional neutrality policy, tradition to right to life,
education and family, and concerns over taxation. The Irish voters needed, also, a confirmation that the Union
attaches importance to issues like ‘social progress and the protection of workers’ rights; public services, as an
indispensable instrument of social and regional cohesion; the responsibility of Member States for the delivery of
education and health services; the essential role and wide discretion of national, regional and local Governments
in providing, commissioning and organising non-economic services of general interest which is not affected by
any provision of the Treaty of Lisbon, including those relating to the common commercial policy.’
54
The Treaty of Lisbon was approved by the Irish people after a second referendum was organised in October
2009. The Treaty of Lisbon entered into force on December 1st, 2009.
55
My translation. The original texte in French is: ‘Il n’existe pas de définition universelle du fédéralisme’.
34
Latin “foederis” meaning a treaty or a covenant, related to the term fidere, to trust, fidelis,
faithful, sincere, true. The ancient Indo-European root seems to have been something like
bheidh, meaning to persuade, compel, and also trust.’
3.2. Federalism – definitions
It is widely acknowledged that the concepts of ‘federalism’ and ‘federation’, although related,
are two different concepts. Even though, the concept of ‘federalism’ is differently presented
by the academia. Here are some examples:56
M. Burgess
‘Federalisms can be taken to mean ideological position, philosophical
statement and empirical fact’ (Burgess, 1993: 7-8).
M. Croisat
‘Federalism appears as a general notion that concerns a series of social
and political organisations’ (Croisat, 1999: 12).’57
A.-G. Gagnon
‘Federalism may be considered as a political device for establishing
viable institutions and flexible relationships capable of facilitating interstate relations (e.g. division of powers between orders of government),
intrastate linkages (e.g. states’ or Länder’ representation at the central
level) and inter-community cooperation’ (Alain-G. Gagnon, 1993: 15).
L. Levi
‘Federalism, which was born as a theory of a form of government
intended to solve the problems of an isolated case, the formation of the
United States of America, and subsequently other societies with a
marginal role in world politics such as Switzerland, Canada and
Australia, has gradually extended its reach, and has now become a
movement with world dimensions’ (Levi, 1989:33).
D. Sidjanski
‘(…) federalism now looks like the government of the future (Sidjanski,
2000:189).
R. Watts
“Federalism” is basically not a descriptive but a normative term and
refers to the advocacy of multi-tired government combining elements of
shared-rule and regional self-rule. It is based on the presumed value and
validity of combining unity and diversity and of accommodating,
preserving and promoting distinct identities, within a larger political
union. The essence of federalism as a normative principle is the
perpetuation of both union and non-centralization at the same time’
(Watts, 1999:6).
K.C. Wheare
‘Its essence [of federalism] consists, I think, in this: that in a federal
system, the functions of government are divided in such a way that the
relationship between the legislature which has authority over the whole
territory and those legislatures which have authority over parts of the
territory is not the relationship of superior to subordinates (…) but is the
relationship of co-ordinate partners in the governmental process.’
Federalism is a concept that can be implemented in small or large territories, but certainly
diverse population where it serves to accommodate all the inhabitants in territorial unity.
Either it is a ‘general notion’, ‘comprehensive notion’, or a ‘political device’ it refers to
human associations. Federalism is a normative notion of political science that is based on
principles. Federalism is usually present within an institutional design of a federal political
system through the principle of autonomy, the principle of (people and member states)
participation in the federal decision-making, the principle of limited sovereignty, the principle
of subsidiarity, etc.
56
Given the limited length of this paper, these definitions have been taken from interesting texts of these authors.
Therefore, for the best understanding of the definitions, please see the whole texts of these authors.
57
My translation. The original quote in French is: ‘Le fédéralisme apparaît donc comme une notion générale qui
concerne toute une série d’organisations sociales et politiques.’
35
In order for the concept of ‘federalism’ to be better defined, let us define federalism through
the lenses of related concepts (e.g. federations, confederations, and unitary (de)centralized) by
focusing mainly on the examples that the main case studies of this paper (the United States of
America, the European Union, and Russia) offer.
3.3. Federalism vs. Federation. Examples (the U.S., the EU and Russia)
Countries such as Australia, Belgium, Canada, Russia, the United States of America are said
to be ‘federations.’ By naming a polity a ‘federation’, it is acknowledged that it is a sovereign
state which adopted a federal institutional design (as opposite to a unitary institutional design)
where two or more sovereign entities formed a new and common state level each of them
having the (symmetric or asymmetric) power to take decisions in precise policy fields as
derived from a federal Constitution. Here it is a fragment from Dusan Sidjanski (2001:25)
where he explains the difference between a unitary state, a federation and a confederation:
‘Whilst the unitary state has a pyramidal structure governed from the top, the structure
of a federation is more star shaped, gravitating around a federal core, which provides
advice and which in turn receives feedback. […] Actually, one of the traits that
distinguishes a federation from a confederation is the immediate impact of its
standards, its policies and its decisions, which apply to citizens and inhabitants and are
more imposed directly.’
Although federations can be centralized and decentralized, as well, it implies, though, that
more or less power is distributed on both vertical (between the federal level, the national
level, the regional level, etc.) and on horizontal (among a multitude of actors).
Federations are associated with different political systems. For example, among the
federations, there are monarchies (e.g. Belgium, Spain,58 etc.) as well as republics (e.g.
Germany, South Africa, etc.). Federations are associated with different forms of government.
For example, some federations can have a parliamentary executive (e.g. Australia, Belgium,
Canada, Germany, etc.); other federations can have a limited presidential executive (e.g.
Argentina, the United States of America, etc.). Federations were found among the communist
political regimes (e.g. Czechoslovakia, USSR and Yugoslavia), as well as among liberal
democratic states. Dusan Sidjanski argued (2001:4) on the importance for a federation to be
founded on democratic principles and human rights:
‘A federation is born and grows in an atmosphere of liberty, of democracy and of
pluralism, in a multiplicity of ideas, of cultures, of parties and of regions and in a
complex and diversified social matrix.’
Federations are usually associated with diversities of many kinds, but ‘[t]he genius of
federation lies in its infinite capacity to accommodate and reconcile the competing and
sometimes conflicting array of diversities having political salience within a state. Toleration,
respect, compromise, bargaining and mutual recognition are its watchdogs and “union”
combined simultaneously with “autonomy” is its hallmark’ (Burgess, 1993:7).
The European Union is not a federation, but it encompasses in its institutional
arrangement, elements borrowed from the federal design of federations; it is another example
of federalism that is possible without federation. The elements of federalism that the
European Union uses in order to accommodate its large territory and the diversity of its
inhabitants, makes it part of the larger category of ‘federal political system’ that are nonunitary polities (Watts, 1999:6); this can include the ‘quasi-federations’, ‘federations’,
‘confederations’ and all other federal arrangements.59
3.4. Federalism vs. unitary (de)centralized. Examples (the U.S.)
58
Spain is considered to be organized as a federal state, but its Constitution does not include the word ‘federal’.
For more details on the definitions of these terms and on the different types of federal arrangements, please see
Ronald L. Watts, Comparing Federal Systems (Kingston: McGill – Queen’s University Press, 1999), pp. 6 – 14.
59
36
On an axis of polity organization, a polity that is organized on a federal base and a polity that
is organized on a unitary base are considered to be opposite. However, on the same axis, one
may found polities that are federal-centralized or federal-decentralized, as well as polities that
are unitary-centralized or unitary-decentralized.
The federal and the unitary forms of state organization have their theoretical origins in the late
16th century Europe. The unitary form of state organization was first formulated by Jean
Bodin who published the book ‘Les Six Livres de la République’ (‘The Six Books of the
Commonwealth’), in 1576.
In this book, Jean Bodin promoted the centralized form of state organization, or more
precisely, the unitary and centralized form of state organization, where the concept of
‘république’ (‘commonwealth’) is defined as ‘…the rightly ordered government of a number
of families, and of those things which are their common concern, by a sovereign power’
(Bodin, Book I, Chapter I).60 Furthermore, by ‘sovereign power’, Bodin meant the absolute
and the perpetual power as in the Latin meaning of ‘majestas’ (Book I, Chapter VIII). In
Bodin’s view, the centralized state holds the full sovereignty; and it is a hereditary monarchy
where the king or the prince is above the human law and is accountable only to God, natural
law and to those laws common to all nations. Bodin also mentioned the existence of a
covenant between the king and its subjects, but he underlined that the subjects must respect
and obey because otherwise it is like disrespecting and disobeying God:
‘BECAUSE there are none on earth, after God, greater than sovereign princes, whom
God establishes as His lieutenants to command the rest of mankind, we must enquire
carefully into their estate, that we may respect and revere their majesty in all due
obedience, speak and think of them with all due honour. He who contemns his
sovereign prince, contemns God whose image he is. ...’ (Book I, Chapter X).
At the beginning of the 17th century Europe, the federal form of state organization was first
formulated by Johannes Althusius who published the book ‘Politica’, in 1603.
In this book, Johannes Althusius promoted the federal form of state organization that
he conceived as bottom up complex of human associations rising from the very essence of the
society, the family, which forms a community defined as ‘an association formed by fixed laws
and composed of many families…’ (Althusius, 1995:64) and whose inhabitants are citizens.61
He divided the communities, depending on the main working activities, into rural and urban
communities; and the rural communities into: hamlets, village and town. And he defined each
of them.
For example, a hamlet is ‘a settlement of a few houses situated around a small open
place’ with a leader (that he called ‘superior’) elected by the consent of the inhabitants of the
hamlet (idem, 65). Furthermore, two or more hamlets make up a village that also had a leader
and more villages, surrendered by a fortification, make up a town with its own leader. At this
level, a ‘senatorial collegium’ is associated with the leader in order to advice him, while
‘citizens are individually and collectively expected to observe his legitimate decrees’ (idem,
66). Furthermore, villages and towns and outposts and cities form a province and are subject
to its administration.
The idea that Johannes Althusius promoted is that of multitude of human associations
that enter a covenant62 and build from bottom to up a larger community, but where each entity
60
For the English version of Jean Bodin’s book, I used the translation of M. J. Tooley on
http://www.constitution.org/bodin/bodin.txt.
61
Althusius excluded (1995:64) some categories of people from being citizens: aliens, foreigners, outsiders and
strangers whom needed to adapt themselves to the life of the (adoptive) place where they lived.
62
Thomas Fleiner and Lidija R. Basta Fleiner argued (2000:6) that Althusius was influenced by the covenant
doctrine promoted by Calvin and Zwingli. Therefore, ‘[a]ccording to Althusius, too, power does not lie with the
King but with the people instead which only vests him with a limited mandate.’
37
is guaranteed the possibility to make laws that are answering its own (close) necessities. For
example, he wrote that: ‘[e]very city is able to establish statutes concerning those things that
pertain to the administration of its own matters, that belong to its trade and profession, and
that relate to the private functions of the community…’ (idem, 71). Compared to Bodin,
Althusius did not agree that sovereignty ‘is a supreme and perpetual power limited neither by
law (lex) nor by time’ (idem, 87); Althusius conceived the state as a (federal) political
community that can accommodate a multitude of diverse human associations and in which the
constituent entities have their own leader (appointed by the consent of its own citizens) and
the possibility to take decisions that concern their communities. And in this (federal) political
community, the King ‘…only has a limited, controllable mandate which can be, if necessary,
restricted by the right to resistance’ (Fleiner and Basta-Fleiner, 2000:6). By having a limited
and controllable mandate, not an absolute power, the mandate to govern is not absolute, but
divided (Fleiner and Basta-Fleiner, 2000:6).
Although the theory advocated by Johannes Althusius, had some success in some European
countries (e.g. Germany and Switzerland), it is mostly the theory of Jean Bodin which was at
the base of the organisation of the state in a great number of Western European states since
the Treaty of Westphalia (1648).
Nowadays, four centuries after the Treaty of Westphalia, the territorial organization of
the European states is divided between federal and unitary states. On the one hand, there are
Austria, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland63 that are organized as federal states and, on the
other hand, there are the unitary states among which France is the classical example.
However, France is also shifting towards decentralization. And it is only an example. It is
difficult to find nowadays a fully unitary and centralized state. For example, Fleiner and
Basta-Fleiner (2000:17) argued that ‘[t]here is no state completely unitary, in the sense of not
having any decentralized unit. Every state is at least composed of municipalities.’ Therefore,
even if within a unitary state, the sub-division is only for administrative purpose, it cannot be
said about the unitary state that it is centralized.
Both federal and unitary forms of state organization can be centralized and
decentralized. The criteria of self-rule and shared-rule used by Stauffer and Töpperwien
(2000:42-74) offered an insight in understanding the difference between the federal(de)centralized and unitary-(de)centralized. According to their analysis, a federal and a
confederal state organization have both self-rule (including a right to self-organization) and
shared rule. The unitary-decentralized allow self-rule (but no right to self-organization) and
no shared rule (with exceptions), while a unitary and centralized state organization does not
allow any self-rule and shared-rule.
De Tocqueville (2005) made a distinction between two concepts: ‘centralized administration’
and ‘centralized government.’ On the one hand, he defined the ‘centralised administration’ as
referring to interests that concern only some parts of the nation, and he identified this with the
political organization of France, his country of origin. On the other hand, the concept of
‘centralised government’ as referring to interests that concern all the parts of the nation and
refer to the relationship of the American people with other people or to the drafting of laws
(de Tocqueville, 2005:121); and identified it with the American federal institutional design. In
other words, de Tocqueville called ‘centralized administration’ what we call ‘unitary
centralized’… and he called ‘centralized government’ what we call ‘federal (de)centralized.’
3.5. Federalism vs. confederalism. Examples (the U.S. and the EU)
63
Italy and the United Kingdom are known as unitary states but, in the recent years, they have been in a process
of decentralization and devolution.
38
Federalism and confederalism are said to be just two ways of the same ‘federalist culture’
(Croisat and Quermonne, 1996:18).64 They are two different ways to search for ‘diversity in
unity’ (A. Marc, quoted by Croisat and Quermonne, 1996:18).65
On the one hand, both federal and confederal state organization shares common points. First,
as mentioned above, both federal and confederal state organization includes self-rule and
shared rule. Stauffer and Töpperwien (2000:45) showed that there is not a great difference
between a federal and a confederal arrangement as they both include self-rule and shared rule
and their institutions work in a similar way; the slight difference is that they include a
different extend of self-rule and shared rule, while other differences refer to legal aspects.
Second, another common point that both federalism and confederalism share, is the
fact that they both imply a certain process of ‘coming together’ in which smaller and/or larger
entities are pursued by a common purpose to get together and to create a new entity. For
example, the Middle Ages offer the examples of two confederal organizations in which the
entities came together for different purposes: the Hanseatic League (1138-1254) – commercial
purpose and Swiss Confederation (1291-nowadays) – defence purpose.
The Hanseatic League was a commercial association formed of all the merchants from
the cities at the shore of the Baltic Sea: Lübeck, Stettin, Danzing and Riga to whom Hamburg,
Bremen and Köln joined later. The League opened commercial cities in the main ports in the
region: London, Bruges, Duisburg and Novgorod, and exercised a commercial hegemony in
that region (Berstein and Milza, 1998:156, vol.2). On the other hand, the Old Swiss
Confederation was formed in 1291 when three cantons (Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden) have
signed a defence pact ‘for proper establishment of quiet and peace’. To the initial pact, other
cantons have joined. Here it is a fragment of the ‘Swiss Federal Pact’ (1291) explaining the
reasons why these cantons created the Swiss Confederation:
‘Unterwalden, seeing the malice of the age, in order that they may better defend
themselves, and their own, and better preserve them in proper condition, have
promised in good faith to assist each other with aid, with every counsel and every
favor, with person and goods, within the valley and without, with might and main,
against one and all, who may inflict upon any one of them any violence, molestation
or injury, or may plot any evil against their persons or goods. And in every case each
community has promised to succour the other when necessary, at its own expense, as
far as needed in order to withstand the attacks of evil-doers, and to avenge injuries; to
this end they have sworn a solemn oath to keep this without guile, and to renew by
these presents the ancient form of the league, also confirmed by an oath.’
On the other hand, both federal and confederal state organization differs in some respects.66
First, the main element in distinguishing between a federal and a confederal state organization
concerns the sharing of sovereignty. The use of sovereignty makes a clear distinction between
a confederation, where sovereignty stays fully with the member states and the central
government is weak; and a federation, where sovereignty is shared among the central/federal
government to whom a written constitution provides precise competencies and the constituent
states to whom the same written constitution provides precise policy fields where they can
take decisions. In this sense, Sidjanski wrote (2001:19) that:
64
My translation. The original texte in French is: ‘En fait, confédération et fédération sont deux modalités d’une
même culture fédéraliste.’
65
The original texte in French is: ‘Elles sont deux manières différentes de rechercher, selon le mot d’A.. Marc,
“la diversité dans l’unité”, par une même conception transactionnelle, contractuelle, des relations juridiques et
politiques.’
66
For more details on the differences between a federal and confederal state organization with a particular
comparative emphasis on Germany, Switzerland and the United States, please see Schmitt (1999).
39
‘Among the exclusive competencies attributed to the federal authority, foreign affairs
dominate, followed by security and defence, international treaties and commercial
policy, currency and macro-economic policy (in common with the federated states).
These competences, as well as the sharing of them, are defined by the constitution. In
general, the federal state only exerts powers that are explicitly attributed to it. Other
competences are either reserved for the federated states or are concurrent and exerted
in common by the federal state and the federated states.’
Therefore, in a federal form of state organization, the central/federal government has more
competencies than under a confederal institutional form; and the central/federal government is
stronger than the government of a confederation. The decisions taken by the central/federal
government have a direct impact on all the citizens of the federal entity; while in a confederal
state organization, the decisions taken at the confederal level have an indirect impact on the
citizens because its first impact is on the states.
Second, following the example provided by the history of the United States of America, and
in particular of the shift from the confederal to the federal state organization, another element
of difference can be distinguished between a federal and a confederal state organization: the
legal document that binds the federated states into a confederal state organization is, usually, a
treaty (e.g. ‘The Articles of the Confederation and the Perpetual Union’, ‘The Draft Treaty
establishing a Constitution for Europe’, ‘the Treaty of Lisbon’, etc.) or a pact (e.g. ‘The Swiss
Federal Pact’), while the legal document that binds the federated states into a federal state
organization is a constitution (e.g. ‘The Constitution of the United States of America’, the
Russian Constitution, the German Constitution, etc.). Nicolas Schmitt (1999) underlined
better this idea by pointing: ‘Who says Constitution, says State.’ This is a statement that
illustrates that within a confederal form of state organization, the constituent states of the
confederal state are subject to international law, while the constituent states of the federal
state are not, but the federal state as a whole is subject to international law; however, the
federated states of a federal organized state can involve in foreign relations as Nicolas Schmitt
argued (2000:165-213) particularly referring to the Swiss cantons.
Third, the voting procedure within a confederal organized state is different than the voting
procedure of a federal organized state, on the other side.
For example, the ‘Swiss Federal Pact’ (1291) does not say much on the way decisions
are taken in the Old Swiss Confederation. But between lines, one can identify the unanimity
vote through which this pact has been accepted. More recent examples that were also
developed in the first part of this paper are the examples of the confederal United States of
America and that of the European Union where the decision procedure by unanimity provided
real difficulties in decision-making.
Forth, the amending of the legally binding treaty and pact, on the one hand, and of the
constitution, on the other hand, is different, too. More precisely, the confederal state
organization amends its treaty or is binding pact by unanimity vote of all the constituent
entities (e.g. the United States when organised as a confederation). The federal state
organization, usually, amends its constitution by a majority vote and the right of secession is
not recognized (Croisat, 1999:29). However, an interesting case in which concerns the
amending of the constitution is the case of Canada which allows also the unanimous vote
when referring to specific issues mentioned in the Part V Art. 41: the office of the Queen,
Governor General and the Lieutenant Governors of the Provinces, the number of the senators
and that of the members of the House of Commons, the use of French and English and the
composition of the Supreme Court.
4. Federalism: A Complex Political Science Notion to implement
40
This section will try to show that the notion of ‘federalism’ takes several and different shapes
when implemented in practice. There are several so-called ‘types’ of federalism: cooperative
federalism, dual federalism, executive federalism, etc. They are usually associated with a
state: cooperative federalism in Germany, dual federalism in the United States of America,
executive federalism in Canada, and so on. This classification of federalism is quite narrow
for the diversity of federalism in practice. Different sub-sections try to point on this great
diversity of federalisms particularly offered by some of the EU member states, but not only.
4.1. Symmetrical and asymmetrical federalism. Examples (the U.S., the EU and Russia)
Symmetrical federalism implies that ‘all sub-entities have the same degree of self-rule and
shared rule’ (Stauffer and Töpperwien, 2000:46). And examples of symmetrical federalism
are the United States and Switzerland. But the United States is known to have some aspects of
asymmetry as well: in comparison to the American States who have the same powers (or the
same degree of self-rule and shared rule), the territories situated in the Pacific Ocean and in
the Caribbean Sea are under the sovereignty of the Federal Government of the United States
with which they have negotiated their autonomy. Broadly speaking, that is the reason why the
U.S. is an example of symmetric federalism including, also, a slight aspect of asymmetric
federalism.
Asymmetrical federalism implies that ‘some entities are accorded more possibilities of selfrule and shared rule or more influence in the common institutions than others’ (Stauffer and
Töpperwien, 2000:46). The asymmetry is the outcome of different arrangements between the
constituent units with the federal government. Furthermore, it, also, implies that ‘one region
of the country enjoys a distinct form of autonomy, and often a distinct constitutional status’
(McGarry, 2005). The most cited examples of asymmetrical federalism are the Russian
Federation and Canada. For example, the institutional organisation of the Russian Federation
is an example of asymmetrical federalism67 because each of the subjects of the Russian
Federation could and did negotiate its self-rule and shared-rule with the federal government
through the bi-lateral treaties.
The European Union develops an asymmetrical federal political system, too. For
example, its legislation that is valid for all the member states of the Union is not equally
applied in all the member states of the European Union because some of them negotiated a socalled ‘opt-out’ by which a certain European legislation is not applicable to a member state.68
For example, following the rejection of the ‘Treaty of Maastricht’ by referendum by the
Danish people, Denmark negotiated and obtained by the Edinburg Agreement four opt-outs.69
Denmark is not the only European member state opting out from European legislation.
Sweden opted out from the European Monetary System, the United Kingdom opted out from
the Schengen and the Euro, and from the ‘Treaty of Lisbon’, it opted out from the Police and
Judicial Cooperation in Criminal Affairs and the ‘Charter of the Fundamental Rights’. Poland
opted out from the ‘Charter of the Fundamental Rights’, as well, while Ireland opted out from
67
McGarry argued (2005) that Russia is one of the late comers in organising its territory on an asymmetrical
federal base in 1993. The 20th century presents such cases all over the world: Finland (granting autonomy to the
Aland Islands in 1920), Lithuania (to Memel, in 1924-1939), Tanzania (to Zanzibar, in 1964), Denmark (to
Greenland in 1978), Spain (to the Basque Country, Catalonia, Galicia, in 1978), Canada (to Sechelt, in 1986),
Russia (to various regions, in 1991), Moldova (to Gagauzia, in 1995), Philippines (to Mindanao, in 1996), etc.
For the list of ‘Cases of Asymmetrical Federalism in the 20th Century’, please see McGarry (2005, Table 1).
68
There is also the possibility of ‘opt-in’ by which states do not refuse entirely to participate but in case by case.
69
Denmark opted out from: European Monetary System, European Security and Defence Policy, Justice and
Home Affairs; as well as citizenship that the Danish people wanted it not to replace the Danish citizenship.
Concerning the fourth opt-out, the Treaty of Amsterdam underlined that the European citizenship does not
replace the national citizenship, but it is added to it. A similar note is mentioned in the Treaty of Lisbon, as well.
The Treaty of Maastricht was ratified by Denmark after a second referendum was organised.
41
the Schengen and from the ‘Treaty of Lisbon’, Ireland opted out from the Police and Judicial
Cooperation in Criminal Affairs.
Asymmetrical federalism is considered to be disadvantageous because it may end into a break
up of the country through secession (or irredentism). History showed that the break up of
countries during the 20th century took place in centralized and symmetrical federations (e.g.
Czechoslovakia, Soviet Union and Yugoslavia), as well as in unitary states (e.g. Ethiopia,
Indonesia, etc.), (McGarry, 2005). Furthermore, McGarry acknowledged (2005) that a certain
level of instability within asymmetrical federations is expected:
‘Even in the relatively benign cases, the state will usually seek to push back in the
direction of symmetry, as Moscow and Madrid have both done recently, while
minorities will push in the direction of greater asymmetry, or if another minority has
more autonomy than them, for a matching degree of asymmetry’.
4.2. Dual federalism. Example (the U.S.)
In the relation between the member states and the federal government, the member states
either have all the same competencies and it is the situation of the symmetrical federalism, or
they negotiated with the federal government different competencies and it is the situation of
asymmetrical federalism. However, as de Tocqueville wrote (2005), in the United States there
are two levels of government that exercise their constitutional competencies in parallel as a
result of the bottom up federal institutional building, starting from the first English colonies to
the township level, then the county level, the state level and the Union level.
For example, as the township (of 2-3,000 inhabitants) was too small to manage some
judicial institutions, another administrative level had been created, the county (de
Tocqueville, 2005:105). And another level was created with other institutions in order to
govern: the state-level. It seems that behind this idea of creating a state level was both the
principle of separating the administrative tasks from the governing ones, as well as the idea of
decentralizing the decision-making power in order to avoid any possibility of accumulating it
in one hand. In order to avoid despotism, it was thought that the authority to take decisions
should better be shared between many centres of power, but who cannot decide without
having the vote of those who have invested them and to whom they were accountable in a
short time period, as the mandates were short. In this sense, the state legislative was formed of
two chambers: the Deputy Chamber and the Senate, both directly elected by the citizens for a
short-time mandate.70 The executive power was embodied by the governor elected for one or
two-year time.
De Tocqueville observed that the United States was formed of twenty-four small and
sovereign states that together were forming the Union of sovereign states. Within the Union,
there were two distinct societies with two separate and independent governments. On the one
hand, one was answering the daily needs of the American society; and on the other hand, the
other independent government was answering some general interests of the American society
(de Tocqueville, 2005:95).
The United States Constitution of 1789 established that the executive power of the Union is
embodied in the President of the United States elected directly by the people through an
electoral college for a mandate of four years (Art.II, Section1). Section 2 settled the
attributions of the President among which: to make treaties, appoint ambassadors, public
ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, etc., with the approval of a 2/3 of the
present Senators. The President must inform the Congress on the State of the Union, convene
70
Tocqueville mentioned that the Senators were elected for a mandate of 2-3 years while the deputies were
elected for a mandate of 1 year time.
42
the Congress (extraordinary), receive Ambassadors, other public Ministers, take care on the
execution of laws, etc (Section 3).
Therefore, the Constitution established a presidential system for the United States,
where the President of the United States represent alone the executive power (Head of State
and Government); better said, it established a limited presidential executive because the
federal executive is limited by a system of checks and balances in which the executive and the
legislative branches can override the legislative decisions through voting powers.
The Congress is the legislative power and it is formed of two chambers (Senate71 and
the House of Representatives). Article I, Section 8 settled the competencies of the Congress,
among which: to lay and collect taxes; to borrow money; to regulate inter- and intrastate
commerce; to coin money; to establish Post Offices and post Roads, to declare war, to provide
and maintain a Navy, etc. Any legislative decision taken by the Congress needs to be accepted
by the President, as well before it becomes law. The President can oppose by not signing the
legislative document and send it back to the Congress with its objections to be discussed. And
after discussing the observations of the President, with two-thirds of each chamber of the
Congress, the legislative initiative can become law. [This implies that the President veto can
be overridden with two-thirds vote of each chamber of the U.S. Congress.] But if the
President agrees with the legislative initiative and signs it, the legislative initiative becomes
law within ten days (except Sunday) from the day it was signed.
The United States Supreme Court is the federal court whose judges are named (for
life) by the U.S. President. The Federal Supreme Court exercises its competencies in parallel
with the inferior courts, but in case of clash between the national and the federal legislation,
the federal one have primacy. This is referred to as the ‘supremacy clause.’ Both the federal
and the national courts exercise their competencies on the citizens directly, but some clash
may appear because the competencies of the national level are not well established by the
Constitution of the 1789. The Tenth Amendment72 settled that ‘[t]he powers not delegated to
the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the
States respectively, or to the people.’ Furthermore, a legal provision within the political
competences provided to the Congress (Article I, Section 8) settling that ‘To make all Laws
which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Executives the foregoing Powers, and
all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any
Department or Officer thereof’ – so-called ‘elastic clause’ – allowed, in time, a widening of
the federal competencies (Schram, 2005:377).
It is noteworthy that in comparison to other federal organized states, for the Founding
Fathers of the United States, ‘…federalism was an end in itself. The American Constitution,
more than other constitutions, came to be treated as a covenant’ (Verney, 1995:83).
4.3. Executive and intergovernmental federalism. Example (the EU)
The European Union encompasses elements of several types of federalism and it tries to find
its own type of federal political system that matches its own characteristics. In this sense, in
the European Union federal political system, one may find elements of the American dual
federalism, of the German cooperative federalism, as well as of the Canadian executiveparliamentarian federalism.
Borrowed or not from the United States dual federal system, the European Union has at least
two levels of government. Both the supra-national and the national one have the power to
legislate in the policy fields that is its competence as settled by the intergovernmental
71
The Vice-President of the United States of America is also the President of the U.S. Senate, but has not voting
power. The U.S. Senate has also a so-called ‘pro-tempore’ President which replaces the U.S. Vice-President
when it is away.
72
The first Ten Amendments to the U.S. Constitution of 1789 are known as the ‘Bill of Rights’ and were ratified
on 15 December 1791.
43
European treaties. In case of clash between the European and the national legislation, the
European legislation has primacy, reminding, in a way, of the ‘supremacy clause’ of the
American dual federalism.
The European general guidelines are discussed within the European summits73 that
gather the Heads of State or Government of the European Union. Here, the Union may be said
to acquire a certain executive character. So are, also, the decisions taken on particular policy
fields and discussed among and decided by each member state through its own ministers
(depending on the policy) from the national executives. And the intergovernmental
negotiations on different treaties of the European Union may, also, give an executive and/or
intergovernmental character to the European Union. Dusan Sidjanski wrote (2001:9) that the
concept of ‘intergovernmental federalism’ attributed to the European Union ‘removes the
reality of cooperative federalism in which the networks are made up of the governments of
the Länder, or of the Cantons, as well as numerous socio-economic, cultural and academic
players.’
Indeed, the European Union bares some characters of the co-operative federalism, too.
This process of negotiations between governments gives co-operative federalism an
intergovernmental aspect. Germany is usually associated with the cooperative federalism
where the German Länders have a role to play in the decision making process at the federal
level. For example, the German ‘Bundesrat’ reunites all the Prime Ministers and Ministers of
all the German Länders, has the capacity to initiate law, as well as to veto the federal one. The
German Bundesrat is most often given as an example to all those who sustain the argument of
transforming the Council of the European Union in the ‘EU Bundesrat’ – the
intergovernmental chamber of the European Union. Furthermore, Dusan Sidjanski (2001:18)
argued that the ‘intergovernmental federalism’ implies a cooperation between the
governments of the European Union’s member states and the term itself of ‘intergovernmental
federalism’ applied to the European Union is a ‘methodological error’. The intergovernmental
aspect is inherited from the European Communities period: ‘It is not because a federal union
contains intergovernmental elements that the entire system must be trapped in an ambiguous
concept such as “intergovernmental federalism”.’
The European Union goes further than that. The ‘Treaty of Lisbon’ ratified, the European
Union involves in its supra-national decision-making process the parliaments of the European
Member states. Would that make the European Union an entity trying to borrow from the
parliamentary federalism, as well?
Representative for the executive-parliamentary federalism is Canada. Executiveparliamentary system of government is usually met in countries that were British colonies and
are, nowadays, part of the Commonwealth. But not only: Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Italy,
Spain, the UK, etc. are some of the examples of the republics and monarchies that have an
executive-parliamentary political system.74 Some of the former British colonies (e.g.
Australia, Canada and India) who inherited the executive-parliamentary system that is
characteristic for unitary states thought to adapt this concept to its large territory and diverse
population; it resulted the ‘parliamentary federalism’. Canada was the first to adopt and adapt
it, by the Constitution of 1867, Australia followed this example in 1900, and India in 1950
73
The first European Summit was held in Paris (1961). Later on, the European Summits were organized in the
country holding the Presidency of the European Union; and since May 1st, 2004, all the European summits are
held in Brussels.
74
The Parliamentary-executive is a political regime also called ‘Westminster model.’ It originates and it has the
finest form in the UK. It is usually defined by the fact that the Head of State is the Queen of the United Kingdom
and Northern Ireland. In the UK, the executive power is represented by the Prime Minster and its Cabinet. The
Prime Minister is invested by the Queen and its Cabinet by the Parliament. The vote of confidence of the
Parliament is constantly needed all along the executive mandate of the Cabinet. In countries of the
Commonwealth, the Queen represents the ‘formal’ executive power; she is represented de facto by the Prime
Minister of that country.
44
(Verney, 1995:83). Verney argued (1995:82-83) that in comparison to the U.S. where
federalism was used as a concept, in countries like Australia, Canada and India, federalism
was used as a tool, or ‘a means of making government more manageable in a large state.’
Continuing on the same line of ideas, the European Union develops in a more or less
similar way than the federal political systems from within and from the outside of its current
borders, by trying to find its own way and its own formula of federal political system
combining federalism as a tool to administer its large territory and diverse population (e.g.
ethnic, linguistic, religious, etc.) with federalism as a political concept based on principles of
decisional autonomy, people and state participation, and subsidiarity principle, as well.
4.4. Ethnic federalism. Example (Russia)
Decisional autonomy and territorial autonomy are two political realities that do not always go
hand in hand. John McGarry (2005) reminded that the countries of Eastern Europe and Russia
prefer to give minorities a decisional autonomy instead of territorial autonomy, particularly
given the previous experiences of break up of the country. Territorial autonomy can be given
in both unitary and federal organized states (e.g. Canada, Russia, etc.).75
For example, Russia is the largest state in the world with ‘eighty-nine potentially
problematic autonomous units and over one hundred different ethnic groups’ (Bermeo, 2005).
In 1903, Vladimir I. Lenin asked for an autonomy clause to be introduced in the political
programme of the Bolshevik political party; it was a promise ‘not made in good faith’
targeting those nationalities living on the territory of the Russian empire which were seeking
independence after the Bolshevik Revolution (Pål Kolstø (2002):
‘The Soviet federation was an extremely complex structure, with no less than four
levels of autonomous units. At the top were the union republics, followed by
autonomous republics, autonomous oblasts (counties), and national, later renamed
autonomous, okrugs (districts). Each union republic had its own legislative assembly,
government, legal code, state insignia, and even a constitutional right to secede, but
they were still in many respects treated as ordinary administrative regions ruled from
Moscow.’
Pål Kolstø underlined (2002) that from the over one hundred ethnic groups, only fifty had an
autonomous unit of their own, ‘many ethnic groups in the USSR were so small that the
establishment of a separate autonomy for them was out of the question…’. However, after the
collapse of communism, all those ethnic groups already having their autonomous unit
inherited it during the post-communist Russia. These entities could and they negotiated bilateral treaties with the federal government settling the competencies of federal government
and those of the autonomous entity.
The constant concern related to ethnic federalism is its possible direct link with conflict,
secession and irredentism. There are voices that sustain the idea that a high concentration of
people of the same ethnic group on the same territory may increase the chances for conflict or
the chances for secession (e.g. Quebec in Canada).
Nancy Bermeo mentioned (2005) that a research study on 46 territories with minorities
within federal organized states, and 66 territories with minorities within unitary organized
federal states, showed that ‘minorities in federalist states were significantly less likely to
engage in violence.’ Other comparative studies conclude that ‘federalism hamper secession’
given its diverse and flexible political instruments that, in the end, can reduce the possibility
of secession within a multi-national state. Another study that Nancy Bermeo (2005)
mentioned is the one of Henry Hale who took into analysis the existence of a ‘core region’.
His research showed that there is a fifty-fifty chance that a federal organized state with a ‘core
75
Pål Kolstø (2002) argued that more and more Western European states give territorial autonomy in order to
protect minorities. In this sense, besides Switzerland, Belgium, Spain and the United Kingdom organized
themselves on the ethno-federal model.
45
region’ – meaning a region with a majority population, or whose majority population is at
least 20 per cent larger than the following second region – because from the 14 federal states
with core region analysed, seven collapsed: the Mali Federation-1960; Nigerian 1st Republic1960-1966; Pakistan-1970-1971; Senegambia-1982-1989; Czechoslovakia-1990-1992;
URSS-1990-1991; and Yugoslavia-1990-1991. On the other hand, none of the 13 ethnofederal states (in the period from the Second World War to 1999) without a ‘core region’
collapsed or seceded.
4.5. Other forms of federalism. Examples
The examples shortly analysed before are the most often approached types of federalism. The
federal institutional design of the United States of America usually relates to the dual
federalism where member states have the same competencies in their relation with the federal
government (symmetry). The federal institutional design of Germany and Switzerland usually
relates to the cooperative federalism; Canada relates to parliamentary federalism, as well as to
ethnic federalism when referring to the Quebec French speaking state, etc. The European
Union has been trying to find a federal political system to match its own specificity, which
explains the reason why elements of several types of federalism can be identified in the EU
federal ‘parcours’ and the EU evolving in a unique way. And it is not the only one.
For example, one of the EU founding member states, Belgium, is a unique
combination of territorial and legislative federalism. Belgium became an independent state in
1830 and it became a unitary and centralized organized state. The necessity for Belgium to
organize itself as a federal state was required by the co-habitation, on its territory, of a multiethnic, multi-linguistic, multi-cultural society76 starting with the 1970s: ‘[t]he federalization
of Belgium occurred step by step – there were constitutional-institutional reforms in 1970,
1980, 1988 and 1993. The main reason for the incremental nature of the process was that
Flemish and Francophone parties favoured different federal models’ (Lecours, 2005:61). The
organization of Belgium in three regions and three communities may imply that the federal
organization is territorial and legislative.
It is the legislative Belgium federalism on which Belgium relies when its relationship
to the EU is concerned. For example, Belgium representation in the European Parliament is
based on representatives of the three communities77 (Delpérée, 2000:9); in the Council of the
European Union, Belgium is represented by a minister from each linguistic community
(Delpérée, 2000:13); and in the European Commission, a commissioner of Dutch/Flemish
language community is succeeded by a commissioner of French language community
(Delpérée, 2000:16). Only in the Committee of the Regions of the European Union the
representation of Belgium takes into account its territorial federal structure: Belgium is
currently represented in the Committee of the Regions of the European Union by 12
representatives-6 ministers of the Flanders region; 4 ministers from the Walloon region; 1
Flemish/Dutch speaking minister of the region Bruxelles-Capitale and 1 French speaking
minister of the region Bruxelles-Capitale (Delpérée, 2000:16).
The dual federalism, cooperative, executive, as well as the territorial and legislative
federalism are not the only examples of forms that federalism can take when used as a tool to
manage the specificities of each polity.
The so-called ‘corporate federalism’ (‘fédéralisme integré’) – where Lebanon is an
example – refers to a state federal organization based on the participation of those belonging
to the same community without having a delimited territorial limits; it ‘may in the future offer
76
The Kingdom of Belgium is a constitutional monarchy and a federal organized state. It is formed of three
linguistic communities (Dutch/Flemish, French and German) and three autonomous regions (Flanders, Wallonia
and Bruxelles-Capitale).
77
The European Parliament currently has 785 members from the 27 EU member states. Belgium has 24
representatives in the European Parliament coming from its linguistic communities.
46
more adequate constituting and constitutional arrangements for all those multiethnic,
multilingual or multiconfessional societies in which minority groups are overlapping within
the same territory’ (Fleiner and Basta-Fleiner, 2000:13).
Conclusions
This paper started from the observation that an increasing number of polities use federalism as
a tool to solve specific internal issues of each polity. This paper focused on three entities that
share several similarities, in particular referring to territorial and population size (and
population diversity), but which, historically, were formed in dissimilar ways: the United
States of America, the European Union and the Russian Federation. Through these examples,
this paper tried to shortly analyse what is that makes federalism a complex notion of political
science that it is so often taken as a tool for possible practical solutions. In order for the
analysis to, possibly, provide more interesting results, it focused on three entities, from three
different continents, that were formed differently from a historical point of view and in
different historical times, as well as with more or less different purposes, such as: unity,
peace, and democracy, but the idea of unity in diversity is, in general, a common aim for all
polities using the tool of federalism.
The first part of this paper showed, very shortly, that the federal and confederal institutional
designs existed since the Antiquity. The Antiquity offers the example of confederal
organizations (e.g. the Delos League, the Peloponnesian League, etc.), as well as the example
of federal organizations (e.g. Beotia). The state organization in the Antiquity was strongly
linked with the practice of direct democracy.
The second part of this paper showed, very shortly, the way the American Revolution and the
founding of the United States of America gave a modern connotation to the institutional
federal organization.
The American colonies were intensely populated by waves of immigrants coming
mostly from Western Europe, and from England, in particular since the 17th century. This
paper tried to give, as much as possible, precise numbers provided by the interesting analysis
of different authors who have written on this topic.
The United States of America made the first step towards the union following a war of
independence from the British Empire. But the process itself of achieving a federal
institutional framework lasted for other two centuries; in this time, the United States passed
through the Civil War, from confederal state organization to a federal one, through several
waves of enlargements and accessions of new member states, etc. The Founding Fathers of
the United States used the notion of ‘federalism’ as a tool to accommodate and preserve the
diversity of its inhabitants within the unity of its large territory, as well as a concept
associated to indirect/representative democracy and individual liberties. They put the basis of
the first federal organized state with a representative democracy in the modern history through
the United States federal Constitution of 1789 (amended with 26 Amendments, the last
brought in 1971). It put the bases of a federation based on federal principles of state and
people participation, of constitutional autonomy starting by a war of independence and from a
confederal union.
Whilst the United States of America was in the process of accomplishing its federal
institutional design, during the 19th century, in Europe and in Russia, monarchy was
flourishing.
Indeed, England made some important steps towards parliamentary/constitutional
monarchy, but France and Russia was still absolutist monarchies. However, as this paper
shortly presented, Russia undertook lots of institutional reforms under different tsars, and
47
some of them even decentralizing and liberal reforms. Furthermore, Europe and Russia seem
to have a common centralizing origin, with some exceptions: Switzerland and Germany.
The 20th century is the period when both Russia and Europe tried to define a common
institutional structure that for Russia took the shape of a federal design. Europe made its first
steps towards a common economic structure with six founding countries by the middle of the
century. Comparing to the European Union that was said to have evolved towards a
confederation with elements of federalism and federal institutions (e.g. European Bank,
common currency, etc.), Russia was even then called a federation, more like a so-called
‘quasi’-federation given the centralized political system. The European Union had its own
failed attempts of political union that this paper tried to present shortly.
Towards the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st century, the attempts of the
European Union to introduce more democratic principles among which some are federalist
principles in order to create a more democratic decision-making framework at the
supranational level were re-taken. It convened a Constitutional Convention whose works
finalized with the adoption of The Draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe (2004),
rejected by referendum by France and The Netherlands (2005). Following a period of
reflection and dialogue, it was agreed on a Reformed Treaty (2007) that entered into force in
December 2009.
On the other hand, Russia, inherited the ‘quasi’-federal institutional structure from the
Soviet regime, to which one can also add other historical difficult legacies that Russia
inherited once communism collapsed. Russia adopted a new post-communist federal
Constitution (1993) and started to search, through federal institutional reforms, for its own
suitable formula of federalism that answers the best its own specificities.
These particular three large entities were formed in different ways and in different time
periods. They all share federalism in their institution design. This paper tried to show that
what makes federalism to look like a viable solution to different entities is its complexity, or
its flexibility when implemented in practice.
For example, this paper showed that the United States of America, the European
Union and the Russian Federation, as well as Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, etc.
define different forms of federalism. But, in general, one can distinguish among a
symmetrical (e.g. United States of America) and asymmetrical federalism (e.g. European
Union, Russia, etc.). This paper tried to shortly present that the Untied States, also, provides
slight evidence of asymmetry. Then, there are other types of federalisms, such as: dual
federalism (provided by the example of the United States), executive federalism (example
sustained more by Canada); cooperative federalism (e.g. Germany, Switzerland, etc.),
territorial-legislative (e.g. Belgium), etc.
The European Union which tries to find its own formula of federalism borrows from
the different federal political systems. That is the reason why, the European Union was,
initially, studied, in this paper, starting from the example of executive and intergovernmental
federalism which allowed discussing why there are specialists pointing on the wrongdoing
when using the term ‘intergovernmental’ when referring to the European Union’s
supranational institutions.
This paper showed that federalism is a complex notion of political science that can be found
in different political regimes, in monarchies (e.g. Belgium), as well as in republics (e.g.
Germany, South Africa, etc.); and in different political system, in (limited) presidential
systems (e.g. the United States), as well as in parliamentary systems (e.g. Australia, Canada,
etc.), and so on.
48
Furthermore, this analysis try to show that federalism is a complex notion of political science
that can exist through its fundamental principles (e.g. the principle of participation of states
and people in the federal decision-making; the principle of (constitutional) autonomy of each
level of government to take decisions in the field of its policy areas as decided by in a
common document, usually a constitution; the principle of subsidiarity) within the
institutional framework of federations (e.g. Australia, Belgium, Canada, etc.), as well as
within institutional frameworks that are not federations (e.g. the European Union).
In conclusion, every polity that looks at federalism as a tool for a good management of its
large territory and large and diverse population tries to adapt it to its own specificities and
issues that need to be found a positive solution. Federalism proves to be a complex notion of
political science that can take different forms when implemented in practice as long as its set
of basic principles are respected and identified in the federal institutional framework designed
for a particular polity.
In the end, ‘… four observations are paramount: firstly, there is no one ideal form of
federalism; secondly, structures founded on these principles [the fundamental principles of
federalism] do not form the hierarchical order exemplified in a centralized state; thirdly, the
formation of a federation depends on the existing political cultures and institutions and
proceeds to redistribute responsibilities and powers, according to the capabilities of the
constituent units; fourthly, the federalist method is open to change: it responds to the
conditions of the integration process and is an advantage in the climate of the new
technological and social upheavals’ (Prof. Dusan Sidjanski, 2001:5).
Conclusions
Cette étude est partie de l’observation que le fédéralisme est utilisé comme un instrument
pour résoudre des problèmes internes spécifiques par des entités de plus en plus nombreuses.
Cette étude s’est concentrée sur trois entités qui partagent quelques similarités quant à
l’étendue du territoire, la population importante et diverse mais qui se sont formés
historiquement de manière dissemblable. Il s’agit de l’ouest à l’est des Etats-Unis
d’Amérique, l’Union Européenne et la Fédération Russe. A partir de ces trois modèles, nous
avons essayé d’analyser brièvement en quoi le fédéralisme est une notion complexe de
science politique qu’il était tellement souvent invoqué comme outil pour des possibles
solutions pratiques. Dans l’éventualité que cette analyse puisse fournir des résultats plus
intéressants, elle s’est concentrée sur trois entités qui se sont formées différemment du point
de vue historique et dans des moments historique différents, aussi qu’avec des buts plus ou
moins différents, comme par exemple: l’unité, la paix, la démocratie, mais l’idée d’unité dans
la diversité est, en général, un but commun pour tous les entités qui utilisent le fédéralisme.
La première partie de cette étude a brièvement montré que les modèles institutionnels
fédéraux et confédéraux existaient dès l’Antiquité; notamment la Ligue de Délos et la Ligue
du Péloponnèse pour les organisations confédérales, ou la Boeatia pour les organisations
fédérales. A l’époque l’organisation de l’Etat était liée à la pratique de la démocratie directe
Dans la deuxième partie, nous avons tenté de montrer comment la Révolution Américaine et
la fondation des Etats-Unis d’Amérique ont donné une connotation moderne à l’organisation
institutionnelle fédérale. A partir du 17ème siècle, les colonies américaines ont été peuplées par
des vagues d’immigration en provenance de l’Europe Occidentale majoritairement et en
particulier de l’Angleterre. Ce travail a donné autant que possible des chiffres précis
d’analyses faites sur ce sujet par différents auteurs.
49
Les Etats-Unis d’Amérique ont fait leurs premiers pas vers l’union suite à la guerre
d’indépendance de l’Empire Britannique. Le processus de construction du cadre institutionnel
fédéral a duré deux siècles. Pendant ces deux siècles, les Etats-Unis ont vécu la Guerre Civile,
l’organisation confédérale puis l’organisation institutionnelle fédérale, des élargissements et
l’accession des nouveaux membres. Les Pères Fondateurs des Etats-Unis ont utilisé la notion
de ‘fédéralisme’ comme un outil pour accommoder et préserver la diversité de ses habitants
dans l’unité de son large territoire; et aussi comme concept associé à la démocratie
indirecte/représentative et les libertés de l’individu. Ils ont posé les bases du premier Etat
fédéral à démocratie représentative de l’histoire moderne avec la Constitution fédérale des
Etats-Unis de 1789 (amendée vingt-six fois, le dernier amendement date de 1971). Cela a
posé les bases d’une fédération fondée sur des principaux fédéraux de la participation des
Etats et du peuple, de l’autonomie constitutionnelle en partant de la guerre d’indépendance et
d’une union confédérale.
Alors que les Etats-Unis d’Amérique étaient en cours d’achèvement de leur modèle
institutionnel fédéral, au 19ème siècle l’Europe et la Russie étaient en pleine monarchie.
L’Angleterre avait déjà fait des pas importants vers la monarchie
parlementaire/constitutionnelle, mais en France et en Russie la monarchie étaient encore
absolue. Comme nous l’avons vu, la Russie a fait beaucoup de réformes institutionnelles sous
le règne des tsars successifs, certaines ont même été des réformes de décentralisation et
libérales. Donc, l’Europe, à l’exception de la Suisse et l’Allemagne, et la Russie semblent
avoir en commun l’origine centralisatrice.
Au 20ème siècle, la Russie et l’Europe ont essayé de définir une structure institutionnelle qui
en Russie a pris la forme fédérale. Les six pays fondateurs de l’Union Européenne ont fait
leurs premiers pas vers une structure économique au milieu du siècle. En comparaison avec
l’Union Européenne dont on disait qu’elle avait évolué vers une entité confédérale avec des
éléments de fédéralisme et des institutions fédérales (ex. Banque Centrale, une monnaie
commune, etc.), la Russie était à ce moment-là considérée comme une ‘quasi-fédération’
compte tenu de son système politique centralisé. Quant à l’Union Européenne, il y a eu
plusieurs tentatives d’union politique qui ont échoué, comment nous l’avons vu au cours de
cette étude.
Vers la fin du 20ème siècle et le début du 21ème siècle, l’Union Européenne a tenté à nouveau
d’introduire plus de principes démocratiques dont quelques-uns des principes du fédéralisme
afin de créer un cadre décisionnel plus démocratique au niveau supranationale. Elle a mis en
place une Convention Constitutionnelle dont les travaux se sont finalisés par l’adoption du
‘Traité établissant une Constitution pour l’Europe’ en 2004 rejeté par la France et les Pays
Bas par référendum en 2005. Suite à une période de réflexion et de dialogue, l’Union
Européenne s’est mise d’accord sur un Traité Réformé (2007) qui a est entré en vigueur le 1er
décembre 2009.
La Russie, quant à elle, a construit son cadre institutionnel fédéral à partir du ‘quasifédéralisme’ hérité du régime soviétique et en dépit des problèmes structurels hérités de la
chute du communisme. La Russie a adopté une nouvelle Constitution postcommuniste en
1993 et a commencé à chercher, par des réformes institutionnelles fédérales, sa propre forme
de fédéralisme adapté à ses caractéristiques.
Les trois entités sur lesquelles s’est concentrée cette analyse se sont formées d’une manière
différente et dans des périodes historiques différentes. Elles ont toutes en commun d’avoir
dans leur architecture institutionnelle le fédéralisme. Nous avons essayé de montrer que le
fédéralisme tient sa complexité de ses multiples définitions et de sa flexibilité lorsque ce
modèle est implémenté. Ce travail a notamment montré que les Etats-Unis, l’Union
50
Européenne et la Fédération Russe ou encore l’Allemagne, l’Australie, la Belgique, le Canada
peuvent définir des types diverses de fédéralisme. En général, on peut distinguer entre un
fédéralisme symétrique (ex. les Etats-Unis) et un fédéralisme asymétrique (ex. l’Union
Européenne et la Russie). Cette étude a également montré que le fédéralisme des Etats-Unis
comporte aussi de l’asymétrie. D’autres formes de fédéralisme tels que le fédéralisme dual
(ex. les Etats-Unis), le fédéralisme exécutif (ex. le Canada), le fédéralisme coopératif (ex.
l’Allemagne, la Suisse), le fédéralisme territorial-législatif (ex. la Belgique).
L’Union Européenne qui essaie de trouver sa propre formule de fédéralisme emprunte
des éléments aux divers systèmes politiques fédéraux. C’est pourquoi dans cette étude nous
avons commencé l’analyse de l’Union Européenne à partir du fédéralisme exécutif et
intergouvernemental pour nous diriger vers les raisons pour lesquelles des spécialistes
considèrent l’utilisation du terme ‘intergouvernemental’ comme erroné pour qualifier l’Union
Européenne.
Ce travail a montré que le fédéralisme est une notion complexe de science politique qui peut
exister dans des régimes politiques différents, dans des monarchies (ex. la Belgique), aussi
que dans des républiques (ex. l’Afrique du Sud, l’Allemagne, etc.); et dans des systèmes
politiques différents, dans des systèmes présidentielles limités (ex. les Etats-Unis), aussi que
dans des systèmes politiques parlementaires (ex. l’Australie, le Canada, etc.).
En plus, ce travail a montré que le fédéralisme est une notion complexe de science politique
qui peut exister par ses principes fondamentaux (ex. le principe de participation des Etats et
des citoyens dans la prise de décision au niveau fédéral; le principe d’autonomie
(constitutionnelle) de chaque niveau de gouvernement de prendre des décisions dans les
domaines politiques attribués par le document commun, d’habitude une constitution; le
principe de subsidiarité) dans le cadre institutionnel des fédérations (ex. l’Australie, la
Belgique, le Canada, etc.), ainsi que dans des cadres institutionnels qui ne constituent pas une
fédération (ex. l’Union Européenne).
En conclusion, chaque entité qui regarde vers le fédéralisme comme vers un outil pour un bon
management de son large territoire et sa population large et diverse essaie d’adapter le
fédéralisme à ses propres spécificités et à ses propres problèmes qui nécessitent de trouver
une solution positive. Le fédéralisme se montre comme une notion complexe de science
politique qui peut prendre des formes diverses quand il est implémenté en pratique autant que
son set des principes de bases sont respectés et identifiés dans le cadre institutionnel d’une
entité.
A la fin, ‘…quatre observations s'imposent : 1 Il n'y a pas un idéal-type de
fédéralisme; 2 des structures fondées sur ces principes [les principes fondamentaux du
fédéralisme] ne forment pas un ordre hiérarchique à l'exemple de l'Etat centralisé; 3 la
formation d'une fédération non seulement ne présuppose pas une table rase des institutions
préexistantes mais elle se fonde sur la réalité des cultures politiques et des institutions et
procède à la redistribution des responsabilités et des pouvoirs selon la capacité des unités
constituantes ; 4 la méthode fédéraliste est ouverte sur l'avenir : elle répond aux conditions du
processus d'intégration et présente un atout remarquable face à la nouvelle révolution
technologique et sociale’ (Prof. Dusan Sidjanski, 2001b:5).
51
REFERENCES
—, A Fading Czar, (The Wall Street Journal Europe’s) Central European Economic Review,
vol. VII, no.5, p.8.
Althusius, Johannes. Politica, Frederick S. Carney (ed. and transl.). Indianapolis: Liberty
Fund, 1995, on http://oll.libertyfund.org.
—, Action Plan to Improve Communicating Europe by the Commission, on
http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/communication/pdf/communication_com_en.pdf
Avtonomov, Alexei S. “Problèmes frontaliers, aspirations régionales et réalisme dans la
Fédération russe”, Forum des Fédérations, Numéro spécial triple, 2002, pp. 15 – 16.
Badovsky, Dimitry. ‘The system of federal districts and the institute of PolPredy of the
Russian Federation President: the present state and development problems’ in Federalism in
Russia, Khakimov, Rafael (ed.), Kazan: Institute of History of Tatarstan Academy of Sciences
Kazan Institute of Federalism, 2002, pp.74-81.
Barthalay, Bernard. Le Fédéralisme. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. 1981.
Bermeo, Nancy. Position Paper for the Working Group on Federalism, Conflict Prevention
and Settlement, for the 3rd International Conference on Federalism, Brussels, 3-5 March 2005,
on www.federalism2005.be
Berstein, Serge and Milza, Pierre. Istoria Europei. Iasi: Institutul European, 1998, vol. I, II,
III, IV, 2nd edition.
Bjorkman, Tom. Russia’s Road to Deeper Democracy. Washington: The Brookings
Institution, 2003.
Bodin,
Jean.
The
Six
Books
of
the
Commonwealth
on
http://www.constitution.org/bodin/bodin.txt.
Bosco, Andrea (ed.). The Federal Idea. London: Lothian Foundation Press, 1991, vol. I & II.
Burgess, Michael and Gagnon, Alain-G. Comparative Federalism and Federation.
Hertfordshire: Harverster Wheatsheaf, 1993.
Busygina, Irina M. Federalism and Administrative Reform under President Putin in the
Context of Democratic Transition in Russia. Chair Interbrew – Baillet Latour Working
Papers, KUL-UCL, 2002.
Caravita, Beniamino. “Italy: toward a federal state?”, Forum of Federations, Special Triple
Issue, 2002, pp. 25 – 26.
Croisat, Maurice. Le Fédéralisme dans les démocraties contemporaines. Paris cedex:
Montchrestien, 1999, 3rd edition.
Croisat, Maurice and Quermonne, Jean-Louis. L’Europe et le fédéralisme. Paris:
Montchrestien, 1996.
Daffern, Thomas Clough. ‘Towards the Semantic History of the Federal Idea’, The Federal
Idea, Andrea Bosco (ed.), London: Lothian Foundation Press, 1991, chapter V.
Dahl, Robert A. Despre DemocraŃie. Iasi: Institutul European, 2003.
De Tocqueville, Alexis. Despre democraŃie in America. Bucureşti: Humanitas, 2005, vol. I &
II.
Delors, Jacques. Mémoires. Paris Cedex: Plon, 2004.
Delpérée, Francis. Le fédéralisme en Europe. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2000.
Dostoievski, F.M. Scrieri politice – Evenimente internationale. Iaşi: Polirom, 1998.
52
—, Draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, Council of the European Union, July
2004, vol. I & II.
—,
EU
Council
Secretariat
–
Factsheet,
on
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/en/misc/92363.pdf.
Finley, Moses. Democracy Ancient and Modern. London: Hogarth, 1985.
Fleiner, Thomas and Basta-Fleiner Lidija R. ‘Federalism, Federal States and
Decentralization’, Federalism and Multiethnic States – The Case of Switzerland, Basta
Fleiner, Lidija R. & Fleiner, Thomas (eds.) – 2nd edition, Bäle, Genève, Munich: Helbing et
Lichtenhahn, 2000, pp. 1-40.
—, “Future of the EU: Subsidiarity”, Euractiv, 26 September 2002,
http://www.euractiv.com/en/constitution/future-eu-subsidiarity/article-117271.
Giraud, Jean-Guy. ‘Miracle à Philadelphie’, Revue du Marché commun et de l’Union
Européenne, no. 453, December 2001, pp. 655-659.
Gordon, Hahn M. ‘The Impact of Putin’s Federative Reforms on Democratization in Russia’,
Post-Soviet Affairs, 19, 2, 2003, pp. 114-153.
Hicks, Ursula K. Federalism: Failure and Success. London, The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1978,
addendum.
Hosking, Geoffrey. Rusia- popor şi imperiu 1552-1917. Iaşi: Polirom, 2001.
Hrbek, Rudolf. ‘Germnay (Federal Republic of Germany)’, Handbook of Federal Countries,
2005, Ann L. Griffiths (ed.), Montreal & Kingston, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005,
pp.150-164.
Kahn, Jeffrey, Federalism, Democratization, and the Rule of Law in Russia. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2002.
Kapustina, Larisa. ‘Evolution of relations between center and the regions and scenarios for
federal development’ in Federalism in Russia, Kakimov, Raffael (ed.), Kazan: Institute of
History, Tatarstan Academy of Sciences, Kazan Institute of Federalism, 2002, pp.66-74.
Kivisto, Peter. Multiculturalism in a Global Society. Oxford/Malden: Blackwell Publishing,
2002.
Kolstø, Pål. ‘Territorial Autonomy as a Minority Rights Regime in Post-Communist
Societies’, in the Syllabus for CEU Summer University Course, 2002.
Kondratieva, Tamara. Vechea Rusie. Bucuresti: Corint, 2000.
Jack, Andrew. Rusia lui Putin – Toamna Oligarhilor. Bucuresti: Bic All, 2006.
Jacqué, Jean-Paul. ‘Back to Philadelphia’, Revue du Marché commun et de l’Union
Européenne, no. 463, December 2002, pp. 661-669.
Jenkins, Philip. O Istorie a Statelor Unite, Bucuresti. Ed. Artemis, 2002.
—,
“Laeken
Declaration”,
15
December
2001,
http://europa.eu.int/constitution/futurum/documents/offtext/doc151201_en.htm
Lakatos, Artur. ‘Federation Projects in Central Europe in the Period 1848-1914’, The
Federalist Debate, no.1, Feb.2007, pp. 13-17.
Lecours, André. ‘Kingdom of Belgium’, Handbook of Federal Countries 2005, Ann L.
Griffiths (ed.), Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005, pp.59-72.
Levi, L. and Montani, G. and Rossolillo, F. Three Introductions to Federalism. Ventotene:
The Altiero Spinelli Institute for Federalist Studies, 1989. The collection on ‘The Ventotene
Papers’.
Lorot, Pascal. Perestroika. Bucureşti: Corint, 2002.
Maffre, Jean-Jacques. Secolul lui Pericle. Bucuresti: Corint, 2004.
Masclet, Jean-Claude. L’union politique de l’Europe. Paris: Presses Universitaire de France,
1973.
McGarry, John. Asymmetrical Federalism and the Plurinational State, Working draft paper
for the 3rd International Conference on Federalism, Brussels, 3-5 March 2005, on
www.federalism2005.be
Montanelli, Indro. Istoria Grecilor. Bucuresti: Artemis, 1994.
53
Montchamp, Joseph. ‘The Sad and True Story of Tom Paine’, Federalist Debate, no.1, March
2005, pp.17-19.
Muscã, Vasile. Filosofia in cetate Cluj: Biblioteca Apostrof, 1999.
Paine, Thomas. Common Sense, on http://publicliterature.org/pdf/comsn10a.pdf, released on
February 2003.
—, Plan – D: COM(2005) 494 final, 13 October 2005.
—, Public Opinion Analysis – Standard Eurobarometer 70/ December 2008 on
http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/eb/eb70/eb70_en.htm
Rey, Michel and Schuler, Martin. “Un fédéralisme à sept au lieu d’un fédéralisme à vingtsix?”, Le Temps, 9.08.2001.
Rock, Charles & Solodkov, Vasily. ‘Heavy Burdens’ in Financial Times Supplement – The
Banker Supplement: Rebirth of the Russian Debt Markets – New Era of Growth and
Transparency, March 2002, pp. 21-22.
Sakwa, Richard. Russian Politics and Society. London: Routledge, 2002.
Schram, Sanford F. “United States of America”, Handbook of Federal Countries 2005, Ann
L. Griffiths (ed.), Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005, pp. 373-389.
Schmitt, Nicolas. “The Foreign Relations of Swiss Cantons: Within the Frame of the New
1999 Swiss Constitutions”, in Federalism and Multiethnic States – The Case of Switzerland,
Basta Fleiner, Lidija R. & Fleiner, Thomas (eds.) – 2nd edition, Bäle, Genève, Munich:
Helbing et Lichtenhahn, 2000, pp. 165-213.
Schmitt, Nicolas. Petit apperçu comparatif du fédéralisme en Suisse, en Allemagne et aux
Etats-Unis’. Nice: Presses d’Europe, Cahiers du Collège Universitaire d’Etudes fédéralistes,
no.1, 1999.
Sidjanski, Dusan. The Federal Future of Europe. Michigan: Michigan University Press, 2000.
Sidjanski, Dusan. The Federal Approach to the European Union or The Quest for an
Unprecedented European Federalism”. Paris: Notre Europe, 2001.
Sidjanski, Dusan. L'approche fédérative de l’Union Européenne ou la quête d’un fédéralisme
européen inedit, Etudes et Recherches n° 14, Juillet 2001 (b), on http://www.notreeurope.eu/uploads/tx_publication/Etud14-fr.pdf
Sidjanski, Dusan. ‘Postscript’ in What Would a Federal Europe Look Like? – En envisioning exercise
for the young generation, Neculai, Florina-Laura, Mechelen: Mechelse Drukkerijen, 2005, on
www.uef.be/neculai_en
—, Special Eurobarometer 299 – The 2009 European elections, September 2008, on
http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_299_en.pdf
Spinelli, Altiero and Rossi, Enesto. Le Manifeste de Ventotene. Ventotene: Institut d’Etudes
Fédéralistes Altiero Spinelli, 1988, collection on ‘Les Cahiers de Ventotene’.
Stauffer, Thomas and Töpperwien, Nicole. “Balancing Self-rule and Shared Rule”, in Federalism and
Multiethnic States – The Case of Switzerland, Basta Fleiner, Lidija R. & Fleiner, Thomas (eds.) – 2nd
edition, Bäle, Genève, Munich: Helbing et Lichtenhahn, 2000, pp. 41-75.
Sturm, Roland. ‘Austria (Federal Republic of Austria)’, in Ann L. Griffiths (ed.), Handbook of
Federal Countries, 2005, Montreal & Kingston, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005, pp.46-57.
Swift, John. Petru cel Mare. Bucureşti: Bic All, 2003.
Treaty of Amsterdam – Protocol on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and
proportionality,
on
http://www.europa.eu.int/eurlex/lex/en/treaties/dat/11997D/htm/11997D.html#0105010010
Trumellini, Luisa. ‘Putin’s Russia’, The Federalist, no.3, year XLIV, 2004, pp. 140-170.
—,
The
Articles
of
the
Confederation
and
Perpetual
Union
1777,
on
http://www.ushistory.org/documents/confederation.htm
—, The Federalist Letters, on http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/FEDERAL/frame.html
—,
Federalist
Letter
to
the
European
http://www.federalunion.org.uk/europe/fedletter/fl_1.shtml#
Constitutional
Convention,
on
—, The Constitution of the United States and The Declaration of Independence, Washington D.C.
Commission on the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution
54
—,
The
Swiss
Federal
Pact
of
1291,
on
http://www.lexilogos.com/declaration/suisse_pacte_tableau.htm.
—,
United
States
Declaration
of
Independence,
on
http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/index.htm
Vernant, Jean-Pierre. Originile gindirii grecesti, Ed. Symposion: 1995.
Verney, Douglas V. ‘Federalism, Federative Systems, and Federations: The United States, Canada,
and India’, Publius, vol.25, no.2, Spring 1995, pp.81-99.
Vianu, Alexandru. Lincoln. Bucuresti, Ed. Enciclopedica Româna, 1973.
Ziegler, Gudrun. Secretele Romanovilor-Istoria si mostenirea Tarilor Rusi, Bucuresti: Saeculum I.O.,
2000.
Warnes, David. Cronica Tarilor Ruşi – Prezentarea Conducatorilor Rusiei Imperiale Domnie dupa
Domnie. Ed. M.A.S.T., 2001.
Watts, Ronald. Comparing Federal Systems. Montreal & Kingston London Ithaca: McGill-Queen’s
University Press, 2nd edition, 1999.
Werth, Nicolas. Istoria Uniunii Sovietice de la Lenin la Stalin. Bucureşti: Corint, 2004.
Werth, Nicolas. Istoria Uniunii Sovietice de la Hruşciov la Gorbaciov. Bucureşti: Corint, 2004.
Wheare, K.C. Federalism, on http://www.federalunion.org.uk/archives/wheare.shtml
—, White Paper: COM(2006) 35 final, 1 February 2006.
Wilson, Garry N. ‘Russia (Russian Federation)’, Handbook of Federal Countries, 2005, Ann L.
Griffiths (ed.), Montreal & Kingston, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005, pp. 259-279.
Websites:
European Commission www.europa.eu
European Parliament www.europarl.europa.eu
European Economic and Social Committee www.eesc.europa.eu
Committee of the Regions www.cor.europa.eu
Council of the European Union www.concilium.europa.eu
55