Federal Governance 2019, 15(02): pp. 33-35. 33 Relevance of the Federal Idea: A Forum of Federations Perspective Rupak Chattopadhyay1 Rupak Chattopadhyay is the President and CEO of the Forum of Federations whose mission is to strengthen inclusive and responsive governance in federal, decentralized and transitioning countries. The Forum of Federations is the sponsor of this journal. When the decision to establish the Forum of in all of these countries what matters is that Federations was made in 1999, founder Canada had constitutional arrangements have certain clearly just survived a major existential crisis. In 1995, the identifiable features. second referendum on Quebec independence Current Context almost lead to the breakup of the country. Therefore, the contribution that federalism (or more accurately, The last twenty years have coincided with a the federal idea or federal spirit) can make to national resurgence of the federal idea mainly due to the unity and democratic consolidation has been at the revolutions in the politics of identity and human heart of the organization’s work since its founding. I rights, the impact of the technological revolution, and prefer the term federal idea rather than federalism the socio-economic changes we associate with because there is no one correct way to be federal. globalization. More countries are either looking at Each federation is unique; a product of its own social federalism or borrowing from the federalism toolkit to and historical realities. Some federations have restructure the state – such as Iraq, Kenya, parliamentary systems (Belgium), others are Myanmar, Nepal, Spain, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and presidential (Brazil), some are large (India), others the UK. In all of these cases federalization (or some small (Switzerland), some are ethnically diverse version of it) is possibly the only way to preserve (Ethiopia), others are not (Austria), some have voting national unity. But beyond the complete systems based on majoritarian first-past-the-post federalization of unitary states, three other trends in system (Canada), others have proportional particular stand out. All of these have had significant representation (Germany). And indeed, the impact in shaping the current work of the Forum of constitutions of some countries don’t use the word Federations. The first trend has to do with cities, or federal at all – Spain, South Africa – even though more precisely the rise of metropolitan regions as these countries exhibit strong federal features. Yet, significant players in the intergovernmental space; 1 Corresponding email: [email protected]. Federal Governance www.federalgovernance.ca © Chattopadhyay, 2019 ISSN 1923-6158 Federal Governance 2019, 16(01): pp.16-18 34 many older federations are grappling for ways to deal Responsive Programming with this. The second trend has to do with the Our approach is to curate existing knowledge on popularity of asymmetric arrangements as a way of federalism and multilevel government to meet the dealing with conflict – such as Aceh in Indonesia, needs of our stakeholders in four broad areas – Mindanao in the Philippines, and Kurdistan Regional Effective Governance, Promoting Peace and Government (KRG) in Iraq, Northern Stability, Pluralism and Gender Equity in Ireland/Scotland in the UK. The third trend has to do Governance. The Forum’s unique partnership model with a proliferation of ‘hourglass’ type devolutionary allows us to develop programs that respond to the models shaped by a strong centre/strong local needs of our governmental stakeholders globally. governments but weak regions. Examples are What does this mean for our programming in the next Morocco, South Africa, Kenya and Tunisia. An five years? First, one needs to make a distinction additional factor in recent times has been the between the existing federations and those that are emergence of supra-national bodies like the emerging. Second, one needs to make a distinction European Union or ASEAN which contribute an between structural and policy issues. additional layer to the governance of countries both federal and non-federal. While federalism is always work in progress, in most established federations issues around effective Therefore, while the Forum’s core area of governance are related to more responsive service specialization is federalism, Forum expertise is delivery. The Forum will therefore continue to work in increasingly sought across the range of multilevel areas such as joined-up service delivery, education, systems, including in decentralized and devolved and health policy. Given that many established countries. The transferable nature of experiences of federations in the global north and global south are federal governance practice provides a body of recipients of immigrants and refugees, developing knowledge which supports the development of better appropriate policy responses for immigrant multilevel government. Issues around the integration remains high on the priorities of our constitutional entrenchment of subnational stakeholders. In the more diverse federations, issues governments, coordination of intergovernmental around language policy remain significant. In relations and fiscal transfers that arise in non-federal federations endowed with significant natural devolved systems are all familiar to students and resources issues around ownership and rents practitioners of federalism. The Forum operates on continue to be of interest. the principle that federal and other decentralized and devolved forms of government can offer solutions to In structural terms, for established federations intractable governance challenges posed in and by (particularly in the north), the issue of how to diverse societies. By allowing varying degrees of integrate cities into their scheme of self-determination within a larger national whole, intergovernmental relations remains a challenge. multilevel systems provide stakeholders with a sense This is particularly important in the context of revenue of agency and control over their own lives while and expenditure assignments and needs at the maintaining the advantages of shared government subnational level. The second set of structural issues for common purposes. of concern to our partners is that of climate change adaptation and mitigation. This has implications not just for industrial regulation, but also for things like disaster management coordination, land use policy, Federal Governance www.federalgovernance.ca © Chattopadhyay, 2019 ISSN 1923-6158 Federal Governance 2019, 15(02): pp. 33-35. 35 riverine and ground water management. The third how multilevel systems open up political space for emerging theme that preoccupies a number of our women and to train women for leadership positions. partner countries concerns reconciliation with their The Forum’s programs in the coming years will aim aboriginal population – including, but not limited to, to fill knowledge gaps and contribute to developing issues such as constitutional recognition and sound conceptual understanding of the underlying bespoken service delivery for these populations. Of patterns and processes of federalism, course, the evergreen topic of fiscal federalism, decentralization, and multilevel governance and including coordinating development planning – policy making. Our approach as always will be equalization, tax policy, assignments, etc. – is the comparative, inter-disciplinary, and participatory, thread that binds structural and policy issues bringing together scholars and practitioners from together in our work across the established different world regions and sectors. democracies. An emerging area of research for the Forum is the link between gender and federalism. While federal models can provide opportunities for gender equality, they can also present challenges. In the emerging federal and federal-like systems, structural issues are likely to occupy the Forum’s energies. These include provision of expertise to help build institutions which contribute to stability and conflict resolution, capacity building support for specific ministries/subnational entities and helping raise public awareness about the options and implications of transitioning from a unitary system. But even in these transitional context issues such as educational, cultural and language rights, natural resource policy, security sector reforms (integration of insurgent forces, civilian oversight, subnational policing) are some sectoral areas of ongoing work for the Forum. Of particular interest in these emerging federations is the issue of how transitions are managed, including the reorganization of the public service from one that is centralized to one that meets the requirements of both central and state administrations. The other key issue that is of interest in ethnically diverse countries is understanding the processes and institutions for accommodating ‘minorities within minorities’ – i.e. the accommodation of subnational minorities. Further, within the context of both established and emerging federal systems, the Forum has launched initiatives to understand Federal Governance www.federalgovernance.ca © Chattopadhyay, 2019 ISSN 1923-6158 .