The difference between half and full cantons is explained in greater detail in the next chapter; the relatively recent formation of the Swiss Jura canton is discussed in Chapter 7.
When it emerged as a buffer state between France, Prussia and the Netherlands, Belgium tried to copy the state-nation efforts of its southern neighbour France. The French-speaking elite sought to create an ‘indivisible nation’ inspired by some of the French republican ideals. Like France, the Spanish state emerged relatively early, and in its initial format accepted some of the peculiarities of the minority nations (Catalonia, the Basque regions).
The coming together of Castilia and Aragon is at the root of the Spanish state-building process. However, nineteenth-century nation building subjected these minority nations to the homogenizing efforts of the Castilian-speaking political and military elite. Finally, Britain emerged as a union between three nations, in which England nonetheless dominated. For long, Scotland and Wales were allowed some form of special recognition. It was not until nationalism reached its peak in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that the Scottish and Welsh felt the pressure of a nation-building process in which England dominated the union.
Second, taking a look at more recent history why did attempts to create homogeneous state-nations succeed in some states (France) but fail in others (Belgium, Spain)? Or, put differently, why did Belgium, Spain and the UK survive as unitary states for that long, and what triggered their recent trans- formation into federal or regionalized states? In part, the federal or regional- ized character of these states reflects failed efforts of homogeneous state-nation building that were inspired by the French model. Yet, each of these countries only adopted a federal or regionalized character after World War II, mostly even after 1975. In this sense, their regionalization coincides with the erosion of traditional state boundaries which results from increas- ing transnational economic cooperation. Furthermore, the spread of mass communication has facilitated the promotion of local as well as world languages.
Belgium was originally conceived as a French-speaking unitary state. Such a state structure was imposed upon a predominantly Flemish-speaking population. The democratization of Belgium, as well as the shift of the economic centre from Wallonia to Flanders, set the stage for Belgium’s slow transformation from a unitary state into a complex federal one, with three language communities and three regions. In Spain, the political and admin- istrative core did not coincide with the centres of economic gravity. The latter often displayed regional languages and could invoke some historical rights of self-autonomy. These regionalist forces were strong enough to survive more than a century of administrative centralization and authoritarianism.
When Spain democratized, the historic regions regained a degree of self- autonomy which has increased and spilled over to other regions since.
Finally, the UK operated as a union state in which Wales and particularly Scotland and (Northern) Ireland always found some form of territorial recog- nition. The secession of Ireland dealt a blow to the Scottish nationalists who sought home rule for their territory as well. Home rule to Scotland and Wales
was not granted until 1997, when a central Labour government came to real- ize that devolution was needed to sustain its future electoral performance in both regions. By then, vast majorities of the Scottish and Welsh electorates had displayed widespread discontent with almost two decades of British con- servative neo-liberal policies. Granting devolution was a means to channel that discontent and to prevent some of the ethno-regionalist parties from running away with it.
Finally, does the contemporary shape of most regions have a long-standing legacy? Only the Swiss cantons, some Spanish regions (Catalonia, the Basque Country and Galicia, but also for instance Andalucia), several, but not all of the Austrian regions, England, Wales, Scotland and a few of the contemporary German regions have a long-standing history as political entities. Flanders had existed as a powerful West European region, but its historical bound- aries changed, whereas Wallonia is a more recent political construction. The same observation applies to some of the non-historical Spanish regions.
Their boundaries were often imposed from above when first seeking to decentralize or deconcentrate some central administrative services. Often they were elevated to regional status as part of a more ambitious devolution scheme. Yet, once these regional structures are in place, they often develop regional allegiances of their own. Regional identities are malleable, just as state-wide identities. Newly emergent regional political classes and opinion leaders can play an important role in this process (see Chapter 7).
3
The Centre and the Regions: the Constitutional Approach
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1. Introduction
In the introductory chapter federations were identified as states with a written constitution which specifies the legislative and executive authority of the federal and regional orders of government. Constitutional provisions ensure that the interests of the regions are not overlooked when rules dividing competence are changed. Federations also have mechanisms to resolve disputes on the allocation of federal or regional competences. Thus, federal constitutions specify how competencies are distributed, amended and adjudicated. This chapter seeks to illustrate the huge variation in these characteristics which our country cases display.
In the first part of the chapter, I elaborate on the distinction between dual and organic federalism. Although presented as two distinct categories, I will argue that dual and organic federalism should be seen as two outliers on a continuum. I will operationalize this continuum by considering to what extent the constitutional method of distributing legislative and executive compe- tencies‘programmes’ the centre and the regions to cooperation or maximizes their independence. The more that distribution builds in a need to cooper- ate, the more a federation tends towards the organic end of that continuum and vice versa.
In the second part of the chapter, I touch upon a different constitutional aspect of federalism, namely, the notion of constitutional asymmetry.
Constitutional asymmetry arises when not all the regions of a federation or a regionalized state receive identical sets of legislative, executive or fiscal powers and where these different ‘statuses’ of autonomy find explicit consti- tutional recognition. Belgium, Spain and the UK feature such elements of asymmetry.
The final part of the chapter considers the ‘flexibility’ of federal or decen- tralized arrangements. Changing the sections of a constitution that deal with the distribution of central and/or regional powers can be the fruit of two distinct processes. Either the constitution is amended formally. Usually
such changes occur on the initiative of the central legislature, but they may require the consent of a wider group of actors. Or, the distribution of central- regional competencies changes as the result of judicial review by a constitu- tional court or supreme court. This raises two main questions which will be dealt with in turn. First, which has been the most important method for explaining changes in the distribution of competencies between the centre and the regions? Second, if such changes are the fruit of formal constitu- tional change, is there any (formal) input of the regions in this process?
Alternatively, if de facto constitutional change is mainly the product of judicial review, what has been the input of the regions in determining the composition of the court that decides on such issues and has the court’s jurisprudence strengthened or weakened the role of the regions in the political process?