Distribution of Power

Hello and welcome to the second video lecture of model two, Federalism and

Decentralization, Evaluating Africa's Track Record.

Now this model covers three core ideas in federalism.

Video lecture one was about self-rule and shared-rule.

There are some things the center does.

There are some things the regions do, and yet

other things where the two have to cooperate.

All this is based on a constitutional and

political arrangement with their powers divided and shared between central,

regional, and indeed, local levels of government.

And this is the topic of this video lecture,

and that is the distribution of power.

The who-does-what, in other words.

Everybody does something different in a federal system.

That is because power is distributed across orders of government.

In older established federations with longer histories,

this is becoming an indispensable part of daily politics for the citizens.

For example, in Canada, a citizen inhabiting,

say, the city of Montreal in the French speaking province of Quebec,

deals with both orders of government depending on the issue area.

He or she would have to go into a federal government office in Montreal

where a red Canadian maple flag flutters, to renew his or

her passport and deal with federal bureaucrats in English.

After all, one is a Canadian citizen, the issue is national politics and

the Province of Quebec is part of Canada.

But when the same person has to register a change in civil status, this time, he or

she, has to walk down to another building in the same city.

But one this time has a Quebec blue fleur-de-lis flag and

deal with provincial bureaucrats in French.

All this is because power is distributed among orders of government.

If the same citizen were to move to the city of Toronto, in the neighboring

English speaking province of Ontario, he or she would still have to go to a federal

government office in Toronto, in order to renew their passport.

But for civil registry, this time, they would have to go in to a provincial

government office, of the province of Ontario,

and deal with the provincial bureaucrats, this time in English.

For those of you who are either from federal countries or for those who have

indeed lived in federal countries, this state of affairs appears quite natural.

But for those of you from unitary countries, the different jurisdictions of

different orders of government might initially appear a little confusing.

What might perhaps help is to think of cops and robbers Hollywood films.

I'm sure you could remember scenes from films where the robbers

drive across state boundaries in order to evade state police.

Or when nationwide search warrants bring in the FBI,

that is the Federal Bureau of Investigation,

and then interfere with the work of local cops, and so on and so forth.

This goes on, but this is also federalism.

The distribution of power across jurisdictions

is indeed a daily reality for citizens and governments in the federal systems.

Now, what we want to do now is unpack what we mean by political power, and

indeed the distribution of political power a little more.

You'll remember from the overview of module one, the mention of Trias politica

of executive, legislative, and judiciary branches of governments.

We have talked about how federalism territorially does

what Trias politica does at the center.

And that is, it divides political power in order to

prevent the unaccountable concentration of power.

But instead of separating power between three branches, federalism does this

territorially through dividing power between the center and the regions.

Trias politica is yet

again a central part of the picture when we discuss the distribution of power.

Executive, legislative, and judicial powers are these very powers and

their distribution across orders of government is an indispensable part of

federalism and to a lesser extent of decentralization.

In terms of legislative power, federalism creates two orders

of government with different legislative policy areas in which they are autonomous.

The list of different competences is constitutionally entrenched.

That is, it cannot be changed by ordering legislation.

In some policy areas, the constitution tells the central government and

regional governments to share legislative power.

But as you'll recall from the previous video lecture,

sometimes our policy areas and the expectations from our governments have

multiplied in the course of the 20th Century.

So this means we have new policy ares that Jefferson,

Hamilton, Madison could not have imagined in the 18th Century.

So not everything could be exhaustively tallied in constitutions.

What then happens is constitutional courts get to interpret

the spirit of the constitution in order to decide who does what.

Sometimes collaborative practices have already emerged through custom,

underscored by practice and legal precedence.

It is important to note that the logistic of distribution of responsibilities,

put simply, who lays the law that is the most visible reflection of federalism.

Who implements the legislation brings us to the second branch of governance, and

that is the executive.

The executive power is about carrying out or overseeing the implementation of

legislation and other government responsibilities.

Bureaucrats either administer these policies, or

they supervise private and semi public institutions who do.

While the legislative element was most visible for

federalism, this administrative element is most visible for decentralization.

In the previous video lecture,

we had seen how some regions especially those with distinct history, ethnicity,

or language tended to demand, have and exercise more autonomy.

You'll also recall that we have discussed how federalism could carry with

it negative connotations, creating fears of disillusion.

As a result, in some countries, an explicitly federal solution might

not be a viable one due to potential reactions and opposition.

At the same time, ethnolinguistically distinct regional communities

might strongly be attached to the idea of gaining self-rule.

So decentralization then becomes an indirect way to empower such regions,

but without the output appearance of federalism and

the pre-requisite constitutional changes.

Local government might not come with the full comprehensive legislative autonomy,

but control over administration can satisfy some desire for self-rule.

And sometimes pragmatic concerns in federations,

also lead to decentralization becoming a tool for providing self-rule,

especially when the numbers and the territorial concentration is not there.

And Ethiopia is a great example of this.

We will of course, look at the country's politics in more detail later on.

But let me give you a very quick indication of what this means in

a concrete context.

One of the Ethiopian regional states is called a Southern Nations,

Nationalities and Peoples' Regional State.

There are some 56 ethnic groups inhabiting

this particularly diverse regional state in the south of the country.

And not all of them live in geographically compact,

neatly demarcated economically viable sub-regions.

They live side by side, unevenly divided across multi-ethnic

regional state, creating new regional states in a homogenous way,

from this geographic and demographic patchwork is not possible, but

communities still demand real and symbolic self-rule.

Local government then becomes the venue to answer these demands.

So, in the southern nations, nationalities and people's regional states,

what we then have is ethnic districts of local government,

where communities get to exercise no matter how limited a degree of self-rule.

And this is matters of administration.

Now, who has the legal oversight over these policy areas,

is for the third branch of governance, and that is the judiciary.

Quite often who does what, is not very clear and

needs involvement of constitutional courts or Supreme Courts.

Not only are the disputes between the center and the regions important, but also

between regional states themselves, spill over effects and national priorities.

In most federal systems, and

in all decentralized systems, judiciary is nationwide.

But even when separated into regional and central courts, the judges and prosecutors

often move between the levels of government, thereby ensuring a nationwide

consistency in the implementation and the interpretation of law.

The key to understanding federalism and

decentralization is that everyone does something else.

And the who-does-what is the key to understanding these twin concepts.

Constitutions, legal systems, public policies, and trials political all matter.

But we should resist the temptation to reduce federalism and

decentralization into a technical issue.

What we should remember is that people matter before anything, and

that is precisely what we'll be looking at in the next video lecture.

So, I'll see you then.

Thanks.

Federalism & Decentralization: Evaluating Africa's Track Record

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