Overview - Foundational Issues - Core Ideas in Federalism and Decentralization

Welcome to the final video lecture of module two devoted to examining the core

ideas in federalism and decentralization.

I hope, by now, you're slowly gaining a sense

of the twin concepts of federalism and decentralization.

I think in this overview,

it is important to highlight a couple of the big foundational questions.

One of the reasons why the 1990s witnessed federal and decentralization

reform throughout sub-Saharan Africa was partly due to the simplified

understanding of both concepts, and the accompanying inflated promises.

Both were concepts simplified into easy sound bites and

the accompanying complexity was erased out of the picture.

Not surprisingly, the promise of 20 years ago now give way to disappointment.

This will be a topic that we will examine in depth in the concluding module six.

However, at this point, it is important to highlight one thing that might have

been obvious to some of you who have prior knowledge of some of the political science

and development economics, literature on federalism and decentralization.

For those who are only now becoming acquainted with the twin concepts and

an explanatory note here might be warranted.

Our course follows an interdisciplinary approach and

seeks a holistic understanding of both federalism and decentralization.

The disciplines of constitutional law, electoral politics, political philosophy,

public administration, comparative politics are all put to use.

We look at the broader political, social, economic, cultural, historical,

demographic and geographical context in order to understand what is going on.

Ours is not a quest for a simplified understanding.

If we were to stick only to explicitly federal issues and

ignore background factors to all the broader context,

we will get a somewhat distorted picture of federalism.

But the promises and pitfalls have reasons beyond federalism in a strict sense.

But differently,

federalism is too important to have its significance exaggerated.

If you're expecting simplified sound bites, instant fixes, quick solutions, and

magic formulas, well then this is not your course.

Had there been easy answers in the world, we would have already found them.

The second foundational issue I want to address in this overview is the need to

see both federalism and decentralization as more than technical matters, and

the need to adopt a bigger perspective of democratic politics.

This means the need to reign in our majoritarian impulses

when evaluating federalism and decentralization.

In video lecture three, we talked about how political disagreement was

an indispensable part of democratic politics, and

to expect everything to be defined by consensus

could inadvertently lead to the oppressive weight of majority prejudice.

In his book on Liberty, published in 1859, the English philosopher, John Stuart Mill,

wrote on how a potential for the tyranny of majority exists in democracies,

and how important it was for the minority

to be protected against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling.

Sure, working together in consensus sounds like the best way forward, so what

could be wrong with shared jurisdiction between regions and the center?

And doing things together for national priorities, but if you are the little guy

working together with a BMF, that might not sound that good, or

if you're the little guy but have to work with a bunch of little

guys who don't like you, then life could become pretty miserable.

The central government is bigger, richer and

it can easily turn the majority view against the so-called dissenters,

trouble makers, separatists who don't tow the line.

But in many ways, these dissenters, trouble makers and

separatists play a big role in consolidating federalism

by legitimizing democratically expressed dissent.

These are like Canada's Quebec, Belgium's Flanders, Spain's Catalonia and

Basque provinces.

These ethnolinguistically distinct regions set the parameters of autonomy for

other regions to follow over the years.

Once trailblazed by these distinct regions,

dissent becomes acceptable to other regions who might not have such distinct

historic, ethnic linguistic roots.

The experience then shows that disagreement need

not automatically mean civil war.

Over time,

the acceptance that multiple points of view exist in itself is a success.

This then showcases federalism's ability to manage ethnolinguistic divisions.

And this is an important point on the line.

Federalism is not about solving divisions, and

please be suspicious of those who peddle final solutions to problems.

Federalism is about managing divisions, and

by legitimizing minority views, dissent and disagreement.

Federalism is about the management of political divisions.

It is about dividing political power in order to prevent

its unaccountable concentration.

And it is about the non-majoritarian protection of minorities.

And all this is done through corporate representation

that coexists with individual representation.

For many of you,

the contemporary use corporate is often a reference to economic corporations.

Now this is not what I mean by corporate representation.

The word corporate comes from the Latin corpus meaning body.

And corporate representation means that collective groups.

Regional and local governments, in this case, have representation.

It is a non-majoritarian democratic system based on orders of government and

not a simple one citizen, one vote system.

I believe most of you are somewhat familiar with American politics and

their presidential system.

Now this might be an opportunity to unpack what I mean here.

The United States of America is a federation composed of 50 regional states.

When Americans vote for their President, that is not an election that unites

the entire country in a one citizen, one vote unity.

Instead, Americans vote in the states they inhabit for

an electoral college who then votes for the president.

The electoral college votes are tallied by adding the number of House seats with

the Senate seats.

Each American state has two senators based on the federal principle of equality, but

America is also a country of 50 states, so there is also a need for a one citizen,

one vote representation to accompany the regional state's corporate representation.

House of Representative seats are designed to this end, that is, designed to

represent American citizens regardless of which regional state they inhabit.

Wyoming is the smallest state in population so

it has only one House seat, but of course, as a regional state, it has two senators.

Adding these together gives you the number of electoral college votes.

So Wyoming has three.

California, on the other hand, has the largest population, so

it has 53 House seats.

It automatically gets those two senators, so it has 55 electoral college votes.

Americans do not vote for their President, they vote for

an electoral college of their regional state who then votes for the President.

This might not appear ideal to some of you and

might violate our majoritarian impulses.

But it is worth reflecting on how Americans have avoided a tyranny of

majority by providing corporate representation and thereby preventing

the 50% plus one imposing their will on the 49%.

In this final overview of module two, we had a chance to revisit some of

the foundational issues that did not come out during the previous lectures.

One of the key issues here is to avoid seeing federalism and

decentralization as merely technical issues, and

the need to adopt an interdisciplinary broad framework.

The second foundational issue that we revisited in this overview is the need to

see both federalism and decentralization as part of democratic politics in general.

And, that is the need to combine tolerance for dissent, disagreement, and

multiplicity of views.

Now having covered those two foundational issues,

I think we're ready to start module three.

Overview - Foundational Issues

Federalism & Decentralization: Evaluating Africa's Track Record

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