Sustainable Decentralization: Power, Extraconstitutional Influence and Subnational Symmetry in the United States and Spain

Abstract

In the Madisonian tradition of constitutional design, the foundation of a sustainable federalism is thought to be a scientifically precise balancing of national and subnational power. Experience shows, however, that national and subnational actors in highly diverse systems are capable of developing a rich array of extraconstitutional methods of mutual influence, so that the formal, constitutionalized balance of power rarely settles the question of the actual balance of power between levels of government. A more important factor in ensuring the long-term sustainability of a meaningfully federal system is the degree of symmetry across subnational units in their relation to the central state. A comparison of the U.S. and Spain suggests that federalism is most directly threatened when subnational units compete not collectively with the central state, thereby checking its power, but with each other, a condition that furnishes the central state with opportunities to exploit subnational rivalries in ways that risk genuine, long-term destabilization.

The Principle of Equality in Diverse States

“…When allocation systems are static, constitutional amendments may, from time to time, be necessary in order to adapt them to new 'factual' symmetries or asymmetries.54 However, it is also remarkable that the particular situation in Italy's five special regions would have been maintained even by the failed constitutional reform draft of 2016. 55 The Scotland Act 2016, by which further powers were devolved to Scotland, was a direct answer to the Scottish independence movement, and even if the Act could not anticipate new demands after the Brexit referendum, it nonetheless responded to Scotland's strong identity and the very particular history of its union with England.…”

“…54 Gamper, "Kompetenzverteilung," 778-780. 55 'Disposizioni per il superamento del bicameralismo paritario, la riduzione del numero dei parlamentari, il contenimento dei costi di funzionamento delle istituzioni, la soppressione del cnel e la revisione del titolo v della parte ii della Costituzione' , Gazzetta Ufficiale Della Repubblica Italiana 157, no. 88 (April 2016), 1 et seq.…”