More on the Future of Federalism in the 21st Century: Promises and Perils

July 8, 2020 – Federalism was a British Imperial experiment, the first time inadvertent because it rose out of rebellion in North America, and the second time, an orderly transition first tried in Canada, and later applied to many other places in the world. There was a failed third North American attempt, the Confederate States of America, but the Civil War ended it after four years.

The federal-state experiment that first formed the United States was a confederation of thirteen separate colonial governments. The later Confederate States followed a similar constitutional structure during its short-lived existence. But the United States, Version 2.0, that emerged in 1789 was truly a federal state.

What’s the difference between confederation and a federation?

A confederation is a joining together of partner states in a mutually beneficial arrangement in which power is shared equally between the smaller jurisdictions with the central government.

A federation, on the other hand, places greater power in the hands of a central authority with the partner states having a diminished role. When the Confederate States attempted secession, the federal government in the United States began by passively resisting which ultimately lead to Confederate forces firing on Fort Sumter and the beginning of the Civil War.

The federal-state experiment that arose ninety years after the United States was borne, was a confederation of four British North American colonies. One had unique linguistic and cultural characteristics, Lower Canada known to today as Quebec. Only a confederation could make this union work and it came about because of the threat of conquest by the United States after the American Civil War.

The Dominion of Canada, a self-governing colony of the British Empire and a confederation  may never have come about if there had never been a U.S. Civil War. By 1865, America had a battle-tested standing army fresh from the defeat of the Confederacy with the entire western hinterland open to it. In 1867, the same year as Canada’s Confederation, the United States acquired Alaska from Russia. British North America was now being squeezed from both the south and northwest. And Fenian sympathizing troops of the triumphant Union Army were staging raids into British North American territory.

The external threat was a great motivator for a union of four of the British colonies in North America followed by a fifth, sixth, and seventh joining shortly thereafter, and the acquisition of the lands of the Hudson Bay Company. Canada became a continent-wide confederation even larger than the United States. Within a few years, a transcontinental railway bound the confederation for good.

As I stated in a recent posting, one of the great failures of both federal systems was the unwillingness to recognize the land rights, languages, and cultures of native North Americans who were the original inhabitants of North America before European colonization. This remains an existing challenge to this day for both federal states.

Which is better in the 21st century? A confederation or a federation?

The Example of the European Union

When Winston Churchill proposed a United States of Europe in 1946, did he have in mind a federation or confederation? In Europe, a union of its many cultures, legal systems, languages, and religions, seemed next to impossible. Years of war between nations and religions and left permanent scars. But after two World Wars in the 20th century, the idea of uniting Europeans into a single entity was seen as a way to end internecine strife for good.

Today the European Parliament, Council, and Commission provide a semblance of political unity for its 27 sovereign member states. But they do not exert authority over individual countries that form the Union. The central authority binds the nation members together. National identities remain the principal way citizens identify themselves. European Union citizens are French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, etc. Much of the power and decision-making of the Union are decentralized. Although citizens of the 27 member states vote to elect members to the European Parliament, voter turnout tends to be very low, and there appears within member states to be little interest in what happens there.

So Europe is more a confederation than a federation, less than Canada in terms of citizens identifying with the concept, and certainly far removed from the United States as a model of governance. Where Canada has a singular presence in dealing with other nations around the world, Europe’s 27 member states still deal individually with each other and with foreign countries.

Where the European Union has succeeded is in coming together with increasingly shared interests, continent-wide war has been prevented.

Where Else Confederalism Can Prosper

I give you two examples that you may think are unlikely. The first one may be the better bet. The second, however, could end a conflict that has been going on for more than seventy years.

An African Confederation Emerges in the 21st Century

The political divisions of Africa were largely determined by European colonizers and conquerors in the 19th century. They cut across tribal, religious, and ethnic lines, and served the European states’ desires to exploit African resources.

The independence of African states that began in earnest in the mid-1950s ending with South Africa emerging with the end of apartheid in the 1990s, has not led to an African renaissance as was hoped. Instead, the countries of Africa have struggled in their attempts to modernize infrastructure, raise the quality of governance, and the health and education of their citizens to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

Africa, today, is the fastest-growing continent by population. But in all other measures, it trails the rest of the planet.

Would a confederation help? Some Africans believe so. Beginning with regional associations of different independent states, Africa is slowly moving towards a common economic market and free trade zone. This is exactly how the European Union began starting in the 1950s.

Within Africa today there are already federal states: Nigeria, and South Africa to name two. But for Africa to harness the continent’s potential, a confederation would make a great deal of sense. In recent years the countries of East Africa have explored on numerous occasions a loose confederation. Similar ideas have emerged in the past for West and Southern Africa. All, so far, have petered out in time. But the example of Canada remains.

The Canadian union formed because external threats imposed a sense of urgency to join together for safety. In Canada’s case the threat was military. In Africa’s case, climate change may be the decisive impetus for a future confederation.

Israeli-Palestine Conflict Ends with Confederation

There are several outcomes for the more than 70-year conflict over what was the British Palestine Mandate established after World War One. The first would see Israeli dominion over the entire territory in a unitarian state and likely future wars with Arab-state neighbours. The second would see Palestine assisted by other Middle Eastern states forcing the surrender of Israel to what would become a Palestinian unitarian state. Then there is the two-state solution that no longer seems feasible since the failure of the Oslo Accords and the off-and-on-again peace process with the intransigence of political leaders on both sides. And then there is a fourth, confederation or a federal state that recognizes the identity of the two disputing parties within their own statelets.

Canada formed a confederation between English and French entities cohabiting the same land. Can Israelis and Palestinians do the same?

A confederation would establish sovereignty for each while creating a central authority for the purpose of achieving common interests. As crazy as this sounds, Muammar Al Qadhafi, the former dictator of Libya, back in 2003 proposed such a federal union of the two which he called Isratine. He noted that the name was only a placeholder.

His notion was that Israel and Palestine would be intertwined demographically and geographically in a unitarian federation. Qadhafi concluded the two would be better off together than apart.

He didn’t envision a confederation, but rather a federal system with a strong central authority combined with regional governments for the founding members, Israelis, and Palestinians. He argued that such a state comprising Muslims and Jews, Arabs and Israelis, would never be threatened by Arab neighbours and the long conflict would finally come to an end.

As much as Qadhafi was a rogue actor in the Middle East and on the world stage, the idea he proposed with some adjustments to implement a confederation conjoined by a central government to serve and provide common defense, healthcare, and other essential services, had merit.

An even grander vision of a common market combining Israelis, Palestinians, Lebanese, and Jordanians could come about in time with goods and services crossing borders and reducing the levels of mistrust that continue in this, the current world’s most intractable conflict. The common market was the first step to the European Union we see today and perennial enemies, France, and Germany, today increasingly cooperate for a common purpose. If it could work in Europe, why not the Middle East?