Abstract
Policy problems are an important source of change in federal systems. This chapter argues that federations’ performance depends on how federal actors find solutions to specific policy problems. Because the search for policy solutions may touch upon the basic interests of governments of a federation, robust performance can only be achieved if they find appropriate policy solutions and avoid federal conflicts at once. Drawing on their research on fiscal consolidation and the harmonisation of education policy, Braun and Schnabel develop an analytical model to evaluate federations’ performance in individual policy areas that stresses federalism’s dynamic character. In distinguishing four ways of governance in which federations tackle policy problems on their agenda (self-rule, arguing, bargaining, hierarchy), they explain why some federations seem to struggle more than others in achieving robustness even though all four governance modes have the potential to effectively solve policy problems as well as minimise federal conflicts.
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Notes
- 1.
In distinguishing between the policy and the politics dimension, we implicitly draw on Kingdon’s (1984) stream concept, which distinguishes between a problem stream, problem-solving stream, and a political stream. Our policy dimension equals his problem-solving stream where policy solutions are established. Interest conflicts are played out in the political stream, which we refer to as the politics dimension. However, we do not use the logics of the garbage-can model whereby only windows of opportunity in which the different streams converge lead to the adoption of policy solutions. Nonetheless, the analytical distinction of functional arenas of decision-making processes leading to the enactment of policy solutions as well as the time perspective of the stream concept is useful for our understanding of federal robustness.
- 2.
Such a functional distribution of authority rights is referred to as “cooperative federalism” (Börzel and Hosli 2003).
- 3.
Fiscal rules are strict when they constitute hard-budget constraints that enforce the compliance of governments and credibly commit them to fiscal discipline (Rodden et al. 2003).
- 4.
Fiscal rules that are sustainable remain in place for a longer period of time and are difficult to abolish. Germany’s constitutional debt brake, for example, is a fiscal rule that is sustainable because any amendment of the federal constitution requires large majorities and such majorities are difficult to achieve.
- 5.
- 6.
In Canada, for example, the lack of coordination mechanisms led to unilateral cuts of federal transfers to the provinces—which the latter openly contested (see MacKinnon 2003).
- 7.
Examples are Belgium’s High Finance Council and the Finance Commission in India.
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Braun, D., Schnabel, J. (2019). Policy-Making as a Source of Change in Federalism: A Dynamic Approach. In: Behnke, N., Broschek, J., Sonnicksen, J. (eds) Configurations, Dynamics and Mechanisms of Multilevel Governance. Comparative Territorial Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05511-0_6
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