Patriotism and Federalism

Abstract

This chapter starts with a somewhat surprising observation: the relative absence of connection between federalism and patriotism (as distinct from nationalism) in the writings of contemporary philosophers and political theorists. This observation is surprising in light of the post-Cold War revival of federalism in political practice and political theory, as well as the renewed interest in patriotism among philosophers and political theorists. It is even more surprising if we consider that the key components of the language of federalism are derived from the Latin foedus, which means an alliance or association among individuals or communities aiming at the promotion of both self-rule and shared rule. The very fact of an alliance or association among communities has two basic implications with respect to the relationship between federalism and patriotism. First, citizens come to (more or less) formally belong to two communities: they continue to be part of one of the constitutive communities, while becoming members of the alliance or association of communities itself. Second, under certain conditions, they might come to supplement their sense of belonging to one of the constitutive communities by a sense of belonging to the alliance or association. In other words, they might develop a dual or even plural (in the case of a federation including federations) patriotism, in line with the institutional duality or plurality characteristic of federal systems.

The first part of the chapter provides an overview of the history of the relationship between federalism and patriotism in Western modern political thought and aims to elucidate some of its defining moments. Through a study of major debates over federal forms of governments, it shows how the monism of the nation-state model and of the language of nationalism is key to understand why the possibility of a dual or plural patriotism has been repeatedly ignored or downplayed since the eighteenth century. The second part of the chapter suggests that some of the most promising connections between patriotism and federalism might come from the contemporary literature on multinational federal democracies. This hypothesis is investigated through the preliminary study of two of these connections in the works of Charles Taylor and James Tully.