Federalism Advantages and Disadvantages PDF

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What are the advantages and disadvantages of federal
systems of government?
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3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of federal systems of government?

Introduction Federal systems are governments whose sovereignty is shared between more than one tiers of government. Over forty per cent of the world rely on a federal system as government especially for geographically large countries (Twomney, 2007). Countries that adhere to this system includes the United States of America (USA), Canada, Brazil, Germany and Australia. In the instance of Australia, the country comprises of six states and two territories. These states are governed by a federal government, state government and territory government. The federal government is tasked with areas pertaining to taxation, defence, telecommunications, and foreign affairs while the state government handle matters within their borders such as education, police, hospitals and public transport. These ways contrast with a unitary government where the powers are held by one centralized authority. This essay aims to peruse examples of federal systems and to highlight the merits and demerits of a federal system.

Less than half of the world systems rely on a federal system and it receives flak based on assumptions of it being impractical and old-fashioned. Despite so, many of these assumptions have been addressed with merits and demonstrates the significance of a federal system. Federal systems have a myriad of advantages ranging from the function of limiting powers relative to its citizens, to protecting liberty. Overall, the merits of a federal system outweigh the demerits. Some of these demerits include a lack of cohesiveness and conflicts of laws which have measures of seeking redress. This essay will identify these key issues and compare them.

Advantages of a federal system

Local Governance and representation with citizen stability and satisfaction

A federal structure gives people the ability to compare different political systems within the same country and national government. In Australia, citizens have voted and exercised their right to compare, choose and exit their respective states in large volumes. This phenomenon has been observed peaking in between the 1980s and 1990s where locals have migrated from “heavily governed southern states to the wide-open spaces of Queensland” (Epstein, 1992). This phenomenon functions as a tool to perform a check on the ability of states by means of a ‘self-help remedy’ which is easy, inexpensive and efficient. Further, federal systems will also possess appropriate representation due to the nature of its multi-tier government. This will result in areas with specific parameters such as economic, political and religious being tended to with the right care. Governments of these areas will be equipped with the right knowledge and skill sets to solve issues specific to area. An example of this is traffic concerns of the state of Hawaii being best when left to representatives of Hawaii itself to be attended by rather than those of New York (Dogra, 2016). Further, federal systems gives representation to different sets of populations with a range of cultures, ethnicity and aspirations. These can easily be ignored by a centralized government. However, if not managed appropriately, this can lead to misunderstandings and confusion among states and the regions may feel left out of touch from citizens of neighbouring regions. This can also lead to friction between states because of deep disagreements and unfairness (Knowledge, 2016).

Stability and supervision of governments. Since a federal government is condensed, it can deal with issues at hand in smarter manners. These manners include setting government institutions against each other and is favoured by a majority (Galligan, 1987). This is visible in voting patterns for constitutional referendums. Stability in government is quintessential too and inspires confidence in citizens. Besides stability, operational costs of governments are reduced because of a decrease in programmes and employees at a state level, this in turn leads to a lower revenue of tax. This is due to efficient control when mattes are at a smaller scale (Calabresi, 1994).

Competitiveness and Cooperation

With federal systems comes competitiveness and cooperation in Australia which brings a myriad of positive effects. It brings about efficiency and performance in the economic sector by innovation. The six states continuously seek to develop cost-effective means of achieving better policies (Twomney, 2007). Aside from economic success, federal systems can bring out sporting talents due to interstate competiveness. An example of this would be the selection of athletes for the Olympics and FIFA World Cup. With a federal system, it would force and promote friendly rivalry among states and regions with the motive of success for the nation.

Cooperation among the states are a by-product of federal systems because it forces states to work together to eradicate controversial proposals. This brings the nation together to tackle and resolve these controversial proposals by ensuring thorough analysis and legitimacy (Twomney, 2007). Due to this, policies tend to be moderate and force governments to place their case in a public sphere ensuring accountability. A reflection of this is visible in Australia’s anti-terrorism policies where the laws were not hastily posited in parliament because the national government had to explicitly and publicly clarify its proposals through debates and amendments made to regulate the law

The final advantage of federal systems is its ability to uphold principles of democracy. This is done by preserving values of freedom and equality by means of varying resources using the principles of fiscal equation. In Australia, varying resources involve making sure all citizens receive services at the same tax rates regardless of their location. This is after factoring in the different ability of states to generate revenue at different expenses in spite of the parameters of geography and age structure of the population. Another way of upholding equality is by administering more chances for participation in government and opportunities with nearer proximities to their home (Sawer, 2009).

Protecting of Liberty

Because of the features of federal system and the way powers are decentralized, spread and shared about, it works as a safeguard against central government. Similar sentiments were shared by Thomas Jefferson and Lord Bryce. Lord Bryce also said, “Federalism prevents the rise of a despotic central government, absorbing powers, and menacing the

private liberties of the citizen” (Bryce, 1995). Even famous critic of federalism Geoffrey Sawyer from the Australian National University agreed that federalism was a mean of protection of individual liberty (walker, 2000). Distinct examples of the merits of federalism have been demonstrated in the 1991 political broadcast bans by political leaders.

Unlike a unitary system of government, the central government possesses supreme authority to posit any law within any region of the country. Governments are also less susceptible to tyranny because it is more difficult for head of states to apply themselves on areas that are already part of a state. Furthermore, they also do not hold or control power spanning an entire nation but rather it is combined with leaders of other states. Examples of countries under tyrannical governments include North Korea, Cambodia, Zimbabwe and Cuba – all nations with a centralized government. Similar observations have been made between the struggle between democracy and tyranny of East Germany during between 1914 and 1989 until the demolition of the Berlin wall (watts, 1994). During this time, the success of democracy led to the removal of justification for a centralised government based on the requirement to maintain an economy to be mobilised (Walker, 1987).

Disadvantages of a federal system

Drawbacks of federal systems

Despite many countries and majority of large countries adopting features od federal system, there are its demerits too. These demerits include potential for corruption because of the sheer number of people appointed to office and steep costs associated with federal systems. Furthermore, because of the number of representatives, there are many overlapping roles. Other than this, federal systems can also lead to irregular distributions of wealth because of different distribution of geographic and socio-economic features such as natural resources, industrial developments and employment opportunities. This leads to wealthier states being able to offer more opportunities to its citizens in comparison to poorer states. Regionalism is also a by-product of federal systems making state governments self-centred and overly concerned only for their states’ development.

An example of this would be policy making that could only entail the states’ interest however adverse to neighbouring states.

Inconsistent Legislature Federal systems have received much controversy and been a subject of much criticism because of its multiple and inconsistent laws. In the case of the USA which was 50 states, there will be 50 variations of legislature. The same application can be said for Australia and the variation between intestate laws and grey areas can cause much confusion for citizens. It can be said that having a consistent system for nations would be simpler to adhere to. An example of these grey areas includes family law in Australia where neither the state nor the Commonwealth possess comprehensive legislative competence. Further, children of unmarried parents were irrelevant to the state of Western Australia between 1986 and 1990 (Croucher, 2014). As for the inconsistencies, the powers required for marriages and divorces were incoherently divided and not uniform throughout the country for many years till the formation of the Matrimonial Clauses Act 1959 and the Marriage Act 196. These inconsistencies have been resolved with Section 109 of the Constitution of Australia which dictates “when a law of a State is inconsistent with a law of the Commonwealth, the latter shall prevail, and the former shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be invalid”.

Similar inconsistencies have been observed in within the USA with the controversial Marijuana and firearm laws. Due to the inconsistent laws, one may comply with state laws yet remain at legal risk. At present, 44 states are legal for medical consumption of marijuana however only eight for recreational use. Besides consumers feeling the frustration, business owners in this field have been hindered by federal laws when it comes to banking administration (Reed, 2017). As for firearm laws in the USA, there are huge differences in the different states, ranging from age limits to the prohibition of registration of firearms. In Colorado, the supreme court ruling allowed students and staff to carry concealed weapons overturning the ban on campus by Colorado University. Further, some states require reporting of firearm losses and registration however in the state of Nebraska, reporting a loss is merely a suggestion and in states of Idaho and Alaska, authorities are not allowed to register firearms (Cage, 2013).

Conclusion

In a nutshell, considering the size of Australia and USA and many other countries with a federal system, it would be bizarre otherwise. This is after factoring the myriad of advantageous reasons for adopting and staying put with a federal system. After all, 40% of the world’s population is governed by federal systems and this number is growing. Furthermore, federal systems generate half of the global gross domestic product. Federal systems come with slight drawbacks which have been and are in the process of rectification and reform. Lastly, because federal systems shield citizens from tyranny and prevents a concretion of power, the advantages of federal systems outweigh the disadvantages.

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R. Epstein, `Exit rights under federalism', Law and Contemporary Problems, vol. 55, 1992, p. 165.

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