Procedural aspects of federalism

Mar 28, 2010 Features / Columnists, Ravi Dev

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Even though all parties agree that our present form of governance is too centralised, the almost decade-long impasse over arriving at a consensus between the government and opposition on granting constitutionally guaranteed powers to the regions, exemplifies the contradictions inherent in the halfway house measures of “decentralisation” rather than “federalism”.
Without an acceptance of the centrifugal principle of federalism, it does not matter which party is in government, it will oppose what it considers a frittering away of its powers – read control. Following last week’s survey of the substantive aspects of federalism, this week we look at the procedural component which focuses on processes, institutions and organisational forms that the groups in society may utilise to realise their values by living together.
Bargaining
In 1795, the philosopher Immanuel Kant noted that the word “Federalism” was derived from the Latin word “foedus” – meaning “covenant” – signalling the contractual basis that is the root feature of all Federal arrangements. Federalism proposes that people should make free choices in their relationships and that these choices should flow from conscious, negotiated, contractual agreements.
Individuals are seen as autonomous and should then be free to define their associations both privately and publicly. At a macro level, for instance, the representatives of the various groups in a country ought to negotiate as to how they should be governed, that is, to be able to craft their Constitution through bargaining and negotiation. Constitutionalism and “constitutional engineering” – to allocate power authoritatively in a society and state – are thus quite compatible with federalism.
This insistence on free choice is a fundamental point that flows from a view of human freedom and autonomy – that individuals know what is best for them and in terms of governance, should choose their representatives. This view ineluctably leads to the necessity for governments to have as wide a range of representation as possible so as to be as legitimate as possible, especially when those representatives are chosen on ascriptive criteria, as in Guyana. Conversely, the federalist insistence for autonomy of the individual is based on a view of justice that the individual should ultimately be responsible for his decisions, since each individual has freedom of choice in making his choice.
As we have emphasised, while there are societies that may have convinced themselves that they, and their forms of governance, have evolved “organically” from some hoary past, we in Guyana can harbour no such illusions. Even more than other societies, Guyanese who were ruled for so long under rules imposed by others, who were objects rather than subjects, should acknowledge that the allocation of power within our society, and the basic policies structuring our activities must be arrived at through some sort of bargaining. Only in this manner will the necessary legitimacy be conferred on our governing institutions.
In Guyana, because of the widespread denial of ethnicity as the most salient line of cleavage, there is great reluctance, amounting to a conspiracy of silence, to accept that bargaining on behalf of ethnic groups is in no way morally inferior to bargaining on behalf of, say economic classes.
Since 1957, the electorate has increasingly indicated at the polls that they consider it best that their political interest be represented by ethnic representatives. There can be no denial of the need to arrive at methods to deal with this peculiarity. Even though, as with all contracts, there will be the need to make concessions, negotiations at all levels will ensure that there will be widespread sharing in the decision-making and executing processes. We must have some sort of covenant for governance, which is the basis of federalism.
Non-centralised governance
Another value facilitated by federalism was also suggested by Immanuel Kant who contrasted federalism with “administrative centralism…(which)… leads to the loss of liberty of individuals, communities and nations.” He thus spelled out another of the substantive aspects of modern federalism – protection of the individual from big government.
As Kant pointed out, by dispersing power to many centres, federalism acts to curb excessive concentration of power against the always potentially tyrannical government. In this way, federalism serves the political end of enhancing freedom and thus furthering democracy. This abuse of state power has been a constant in Guyanese history and has to be addressed within any democratic design for Guyana.
The principle of “subsidiarity” – articulated in Europe as they grapple with unifying a multiplicity of societies and cultures is an important initiative. The principle insists that for the most effective and responsive governance, several smaller centres of government and power should be created and most importantly, that policies be executed at the lowest possible level of government. This principle of federalism facilitates the participation of citizens in the decision making process and further enhances their freedom. There would be no quibbling over allocating real powers to the local organs.
As emphasised before, the unitary state originated in conjunction with the movement towards the nation-state during the last few centuries out of the same centralising impulses, for the accommodation of capitalistic economic expansion. Today, globalisation has moved capitalism to a different level and it is obvious that the autarkic nation-state is no longer needed when even small villages can forge direct links to the global economy.
Today, there is a simultaneous movement of states towards forming federations, while within the individual states there is a loosening of control over social groups. Federalism addresses the contradiction of an economically integrated world existing within a politically fragmented one and the twenty-first century will certainly witness an intensification of the movement of statism to federalism, already in motion over the last fifty years. That seventy-five percent of the countries in the world are now governed by federalist principles is an acknowledgement of the paradigm shift in the relationship between man and state.
Guyana and other countries attempting to catch up with the developed countries, have to leapfrog not only technologies of production but technologies of governance.

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