Comparative federalism
term from political science
Comparative federalism is a branch of comparative politics and comparative government, the main focus of which is the study of the nature, operation, possibilities and
effects of federal governance forms across two or more cases.
Comparative studies cover the most important aspects of federalism, i.e. theory, institutions, constitutions including constitutional laws, foundations, establishment and organization of federal systems, functions or a system of relations between administrative structures at various levels and financial issues, for example, the distribution of tax revenues and expenditures. One more aspect can be added to this — examples of the functioning of federal systems and problems that arise when implementing a federal organization.
Currently, comparative federalism is the core of federalism research. It is applicable to any topic in the field, including second chambers, courts, intergovernmental councils, the trajectory of federations, practices of fiscal federalism, accommodation of potentially conflicting identity groups, and secessionism.
Origin
The ubiquity of comparative federalism is directly related to the development of comparative studies and their prevalence in other fields of political science. The evolution of comparative politics is seen as punctuated by two revolutions: the behavioral revolution, during the immediate post-World War II years until the mid-1960s, and the second scientific revolution, which started around the end of the Cold War and is still ongoing. On both occasions, the impetus for change came from developments in the field of American politics and was justified in the name of science.
The surge in the use of comparative methods in federalism research can be attributed to the above-mentioned events, since federalism first became a significant field of study in the mid-twentieth century.
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This entry incorporates text from “Comparative federalism” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.