Federalism in Crisis Times – Federalism in Crisis Times

REFECT: (Project – Resilient Federalism in Crisis Times)

The practice of intergovernmental relations, public decision-making, or policy performance (and variations thereof across levels) in federal systems, has attracted significant attention since the Covid-19 crisis. The approach has been to combine constitutional federalism — which focuses primarily on the constitutional allocation of powers, resources, and competencies — with the understanding of federalism as a crisis-mitigating institutional form that, under certain conditions, can accommodate the claims of different societal groups in a balanced manner.

Before the Corona pandemic struck in 2020, a reappraisal of federalism had been occasioned by the Global Financial Crisis 2008 which shook the world economy and threatened international stability. A lot of research has gone into identifying the factors which were responsible for short-run and long-run asymmetric effects of the crisis across the world’s economies. This has motivated scholars of federalism to examine the causal pathways or empirical relationships between multilevel systems and their ability to alleviate such crises. Since 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic, which has created unprecedented health, humanitarian and economic challenges, has attracted new attention to the strengths and weaknesses of federal solutions as a means of addressing public health crisis and the consequent socio-economic disruptions. There have been polarizing debates concerning the benefits of centralization vs decentralization when handling crises situations and public participation in crisis policymaking, for example, democratic innovations such as citizens’ assemblies regarding (the easing of) lockdown measures. More significantly, the debate on Covid-19 Pandemic management has also provoked a broader debate on the form and degree of federalism best suited to manage a more diverse set of crises including environmental emergencies such as natural disasters and calamities, preventing and countering terrorist attacks, territorial or secessionist crisis, crises around inclusion and equity, and the crisis of regional imbalance in multilevel systems.

Although different approaches are required to deal with different types of crises and emergencies, the political and administrative challenges across crisis situations are largely similar across countries with varying institutional configurations. It has been established beyond doubt that all levels of government must be part of the crisis management process. While national or federal action is necessary in some areas, subnational levels (regional and local) have a greater role in some other areas of action. In fact, the successful innovations at the local level can be institutionalized to improve governance and gain the capacity to manage crises in the future. Thus, more light needs to be shed on democratic-institutional innovations for crisis management at the regional and local levels in multilevel systems.

In addition, using interdisciplinary approaches, we seek to further our understanding of how various stakeholder constituencies (the private sector, civil society, community-based groups, voluntary associations, and individuals), including the three levels of government (national regional and local) support one another in turbulent times. Besides making such initiatives visible to a larger audience, such an attempt will also account for subnational variations in crisis management and will clarify the factors that propel some policy actors into action while others choose not to respond to the crisis. Overall, we seek to produce an analysis of this issue (rather than a mere description of it) by situating multi-stakeholders engagement in a wider set of crisis situations within a broader framework of multilevel governance. The following questions may be used to guide the analyses:

Given that a swift response and exceptional coordination among levels of government and also between the government agencies and the private sector, non-governmental organisations, voluntary associations, and community-based groups are the keys to effective crisis management, the question arises that which type of governance systems are better equipped to achieve coordination with speed — a system that gives greater authority to the national level to prepare a centralised disaster response or the one that relies on subnational levels as first responders or a system in which the national and subnational levels share authority?

What explains the successful management of crises situations in some countries at certain times and what underlies a poor or inadequate response in other contexts. Is it about in/appropriate allocation of authority and resources or in/adequate exercise of authority vested in the sub/national incumbents? Is it an outcome of mis/steps of the leadership or mis/application of the principles of federal organisation? Or the key lies in the in/ability to resolve coordination dilemmas?

How can an institutional architecture for crisis management be designed to combine the advantages of a swift, decisive, and nationwide response with the benefits of participatory policy-making and substantial discretion in policy implementation?

Finally, since the creation of institutions does not guarantee their effectiveness —especially in view of the politicians’ tendency to evade political accountability and to engage in blame-shifting and credit-claiming for political gains — one of the challenges is to understand and analyse institutional successes and failures underpinning politicians’ in/adequate response to the crises, given the incumbents’ constitutional capacity to act. This is vital because it is in emergencies, more than in normal circumstances, that the accountability mechanisms — which subject the decisions and actions of public officials to appropriate oversight — assume greater significance.

CHANCHAL KUMAR SHARMA, ELIZABETH ALBER, & WILFRIED SWENDEN