Federalism and the Subnational Separation of Powers

Maxwell A. Cameron and Tulia G. Falleti

Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 2005, vol. 35, issue 2, 245-271

Abstract: Most of the literature on federalism has emphasized the relationship between national and subnational governments but overlooked the organization of subnational powers. Likewise, the debate on the separation of powers in presidential and parliamentary systems has neglected the role of federalism in bolstering the separation of powers. We argue that a federal polity is a constitutional arrangement that creates executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government in its constituent units. This definition is applied to all countries that are classified as federations, federacies, or unions to show that it yields a more homogeneous set of cases for comparison. Finally, we review the implications of our definition through an analysis of Latin American federations and highlight the institutional mechanisms that either promote or hinder the separation of powers and democracy. Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2005
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/publius/pji012 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:publus:v:35:y:2005:i:2:p:245-271

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Publius: The Journal of Federalism is currently edited by Paul Nolette and Philip Rocco

More articles in Publius: The Journal of Federalism from CSF Associates Inc. Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().