Centre for the study of Federalism – Annual Report

The Center for the Study of Federalism (CSF), founded in 1967, is an interdisciplinary research, educational and service institute dedicated to the study of federal principles, institutions and processes as practical means of organizing political power in a free society. By initiating, sponsoring and conducting research and educational programs, the Center seeks to increase and disseminate knowledge of federal systems — the American and others — and federalism in general, and to develop specialists in the growing field of intergovernmental relations.
The Center for the Study of Federalism is one of the preeminent institutions of its kind in the world examining questions of federalism and intergovernmental relations. CSF undertakes a number of research and educational programs. The Center undertakes comparative studies of federalism and related problems, critically examines the idea of federalism in both its theoretical and practical dimensions and disseminates the results of its work. The Center conducts lectures, seminars, conferences and institutes/workshops to stimulate knowledgeable discussion about the problems and prospects of federalism and American political life in general. The Center has an extensive publications program in both comparative and American federalism as well as covenant and civil society.

In March of 1997, the Center was named to the Templeton Honors Rolls for Education in a Free Society. This program, funded by the John Templeton Foundation and administered by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute is a series of awards intended to identify outstanding individuals and institutions in American higher education.

Over the years the Center has been active in a number of projects that can be divided into the following categories: American Federalism, Comparative Federalism, Federal Theory, and Political Culture. Activities in turn, include: Research; Educational Activities; Publications; and International Activities.
AMERICAN FEDERALISM PROGRAMS

  1. Intergovernmental Relations
  2. State Constitutional Law
  3. State Politics and Government
  4. Local Politics and Government
  5. Continuing Education

1. Intergovernmental Relations

The Annual Review of the State of American Federalism. Inaugurated in 1977, the review continues to be published annually as an issue of Publius: The Journal of Federalism. The Annual Review consists of original commissioned articles studying the most important “stories” of the year from a federalism perspective. In recent years, the Annual Review has expanded to include an increasing number of articles about the state of federalism in the rest of the world as well as American federalism. Each article is an effort to go beyond reports of even the most sophisticated journalism on the issue or situation it discusses. The 1996 Annual Review of the State of American Federalism was edited by Carol S. Weissert and Sanford F. Schram.

2. State Constitutional Law

The Center maintains the continuing Delaware Valley Constitutionalism Workshop. These meetings are designed to stimulate study and increase interaction among those already involved in such study. This year, meetings were held in October, November, January and May. The State Constitutions under review were late 19th century ante-bellum documents. This project continues to build on the relationship between the center and the Council for State Constitutional Studies at Rutger’s University, Fellow Alan Tarr and Associate Robert Williams of Rutger’s University – Camden continue to direct this program.

3. State Politics and Government

The Politics and Government of the American States. Two more books on Illinois and Nevada were published by the University of Nebraska Press this year in our series under the general editorship of John Kincaid and Daniel Elazar, founding editor. The series continues to flourish. To date 15 books have been published, including the states of Nevada, (1996); Illinois, (1996); Michigan, (1995); Kentucky, (1994); Alaska, (1994); North and South Carolina, (1994); New Jersey, (1993); Colorado, (1993); Maine, (1992); Mississippi, (1992); Oklahoma, (1991); Alabama, (1988); Arkansas, (1988); Nebraska, (1984). Other books in the series are now in press. Our first book on the government and politics of Arkansas, written by Diane Blair, provides one of the major sources of information about President Clinton’s role in public life prior to his election as president.

The Center sponsored a panel at the APSA meeting in San Francisco entitled, “University of Nebraska Press American State Series: Recent Developments in State Legislatures.” The session dealt with some of the legislatures of the states in the series. Center Fellow John Kincaid Chaired this session. Nevada, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Minnesota were selected for discussion. Center Director and Senior Fellows Daniel Elazar and Center Associate Joseph Marbach served as discussants.

4. Local Politics and Government

Cities of the Prairie. The “Cities of the Prairie” study focuses on the local civil community as an integral part of the larger federal system. Initiated in 1959 by Daniel J. Elazar, this study is already the most extensive longitudinal study of American cities and metropolitan areas ever undertaken. The basic concepts examined by this study include the civil community, the frontier, federalism, constitutionalism, democracy, republicanism, metropolitanism, and regionalism.

The Book Cities of the Prairie: The Next Generation is planned for publication in 1998. Edited by Daniel Elazar, contributors and chapter titles are as follows:

Introduction – Themes and Theses Part One:
Chapter 1 – The Cities and the New Frontier
Chapter 2 – Building Civil Community on the Cybernetic Frontier
Chapter 3 – New Departures

Part Two – Northeastern Illinois and Chicagoland
Chapter 4 – Joliet
Chapter 5 – Rockford

Part Three – Central Illinois: The Grand Prairie
Chapter 6 – Peoria
Chapter 7 – Champaign-Urbana
Chapter 8 – Decatur
Chapter 9 – Springfield

Part Four – Western Illinois: North and South
Chapter 10 – The Quad Cities
Chapter 11 – The Southwestern Illinois Metropolitan Region

Part Five – Two Wests
Chapter 12 – Duluth-Superior, Minnesota and Wisconsin
Chapter 13 – Pueblo

Conclusion – Citizenship and Public in Metropolitan America
The third conference in a series was held in June, 1997 in Rockford, Illinois. The theme for this meeting was “Constitutional Change.” Academics and civic leaders participated in the two day conference. A grant provided by the Bradley Foundation has enabled us to complete our field research and to bring together leaders from the communities studied to discuss and implement ways of building and maintaining their civil communities.

The first conference was held in December, 1994 in Pueblo, Colorado. The Conference theme was “Building Civil Community.” Here, civic leaders from the Cities of the Prairie gathered to address the issue. In August 1995, the second conference in the series was held in Duluth, Minnesota. The theme for this second conference was “Leadership.” Here, civic leaders from various cities reconvened with leaders of the host city to address both governmental and non governmental, public and private steps that can be taken to develop effective leadership in the cities of the prairie.

Recent field work included Ph.D. dissertation focusing on three of the metropolitan areas: Joliet-Will County, Illinois; the Quad Cities of Illinois and Iowa; and Rockford-Winnebago County, Illinois. This research also took us to Springfield, which will be the subject of a separate study. Other members of the team and the communities they are studying are: Maren Stein, Decatur-Macon County, Illinois; Rozanne Rothman, Champaign County (Champaign-Urbana), Illinois; Daniel Elazar, Peoria and Southwest, Illinois Metro area; Stephen L. Schechter, Pueblo-Pueblo County, Colorado. We also intend to examine Duluth-Superior, Minnesota-Wisconsin (Daniel Elazar, Paul Neal and Julie Herlands) and the Peoria area of Illinois (Daniel Elazar). The book is in the first stages of production and a 1998 publication is planned.

Several major works have been generated by this project. For a complete list, see the CSF Publications Catalog. Daniel Elazar directs this project and Stephen Schechter has coordinated the series of conferences about . Paul Neal and Julie Herlands continue to provide general research support and conference planning. Center Research Assistant Wes Leckrone providing research support.

5. Continuing Education

Classic Works of American Federal Democracy. Center personnel participated in USIA sponsored Summer Institute in July, 1996 in Steamboat Springs, Colorado for 18 foreign political science professors. John Kincaid directed the program. Center Fellows Elazar, Katz, Lutz and Schechter and Center Associate Joseph Marbach all served as faculty. Center Program Director Paul Neal provided administrative support.

Comparing experiences of post-conflict state building in Asia and Europe. The cases of East Timor, Bosnia and Kosovo

This project aims at a better understanding of processes of post-conflict peace building through a comparative evaluation of efforts at state building in East Timor, Bosnia and Kosovo. Through research conducted by experts and practitioners in Europe and East Asia and a systematic comparison, we expect to be able to focus on lessons to be learned from experiences in the three case studies. Emphasis in the project will be on practical aspects of peace building through state building.

The project will be conducted from spring 2001 to spring 2002. A first workshop was held already in London in March; a second, larger workshop bringing together the researchers with outside experts, is scheduled for October 2001 in Indonesia. The findings will be integrated in a short, policy-oriented summary of the “lessons learned” and in a larger, book-length study. They will be published electronically and in print and distributed, through the network of affiliated institutions, in East Asia and Europe. The project is conducted in the context of the Council for Asia Europe Co-operation, a network of East Asian and European think tanks, and is being co-ordinated by Tadashi Yamamoto of the Japan Center for International Exchange in Tokyo and Prof. Dr. Hanns W. Maull, University of Trier. Funding has been secured from the Japanese government and from the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Introduction

State-building has become a major new challenge to the international community. The often very bloody manifestations of processes of state failure or state disintegration have led the international community into a number of „humanitarian interventions“ and major revisions in international law regarding national sovereignty. In practice, the international community has also been obliged to assume (temporary) responsibility for entities and people whose sufferings the interventions sought to redress. The UN (and other international organisations) has thus become deeply involved in processes of „peace building through state building“.
This Task Force of the Council for Asia Europe Co-operation seeks to identify key aspects of state-building by comparing the cases of East Timor, Bosnia and Kosovo and then drawing lessons from this comparative analysis for future post-conflict efforts by the international community.
Project Outline

The project will focus on the following six areas of priorities for research:
1) Law and Order,
2) Political System,
3) Economic Development,
4) Administrative Capacity Building,
5) External/Military Security and the Military, and
6) Intervening Institutions.

The terms of reference for the Task Force work are summarised below:

(1) Law and Order
These papers (one for Europe and one for Asia) should assess, by analysing the experiences in the case studies, how law and order can be (re-) established after an intervention with the help of international institutions and the international community. The research should particularly focus on three aspects, namely:
§ Internal Security. How has it been ensured? Which were the specific constraints for the intervening institutions? How have they dealt with those constraints? Measures and specific problems concerning the prison system, the establishment, training and control of the police force, as well as measures against organised crime and corruption should also be discussed under this topic.
§ Legal and Judicial System. How has it been organised? What were the most effective means to deal with the specific difficulties in the country under analysis? Which were the main constraints for the intervening institutions when re-building the legal and judicial system? How have they dealt with them, and which lessons can been drawn from those experiences?
§ Dealing with the past. How has the past been addressed, in particular from the legal point of view (International Courts, truth commissions, other, not at all)? Which measures have been chosen to deal with war criminals and questions of guilt and repentance? How effective have they been, in the view of the authors?

(2) Political System
The papers dealing with the political system should contain analysis on the system of government, political participation and articulation and reconciliation.
§ Under the first topic, the formal established governmental system should be discussed rather briefly. More important are probably aspects of co-governance between the intervening institutions and constitutional or extra-constitutional local structures and actors. An essential issue in this context is the tension between “international tutelage” and leaving executive power to local institutions. Which were the main constraints confronting the intervening institutions when re-building the political system? How were they addressed? How effective have the programmes been? What can we learn from that experience?
§ With regard to issues of political participation, the following questions should be addressed: Which model of power-sharing underlies the political system? Which role do political parties play in the process of re-building the political system? What have the intervening institutions done to develop participation? Does the electoral system contribute to stable political majorities and which is the contribution of elections to the state-building process? The papers should also deal with the relationship between politics and society. How does civil society work, if at all (role of interest groups, media, NGOs, etc.)? Which avenues for political articulation exist? To which extent were the social structures destroyed and what measures have been taken to reconstruct the civil society and to support a democratic political culture?
§ The third aspect concerns the issue of “dealing with the losers” of civil strife. The authors should explain the patterns of co-existence or subjugation between the new rulers and those groups which they had replaced. The papers should also discuss measures taken by the intervening institutions to improve inter-ethnic relations.

(3) Economic Development
The papers on economic development should outline the approaches followed to establish working economical structures and explain the relevance of external assistance. Which measures have been taken to improve the infrastructure (education, health, etc.) and to reconstruct agriculture/industry? Which specific institutions have been built up and which policies have been launched? How do international organisations try to guarantee a fair distribution of the financial assistance? Which problems did arise from rigid bureaucratic structures, the shadow economy and black markets? Which means did prove suitable to cope with them? Which approaches to improve regional economic co-operation do exist? Authors should discuss progress achieved and give insights into the main problems of re-building successful economical structures. They should also reflect on future chances for sustainable economic development.

(4) Administrative Capacity Building
Authors dealing with this issue area should concentrate on the re-building of administrative structures. Apart from the formal establishment of institutions, measures concerning organisation and training of the civil service should be described. Questions like the following should be taken into consideration: How well-endowed is the country examined in human resources? How successful do international institutions work together with the local ones? Which were the main problems in setting up effective administration? How have the intervening institutions dealt with the problems?

(5) External/Military Security
Under this topic, measures taken to guarantee external and military security should be analysed. Authors should focus on three aspects: First, problems of dismantling remnants of violence should be taken into consideration. This concerns in particular questions of disarmament and the reintegration of former combatants and the proliferation of small arms. Second, authors should deal with confidence- and security building measures like disarmament and arms control, as well as with issues of restructuring armed forces and civilian control of military affairs. How did the intervening institutions contribute to these processes? Third, specific problems concerning military and external security should be described and analysed. What concepts, what principles inform external security policies? Who has been in charge? What have been the problems encountered? What are the perspectives for regional integration of the country?

(6) Intervening Institutions
In these papers the authors should identify key external actors and discuss their main strategies of state-building and their interactions. Who are the key external actors? How are the problems and their causes perceived by the them? Which approaches have been chosen to re-build the state? Which are the specific constraints confronting the intervening institutions? Which role do the international institutions play in relation to local ones (leader, mentor, etc.)? How are measures taken by various international actors (governments, International Organisations, NGOs) co-ordinated? Did they succeed in establishing a functional co-operation network? Do they follow a general road map and do they have an exit-strategy? What problems arose in the implementation of the intervention strategies, both concerning the measures on the ground and international co-operation? How were they addressed?
Project and Research Design

a) research papers:

Each individual paper should be about 10-20 pages in length. The analysis should be introduced by the author´s overall assessment of problems in the specific field of research (1 -3 pages). In the following section, the specific questions raised above (or others which the authors consider crucial or particularly pertinent in their respective field of analysis) should be discussed with regard to the specific situation in the country under study (7 – 15 pages). The analysis should conclude with broader reflections by the author on lessons to be drawn from the country under study, as well as – possibly – from other cases of international state building in the region (for example, the paper on East Timor might also draw on experiences from UNTAC in Cambodia to supplement the main body of analysis) (1 – 3 pages).

The scope of the individual papers and the issues seen as deserving particular attention are summarised in Annex I. Obviously, the authors should see these as guidelines, to be followed as closely as possible to ensure comparability, but also to be adjusted flexibly in the light of their superior experience and knowledge wherever necessary. The most important question that should be kept in mind throughout is the following: Which lessons for future state-building processes can be drawn from the experiences in the examined cases? Papers should be available by Sept.1 for review; the organisers will then provide comments to authors for possible amendments and revisions.

b) Conference
There will be a conference organised to review the findings of the research and discuss them in the light of practical experiences. To achieve maximum practical relevance, the conference will bring together a dozen experts and practitioners from Europe and Asia to comment and elaborate on the research papers, injecting their own experience into the process of reviewing the experiences. Thus, there will normally be, on each of the six topics, four participants, two each from Europe and Asia: two paper writers and two experts with practical experience, who will often have worked directly on the problems concerned.

c) Integrated policy paper:

The third step in the project will be the integration of the findings for dissemination and injection in the policy process. This will be done by the two project co-ordinators, Jusuf Wanandi and Hanns W. Maull. Their summary paper will identify the principal “lessons learned” and drawn conclusions from them.

Project Output

The integrated will serve as the basis for briefing relevant international institutions, and in particular the OSCE, the ARF and the DPKO at the United Nations, about the results of this study. Findings will also be published through the home pages of think tanks connected to this project, and as a booklength study (to be published by JCIE in Tokyo).

Project Finance

The total cost of this project is estimated at DM 131.400.-

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Japan has decided to provide financial support for this project in the order of $ 30.000. The German Foreign Ministry will support the project with a grant of DM 67.500.

Looking forward to reach a worldwide participatory democracy

World seeks a worldwide participatory democracy. A worldwide political union would have the mandate to deal with environmental issues and economic migration. Existing military technology should be redirected into defence of our world from external attack (e.g. meteors) and military research should need consume no further resources. Worldwide web-based governance presents great economy of scale. Be a world citizen.

“Fair, free and equal”

fair : one’s actions determine one’s rewards
free : one can choose one’s own lifestyle
equal : everyone has opportunity & resources

A worldwide electronic currency, the “Geo”, should be created and backed up by a worldwide portfolio of resources, e.g. a basket of other currencies. It should be defined to be perpetually inflation-free and tradable with resources, currencies and worldwide. It should provide a low-volatility haven for wealth, though the nominal interest rate on balances held in Geo’s should be low to reflect the absence of inflation. A worldwide tax system should be set up to provide a citizen’s income uniformly to everyone, paid for by taking from everyone a fixed percentage of his/her other income plus a different fixed percentage per year of the value of assets (s)he owns. The citizen’s income would replace bureaucratic unemployment benefits payments and the asset tax would replace inheritance tax. It would be a matter for public opinion and the world parliament to determine the worldwide levels of citizen’s income, income tax & annual asset tax. The correct balance would efficiently ensure a minimum standard of living, reward hard work, and reduce the inequalities in the global wealth distribution. When sourcing goods and services people should be able to choose as suppliers either the world public sector or private companies. People coordinating their efforts and individuals being creative are both important.

A cleaner method of Proportional Representation avoids the problems of cronyism found with AV+, where the party presents a list of its choice of MPs in a chosen order. All ballot papers in a constituency are placed in identical plastic balls and mixed up thoroughly in a spinning drum before one is selected at random. The vote on this ballot paper elects the selected candidate as the Member of World Parliament for that constituency. This returns close to the number of seats for each party justified by its national or worldwide vote. The method has here been applied to the UK General Election on 7th June, 2001. A similar random process can be used to select people to publicly air their views on issues under debate, which avoids undue tyranny of the majority or the powerful. As a decision making mechanism it avoids the artificiality of coalitions for 51% of the vote.

If m parties receive at least one vote and each party gets its own uniform fraction p of the vote across all constituencies, where n(total) is the number of constituencies, then the probability P of party 1 gaining n(1) seats and party 2 gaining n(2) seats etc.

Decisions can be made in parliament and indeed world parliament by considering small sub-issues for which every member of parliament or world citizen places an opinion in an identical plastic ball. These balls are then mixed up thoroughly in a spinning drum before one is selected at random. The opinion selected then forms a parliamentary decision from which point debate advances. Clearly there are open-source Java programs which could be written to make random selections using computers on the Internet that are open to public scrutiny. Since there is no arbitrary number like 51% of the vote which guarantees winning a debate, proponents of a given position simply have to win over as many people as they can. This rationalises coalition bargaining. A unanimous 100% vote will definitely lead to a matching decision, regardless of whose opinion is randomly selected.

Selecting people at random to find out their views enables the political process to be representative of people in proportion to their numbers, thus providing balanced input into debates. People can decline to comment on issues in which they have no interest. One may ask whether an electoral register provides the fairest way of selecting people at random. To avoid the intrusion into people’s privacy associated with such a register, a system which randomly selects a geographical location and a time, weighted according to population density and relevance of the issue at this location, can select the nearest person. One may further ask how relevant locations for an issue are determined. For a proposed hydroelectric dam, these are downstream, or upstream in a town that would be flooded, or where people would benefit from the generated this way.