Comparative Federalism

Short and sweet, this 2-day “Compact Seminar” on “Comparative Federalism and the European Union” for more than a decade now. One of the central tasks of every federation thereby is the division of powers between the “federal” and the “state” level. In the words of Tocqueville, it was the unique aim of the US Constitution ‘to divide the sovereign authority into two parts’: ‘In the one [the Founders] placed the control of all the general interests of the Union, in the other the control of the special interests of its component States’. This division of powers is, principally, a division of legislative powers; yet we find federal dividing lines also across the two other branches of government, namely the executive and judicial powers. What is the scope of the federal powers and how do they relate to the powers “inherent” in the States? What are dual and cooperative federalism; and how have these two variants of the Union/State relationship been developed within the United States, Germany and the European Union? This Seminar explores the various formats of allocating (and dividing) public power in these three jurisdictions (and we shall also have a quick look at how this is done in unitary states, like the United Kingdom).