Since the mid-seventies, several states in Latin America, Southern Europe, and Central and Eastern Europe have gone through a profound process of democratisation. On each occasion, policy-makers and policy scientists were asked to think about the most appropriate constitutional and institutional architecture. Among the issues that were discussed was the question of whether a parliamentary, presidential, or semi-presidential system should be created or whether the legislature should be elected by Proportional Representation or by a majoritarian electoral formula.
In democratising societies with a multinational character (to name some examples such as Spain, Russia, and South Africa), a question was put on whether powers should be decentralised, as a means of enhancing the coexistence of various nationalities within their state borders. Such a process of decentralisation could lead to the formation of a federal state. Robert A. Dahl, an American political scientist, in his book titled Democracy, Liberty and Equality opines that a federation is a political system in which “some matters are exclusively within the competence of certain local units/provinces or regions and are constitutionally beyond the scope of authority of national government, and where other matters are constitutionally outside the scope of the authority of the smaller units.”
States that institutionalised democratic federalism gave further thought to which powers should be entrusted to the regional levels of government and which powers should be best-taken care of at the federal level. Policymakers could not rely on an existing blueprint prescribing the most appropriate way of dividing competencies in a federal state. In contemporary federations, the responsibilities of the federal and regional policy levels cannot always be disentangled. One such example relates to fiscal federalism; in most contemporary federations the tax capacity of the federal government surpasses that of the regions. Yet welfare services are frequently provided by the regional or provincial governments. That financing of these expenditures requires that the federal government actively support the regions, at least if one of its objectives is to offer comparable standards of welfare provision across the federation.
The fiscal dependence of the regions on the center ideally requires that the politico-economic concerns of the regions are accommodated when the center debates the allocation of federal grants to the regions and introduces legislation to such effect in the federal parliament
Political scientists have studied the nature of the dependence of the provinces on the center. They have also suggested some institutional designs and mechanisms for not only regulating the ethnopolitical conflicts in multi-ethnic federations but also advancing the concerns of provinces at the federal level. Katharine Adeney, a renowned British political scientist, for example, in her work titled Federalism and Ethnic Conflict Regulation in India and Pakistan examines the politics of institutional design and ethnic conflict regulation in two ethno-regionally diverse federations (India and Pakistan). She demonstrates that institutional designs of ethnically divided federations are required to be more inclusive when it comes to accommodating the ethno-regional and economic concerns of the provinces at the federal level. Similarly, Arend Lijphart, a Dutch-American political theorist, in his work titled The Politics of Accommodation: Pluralism and Democracy in Netherlands raises relevant questions and suggestions about the political systems of plural societies in the 21st century. Careful readers of the book may find relevant suggestions for accommodating the economic and political conflicts of the divided political cultures. When it comes to advancing regional concerns at the central level, he argues that a consociational solution is suitable for resolving the ethnic-regional divides in plural democracies.
The fiscal dependence of the regions on the center ideally requires that the politico-economic concerns of the regions are accommodated when the center debates the allocation of federal grants to the regions and introduces legislation to such effect in the federal parliament. Theorists of comparative federalism have argued that the second chamber of the federal bicameral legislature is the most prominent institutional mechanism for channeling such regional concerns at the center. Therefore, in federal states, federal second chambers ought to play a role as a ‘regional house’ or chamber of the provinces.
Federalism and Second Chambers; Regional Representation in Parliamentary Federations: the Australian Senate and German Bundesrat Compared, is one of the pioneering works by Wilfried Swenden, Professor of South Asian and Comparative Politics at the University of Edinburgh, who builds on previous work in the field of comparative federalism by introducing the concept of ‘second chambers as regional houses’ in the parliamentary federations in relation to the role of the contemporary federal second chambers in promoting regional representation in federal legislature or parliament. In response to what is characterised as the administrative, or problem-solving, approach taken to the debate around center-province relations and intergovernmental relations in multi-level states, Professor Swenden attempts to articulate the theoretical arguments that have thus far been excluded from consideration. Central to these arguments is the defining role of the federal second chambers inherent in modern comparative federalism discourse.
Swenden’s work fills that gap by explaining a theoretical framework for assessing the role of second chambers in parliamentary federations and by providing empirical evidence of the parliamentary performance of the federal second chambers in advancing the concerns of the regions or provinces at the federal level
For the author, the main purpose of writing this book was to demonstrate to what extent the second chambers of two of the most prominent parliamentary federal states (Australia and Germany) have been utilised to promote regional representation at the federal level. He defines the concept of regional representation as an independent variable and uses it at two different levels of analysis. First, regional representation refers to how the powers and composition of the second chamber have been linked to the federal structures in which they are embedded. Second, regional representation analyses the extent to which the individual members of the second chamber use their membership to advance the interests that are either linked to the region or province constituents whom they represent or the collective regional, fiscal, or administrative interests of a regional government with whom they are associated.
The book is divided into eight chapters. Chapter One provides a framework of analysis for studying the contribution of parliamentary second chambers in regional representation. Based on the literature on bicameralism in federal and nonfederal states, as well as on parliamentarianism and federalism, a set of several independent variables is signaled that influence the parliamentary performance of second chambers in regional representation. With the necessary theoretical background taken care of, the next two chapters take a close look at the political-institutional framework in which second chambers in parliamentary federations operate with special mention of Australian and German second chambers. Chapter Three looks at the composition of the second chamber; how are second chambers composed, how does the method of composition relate to regional representation and what is the causal linkage between the constitutional nature of a federation and a bicameral (in)congruence? Chapter Four turns to the position of individual senators within their parties’ hierarchies and who are the members of the second chamber most influenced by? Chapters Five and Six provide empirical evidence documenting the role or (non-role) of the Australian and German second chambers. They provide evidence of the parliamentary performance of the senators in advancing the concerns of the provinces at the federal level. Chapter Seven lists comparable evidence of different types of bicameral (in)congruence on regional representation. The final chapter provides a summary of the performance of second chambers in parliamentary federations from the viewpoint of regional representation. It situates the relevance of the book’s findings within the theory of comparative federalism and debates their importance to the wider group of parliamentary federations to suggest a useful reform agenda for the future.
Given the prevalence of questions of institution building and reform, a good deal of literature has appeared on federalism, as well as the contribution of a second chamber in a modern democracy. Less frequently studied, at least from an empirical point of view, is the linkage between bicameralism and federalism. For instance, studies of bicameralism are more often concerned with the potential role of the second chamber as a check or ‘veto player’ in the political system, hampering policy reform or, more positively, providing democracies with an anchor of political stability. Conversely, while theorists of comparative federalism stress the theoretical contribution of the second chamber in a federal state from the viewpoint of regional representation, empirical studies documenting whether a second chamber lives up to its ascribed role in regional representation are largely missing. Swenden’s work fills that gap by explaining a theoretical framework for assessing the role of second chambers in parliamentary federations and by providing empirical evidence of the parliamentary performance of the federal second chambers in advancing the concerns of the regions or provinces at the federal level.
This book serves the purpose of readily available standard work on parliamentary second chambers in federal and nonfederal states in particular and on legislative studies of parliamentary federation in general. It generates new debates and makes a valuable contribution not just to empirical political science, but also to constitutional law, comparative federalism, patterns of bicameralism, regionalism, territorial-political conflict regulation, intergovernmental relations, inter-cameral relations, executive-legislative relations, parliamentary oversight and committee systems, legislative procedures and processes, parliamentary practices in historical and comparative perspectives. In the last analysis, it can be useful for a wide audience: civil servants, lobbyists, journalists, academics, university students, researchers in parliamentary studies and comparative federalism, and all whose work brings them into contact with Parliament; constituents who want to know how they are represented and how their socio-economic and political issues can be addressed.