The Federal Idea: Public Law Between Governance and Political Life [Hardcover]

A significant part of the world's population lives under some sort of federal arrangement. And yet, the concepts of federalism and federation remain under-theorised. Federalist theorists have, for the most part, defined their object by opposition to the unitary state. As a result, they have not developed public law theories that capture the specificity of this type of polity.

Bringing together contributions from leading public law theorists and intellectual historians, this volume explores the foundations of federalism. It develops novel perspectives on the core problems of traditional federalist theory and charts new departures in federalist theory and federal power-sharing. At a time when we look for more inclusive ways of ordering public life, the volume fills an urgent theoretical and political need.

Introduction: Federalism and Public Law Theory
Amnon Lev
I. Making Public Law Work as Theory
II. Modes of Federalism
III. Aspects of the Federal Idea: An Overview of the Volume

Part I: Theorising Federalism
1. The Federal Condition
Nicholas Aroney
I. The Liberal Condition
II. The Federal Condition
2. Federation and Empire: About a Conceptual Distinction of Political Forms
Olivier Beaud
I. The Federation as a Political Form and its Relation to Empire
II. The Ideal Typical Opposition between Federation and Empire
III. An Illustration in Law: Federative Compact and Federal Treaty
IV. Some Remarks on Unity and Diversity
3. Towards a Deontic-Axiomatic Theory of Federal Adjudication
Jean-Fran?ois Gaudreault-DesBiens
I. Preliminary Remarks
II. Ambitions and Limits of a Normative, Deontic-Axiomatic Theory of Federalism
III. Conclusion

Part II: Governing the Federation
4. Federalism and the Separation of Powers
Jessica Bulman-Pozen
I. Cooperative lÃ%