Federalism: from constitutionalism to constitutionalization?

The leading question of this chapter is why federalism as a system of self-rule and shared rule has been neglected as a reservoir of ideas and practices in the search for a stable and peaceful global order. The main reason, this chapter argues, is that conceptualizations of federalism have for the most part followed the narrow American model of a federal state characterized by constitutional rigidity and central paramountcy. Based on historical and contemporary comparative evidence, Hueglin suggests an extended understanding of federalism in which constitutional rigidity gives way to procedural mechanisms of negotiated agreement on power or task allocations based on the principle of subsidiarity. He concludes that such a conceptual move in the understanding of federalism, from constitutional federalism to treaty federalism as an open-ended process of constitutionalization, can offer heuristic guidance for a road map to stability and order in a deeply divided world.