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12 - The Material Constitution of Federations

from Part II - Challenges

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2023

By
Signe Rehling Larsen
Edited by
Marco Goldoni  and
Michael A. Wilkinson
Marco Goldoni
Affiliation:
University of Glasgow
Michael A. Wilkinson
Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science
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Summary

This chapter is concerned with the material constitution of the federation as a discrete form of political association. The chapter shows that the federation is a political order founded on an interstate agreement of constitutional nature between its Member States. This constitutional contract gives birth to the Union as a new institutionalised legal and political order and transforms the constitutions of its Member States in a material sense by relativising the dialectical relationship between governors and governed that lies at the heart of state sovereignty. The federation is characterised by a dual political existence, the Union and the Member States, which stand in a heterarchical relationship to one another. The federation is a dynamic order, characterised by the continual construction of political identity of both the Union and Member States.

Keywords

FederationPolitical FormsFederal UnionConstitutional BalanceConstitutional Transformation
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook on the Material Constitution , pp. 188 - 198
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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