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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
Now let us take the oath of this new federation. We will become a single land of brothers, nor shall we part in danger or distress.
Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805), Wilhelm Tell 1804, part 2, scene 2 – founding oath of the Swiss confederacy, attributed 1291The federalism I have in mind – real federalism – aims to provide citizens with choices among different sovereigns, regulatory regimes, and packages of government services … The citizens’ ability to vote with their feet and to take their talents and assets elsewhere will discipline government in the same way in which consumer choice, in nonmonopolistic markets, disciplines producers.
Michael S. Greve, Real Federalism: Why it Matters, How it Could Happen (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 1999), pp. 2f.The ideal that all citizens share responsibility for the welfare of their fellows, and the impulse to unite in federations have, on occasions, been historically conjoined. The founding myth of Swiss federalism, as recounted in Schiller's Wilhelm Tell, literally makes solidarity ‘in danger or distress’ a proviso for membership in a budding thirteenth-century federation.
Federalism and social policy
Recent comparative welfare state research has acknowledged the importance of state structures in explaining cross-national variation in both the level and the dynamics of social policy formation.
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