The globalization process is characterized by a tension between unification and fragmentation. The global and local do not exclude each other. On the contrary, they are two aspects of a single process. The move towards globalization and world unification coexists with decentralization and localization. Nor is the nation-state destined to disappear.
Ronald Robertson coined the word “glocalization” to describe this process, for while globalization brings with it the unification of markets, civil society, cultural models, life styles and political institutions, it also fosters a need to preserve existing differences, local cultures and institutions. In fact, the moves to equalize and level social patterns simultaneously generate a need to maintain and develop more traditional local cultures and identities.
The trend towards fragmentation, takes two different forms. The first is a type of ethnic nationalism which not only resists globalization, but also can often result in the disintegration of established nation-states, thus leading to the transformation of the world into a collection of closed communities divided by tribal hatred. The second, alternative, scenario foresees the redistribution of governmental powers to different levels ranging from sub-national to supra-national through a structure of local and regional self-governments designed to be compatible with supranational powers and institutions.
Thus the erosion of state sovereignty stimulates the need for new forms of governance based on a division of competences between the national and the higher and lower levels of government. The architectural articulation of authority structures which has occurred in the globalization era has much in common with the medieval political organization, as Hedley Bull pointed out in his book The Anarchical Society, written in 1977 at the time when the word globalization was just beginning to come into use. His theory of a “new medievalism” underlines the analogy between the reorganization of the national and international political space, in progress during the last phase of the Cold War, and the overlapping of different levels of government from the local to the universal community which was typical of medieval times.
Whereas the formation of the modern state was characterized by the assertion of the concept of sovereignty – i.e. the progressive centralization of power on the military, fiscal, administrative, legislative and judiciary plane –, globalization on the other hand triggers a process which is developing in the opposite direction, namely that of the decentralization of political power and legal systems. A growing number of power centers are escaping state control and thereby undermining state sovereignty.
Observation of the effects of the globalization process shows the old sovereign states’ diminishing authority, the wider spread of political power and the weakening of legal certainties. Clashes between ill-defined rights pave the way to abuse. Encroachment by the strongest powers and groups against the weakest, the assertion of new privileges, the limitation of individual liberties, the spread of violence: all these aspects of the globalization process represent a serious danger to the values and institutions on which our civilization rests.
The ‘state’ is an invaluable heritage and a building bloc of the civilization process. On it depends the supremacy of the common good over the private interests. The problem, therefore, is to rethink and reorganize the state, not to abolish it.
In contemporary political-science literature, this reorganization of political power at different territorial levels has been called “multi-level governance”. This expression echoes the federalist vision of political institutions and enables us to rethink and question the traditional model of the unitary state. It is worth recalling that Kenneth C. Wheare defines the federal government “that system of power sharing that allows the central government and the regional governments to be, each in its own sphere, coordinated and independent”. It is appropriate to call this institutional arrangement “multi-level government”.
It is simply a delusion to imagine that the destruction of the nation-state alone could prove to be the vehicle towards more elevated forms of solidarity. It is true that the nation-state has led to the deepest political divisions and the strongest concentrations of power that the world has ever experienced. However, the well-known examples of Yugoslavia and Somalia show how the collapse of the state has meant a return to primitive barbarism, to ferocious, selfish tribalism and a return to obsolete forms of solidarity based on ethnic or religious ties.
Faced with these phenomena, one can appreciate the positive aspects of national solidarity in overcoming local, regional and class self-interests and the great role that nation-states have played in our history. France, Spain, Italy and Germany have unified populations with a variety of cultural, ethnic, linguistic and religious backgrounds. To be sure, this unity was achieved by means of centralization, i.e. by sacrificing pluralism. It is what the federalists of the past century, from Proudhon to Frantz and Cattaneo, untiringly denounced even if the federalist political proposal, historically, had no chance of influencing states such as France, Germany and Italy. In fact, the strong political and military pressure that these states underwent on their borders and the radical nature assumed by the class struggle created a drive towards power centralisation that no force could oppose. The fact is that democratic centralism has been a stage in the construction of democracy, of its extension to mixed populations with equal rights as citizens; and a means of overcoming old political and economic institutions in which the privileges of the feudal guilds were concealed.
Federalism’s contribution to understanding, and therefore to identifying, the limitations of the national experience lies in the denunciation of the exclusive character assumed by the ties of national solidarity, which do not tolerate any loyalty towards communities that are smaller or larger than the nation itself. However, national solidarity does not have to be abandoned in the globalization era. It should rather be considered as a necessary step towards wider forms of solidarity shared between nations within regional federations which will themselves be bound together in a worldwide federation. At the same time, national solidarity does not exclude other forms of solidarity within regional and local communities, but can coexist with them.
The federal model is therefore an institutional formula that allows for the coexistence of solidarity between territorial communities of varying sizes ranging, where necessary, from small local communities to – through UN reform – the entire world.
Evidence shows that the federalizing process is now increasingly widespread. It will eventually embrace entire continents and potentially the whole of the planet. At the same time, certain unitary states have also been influenced by federalism, leading some of them to transfer power towards smaller territorial communities. As a result of this process developing in two directions, one towards the top of the federal hierarchy and the other towards the bottom, it has become necessary to organize federations with more than two levels of government and so to supersede the traditional model that shared power only between the federal government and the federated states.
To these two levels of government must now be added (with an equal standing within the state) the region, county or province (i.e. the intermediate community between the region and towns), and local community levels, i.e. the borough of a large city or the town. Then, above the continental federation, there is the worldwide level. Of course, in each of these territorial areas, institutions already exist that are a clear expression of governmental and organizational requirements. These are not, however, usually autonomous centres of power, but are subordinate to the nation-state. Their institutional reorganisation according to the federal pattern allows every level of government to be given an independent power. This implies full freedom for each level of government to have relationships within the framework of its own authority with all the other corresponding or different levels without being subjected to the control (except for those of a constitutional nature) of the higher levels of government. For example, Region-European Union relationships, or links between bordering regions, and so on.
The federal model should be seen not as destroying the national model but as superseding it. It is a change in two directions: towards the top and towards the bottom. In fact, the federalist design improves on the limitations of national democracy, which is in decline owing to its excessive concentration of power in the hands of national governments. This improvement is achieved by adding new levels of government, popular participation and citizenship, both above and within the nations.
On the other hand, the decline of power politics and the ever closer interdependence between peoples have weakened not only the incentives towards centralisation. It has also changed the traditional concept of border. This used to give states the unchangeable shape of a closed society with homogeneous characteristics. The new forms of federal organization link the coexistence of different levels of government with openness and the overlapping of the individual territorial communities.
As an example, the removal of military and economic divisions within the European Union has brought to light the artificial character of nation-states. It is now possible for border populations to develop new forms of association with their neighbours in the European regions, such as in the Basque countries, Tyrol, Catalonia and Roussillon, Alsace and Baden, or the region where the French and English face each other across the Channel. Possibly there will be in the future an institutionalization of these regions that goes beyond mere cross-frontier cooperation. This would constitute a new aspect of contemporary federalism and point the way to overcome the obsolete formula of the nation-state.