Intergovernmental Relations in Divided Societies

This chapter looks at the interplay of inter-cantonal cooperation and identity politics in Switzerland. It describes and analyses the complex relationship between language, territory and federal patterns of self- and shared rule: On the one hand, the 26 cantons compete and cooperate with each other and with the linguistic group(s) in which they are nested. On the other hand, the linguistic communities depend on cantonal borders and institutions as well as inter-cantonal cooperation for their continued existence. The Swiss cantons are thus both a means and an obstacle for cultural-identity conflicts, just like horizontal IGR more generally are as much a consequence of cantonal autonomy as also a threat to it.

This chapter examines Canada’s intergovernmental relations with regard to the accommodation of its linguistic and cultural divide. Relations between Quebec and the federal government have been tense since the Quiet Revolution and the rise of Quebec nationalism in the 1960s. Different perspectives on what Canada is, Quebec’s insistence on its distinctiveness, and its eagerness to protect and expand its autonomy have been the source of federal-provincial conflict. Despite having considerably shaped intergovernmental relationships, identity-based tensions are not reflected in the arrangements and practices through which the governments of the federation interact, however. Obversely, Canada’s system of intergovernmental councils seems to have been rather ineffective when it comes to solving them. Nevertheless, a flexible use of intergovernmental agreements has proven to be a means to satisfy (some of) Quebec’s demands.

The chapter discusses how identity politics have created a double strategy for the institutional design of the Belgian state, with one aspect of the strategy revolving around language groups and the other, around territorial divisions. The former, with power concentrated in two major language groups, is more important. This explains why IGR, based on a multipolar playing field, is dominated by bipolar politics. On the one hand, the result is a dyadic and conflict-enhancing federation, where subnational communities live side by side in isolation; on the other, power-sharing mechanisms, international obligations, health crises, fragmentation of competences, and the territorial overlap of territorial sub-units, necessitate cooperation, coordination and conflict management. Apart from its role in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government is not the dominant actor in IGR; instead, antagonistic Flemish and francophone political parties are at the centre of Belgian IGR—the mutual distrust between these groups corrodes cooperation and makes it ineffective in the long run.

This chapter examines the evolution of intergovernmental relations (IGR) in the United Kingdom (UK). Infrastructure to facilitate relations, specifically communication and cooperation, between the UK and devolved governments was established after the creation of devolved legislatures and executives in the late 1990s. At the apex of the UK’s IGR machinery is the Joint Ministerial Committee, a set of committees that brings together ministers from the devolved and UK governments. In general, however, IGR have tended to be informal, and the efficacy of multilateral fora has been repeatedly called into question. Intergovernmental interaction has become much more challenging in the aftermath of the 2016 vote to leave the European Union and has precipitated calls for an overhaul of extant processes and structures. Unpacking the experience of IGR in the UK, this chapter examines the different processes and structures implemented to facilitate intergovernmental interaction and analyses how this has functioned in the two decades since devolved institutions were established. The analysis shows that the ad hoc, under-institutionalised and hierarchical nature of UK IGR renders it a weak tool of territorial management, and existing machinery is in urgent need of substantive reform.

The Constitution has created nine subnational units principally on the basis of ethnic criteria. Whether and how these units would interact with the federal government and with each other was barely an issue in the past three decades, given that all levels of government were controlled by a single political party and IGR was thus an intra-party affair. However, after three years of public protests (2015–2018) and the election of a new prime minister, the states are increasingly assertive of their autonomy from federal intrusion, with intergovernmental disputes growing louder and more frequent. This chapter examines how a federal arrangement that takes ethnicity as a basis for state organisation contends with the ethnic undertone of the emerging intergovernmental disputes, an undertone which is shaping debate on and attitudes towards the establishment of formal IGR institutions.

IGR could not emerge as an underlying feature of Indian federal system, ostensibly, due to the tumultuous yet fulfilling trajectory of democratic experimentation, on the one hand, and imperatives of social and economic development, on the other. Evidently, in prioritising the requirement of rapid economic development through the mechanism of centralised planning, the central government tended to muddle up the valuable function of IGR through the institutions created primarily for streamlining the planning process. In the meantime, as and as the autonomy claims and identity politics started exhibiting their diverse insalubrious visages ranging, at times, even to the demand for secession, the government kept on evolving one institution or the other to grapple with these apparently inscrutable quandaries. What is most disheartening here is that the central government probably never takes the issue of IGR as a matter of serious consideration and tries to pass it off as a trifling affair that can be managed by the bodies set up to deal principally with some other important issues. The basic argument of this paper is, therefore, the existence of primary institutions and processes of IGR is ritualistic than substantial, though India has indeed been able to present an example of successful working of its federal democratic system despite innumerable autonomy claims and conundrums of identity politics.

Since the 1980s, Spain has evolved from a unitary state with a long-standing centralist tradition into a strongly decentralised state. The decentralisation process shows how a formerly highly centralised country can succeed in accommodating multilingual and cultural demands by decentralising competences through an open territorial organisation. During this process, the 1978 Constitution proved extremely stable and flexible, and, without constitutional amendment or reform, Spain has come to exhibit the basic structures and processes typical of federations. However, intergovernmental relations (IGR) are one of the mayor weaknesses of the State of Autonomies. The Constitution does not establish an institutional framework that guarantees continuous political dialogue and legislative cooperation among the different levels of government. Thus, there is neither permanent institutionalised representation of regional interests at the national level, nor a framework for IGR. IGR is generally developed informally or at the bilateral level between the Autonomous Communities and the central government, in particular the Basque Country, Canary Islands and Catalonia. The absence of horizontal and vertical stable cooperation and coordination mechanisms may explain the fact that interactions between both levels of governments are highly conflictual.

The chapter examines the system of intergovernmental relations (IGR) in Italy and explores its links with the protection of identities and minority rights. The institutions that connect regions and the centre are manifold and tend to reflect the asymmetrical nature of the Italian regional design within the framework of a decentralising state. As in most countries that have decentralised progressively, the second chamber of parliament performs no role in terms of linking the regions with the centre, despite a generic reference to this effect in the text of the Constitution. Consequently, IGRs have mainly been developed through cooperation among the executives rather than by means of the legislature. Originally developed as informal channels of cooperation, the attendant practices have been progressively institutionalised, creating a complex system of executive conferences that brings together the national, regional and, in some cases, local governments. The asymmetrical nature of the Italian regional system is reflected as well in the different institutions established to bring together each of the five special regions and the national government, namely the joint committees for the implementation of the special autonomy statutes of each so-called special region. The role, importance, and performance of each of these committees vary considerably. It is not by chance that those special regions whose autonomy is rooted in the protection of different identities (notably the rights of linguistic minorities) have made wider use than others of such instruments. The chapter demonstrates the existing link between IGR, identity politics, and asymmetrical constitutional design, a link that makes Italy a highly interesting case study for the comparative analysis of these phenomena.