A confederation (also known as a confederacy or league) is a union of sovereign groups or states, united for purposes of common action. Usually created by a treaty,
confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with
critical issues, such as defense, foreign relations, internal trade or
currency, with the general government
being required to provide support for all its members. Confederalism
represents a main form of inter-governmentalism, this being defined as
any form of interaction between states which takes place on the basis of
sovereign independence or government.
The nature of the relationship among the member states constituting a confederation varies considerably. Likewise, the relationship between the member states and the general government, and the distribution of powers among them is variable. Some looser confederations are similar to international organisations. Other confederations with stricter rules may resemble federal systems.
Since the member states of a confederation retain their sovereignty, they have an implicit right of secession. Political philosopher Emmerich Vattel observed: ‘Several sovereign and independent states may unite themselves together by a perpetual confederacy without each in particular ceasing to be a perfect state. … The deliberations in common will offer no violence to the sovereignty of each member’.
Under a confederate arrangement, in contrast with a federal one, the central authority is relatively weak. Decisions made by the general government in a unicameral legislature, a council of the member states, require subsequent implementation by the member states to take effect. They are therefore not laws acting directly upon the individual, but instead have more the character of inter-state agreements. Also, decision-making in the general government usually proceeds by consensus (unanimity) and not by majority. Historically, these features, limiting the effectiveness of the union, mean that political pressure tends to build over time for the transition to a federal system of government, as happened in the US, Swiss and German cases of regional integration.
The nature of the relationship among the member states constituting a confederation varies considerably. Likewise, the relationship between the member states and the general government, and the distribution of powers among them is variable. Some looser confederations are similar to international organisations. Other confederations with stricter rules may resemble federal systems.
Since the member states of a confederation retain their sovereignty, they have an implicit right of secession. Political philosopher Emmerich Vattel observed: ‘Several sovereign and independent states may unite themselves together by a perpetual confederacy without each in particular ceasing to be a perfect state. … The deliberations in common will offer no violence to the sovereignty of each member’.
Under a confederate arrangement, in contrast with a federal one, the central authority is relatively weak. Decisions made by the general government in a unicameral legislature, a council of the member states, require subsequent implementation by the member states to take effect. They are therefore not laws acting directly upon the individual, but instead have more the character of inter-state agreements. Also, decision-making in the general government usually proceeds by consensus (unanimity) and not by majority. Historically, these features, limiting the effectiveness of the union, mean that political pressure tends to build over time for the transition to a federal system of government, as happened in the US, Swiss and German cases of regional integration.
Examples
Belgium
Many scholars have claimed that the Kingdom of Belgium,
a country with a complicated federal structure has adopted some
characteristics of a confederation under the pressure of separatist
movements, especially in Flanders.
For example, C. E. Lagasse declared that Belgium was "near the
political system of a Confederation" regarding the constitutional reform
agreements between Belgian Regions (federated states with well-defined geographical borders: Flanders, Wallonia and Greater Brussels) and between Communities (statelike authorities based on the mother tongue, not geography), while the director of the Centre de recherche et d'information socio-politiques (CRISP) Vincent de Coorebyter called Belgium "undoubtedly a federation...[with] some aspects of a confederation" in Le Soir. Also in Le Soir, Professor Michel Quévit of the Catholic University of Leuven wrote that the "Belgian political system is already in dynamics of a Confederation".
Nevertheless, the Belgian regions (and linguistic communities)
lack the necessary autonomy to leave the Belgian state. As such, federal
aspects still dominate. Also, for fiscal policy and public finances,
the federal state dominates the other levels of government.
The increasingly confederal aspects of the Belgian Federal State
appear to be a political reflection of the profound cultural,
sociological and economic differences between The Flemish (Belgians who speak Dutch or Dutch dialects) and Walloons (Belgians who speak French or French dialects).
As an example, in the last several decades, over 95% of Belgians have
voted for political parties that represent voters from only one
community, the separatist N-VA
being the party with the biggest voter support among the Flemish
population. Parties that strongly advocate Belgian unity and appeal to
voters of both communities play usually only a marginal role in
nationwide general elections. The system in Belgium is known as Consociationalism.
This makes Belgium fundamentally different from federal countries like Switzerland, Canada, Germany and Australia.
In those countries, national parties regularly receive over 90% of
voter support. The only geographical areas comparable with Belgium
within Europe are Catalonia, the Basque Country (both part of Spain), Northern Ireland and Scotland (both part of the United Kingdom) and parts of Italy,
where a massive voter turnout for regional (and often separatist)
political parties has become the rule in the last decades, while
nationwide parties advocating national unity draw around half, or
sometimes less, of the votes.
Canada
Proclamation of Canadian Confederation
In Canada, the word confederation has an additional, unrelated meaning. "Confederation" refers to the process of (or the event of) establishing or joining the Canadian federal state.
In modern terminology, Canada is a federation and not a confederation. However, to contemporaries of the Constitution Act, 1867, confederation did not have the same connotation of a weakly centralized federation. Canadian Confederation generally refers to the Constitution Act, 1867, which formed the Dominion of Canada from three of the colonies of British North America,
and to the subsequent incorporation of other colonies and territories.
Therefore, on 1 July 1867, Canada became a self-governing dominion of the British Empire with a federal structure under the leadership of Sir John A. Macdonald. The provinces involved were the Province of Canada (comprising Canada West, now Ontario, formerly Upper Canada; and Canada East, now Quebec, formerly Lower Canada), Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. Later participants were Manitoba, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, Alberta and Saskatchewan (the latter two created as provinces from the Northwest Territories in 1905), and finally Newfoundland (now Newfoundland and Labrador) in 1949. Canada is an unusually decentralized federal state and not a confederate association of sovereign states (the usual meaning of confederation in modern terms). A Canadian law, the Clarity Act, and a court ruling, Reference Re Secession of Quebec, set forth the conditions for negotiations to allow Canadian provinces (though not territories)
to leave the Canadian federal state; however, as this would require a
constitutional amendment, there is no current "constitutional" method
for withdrawal.
European Union
Due to its unique nature, and the political sensitivities surrounding it, there is no common or legal classification for the European Union (EU). However, it does bear some resemblance to both a confederation (or a "new" type of confederation) and a federation. The term supranational union has also been applied. The EU operates common economic policies with hundreds of common laws, which enable a single economic market, a common customs territory, (mainly) open internal borders, and a common currency
among most member-states. However, unlike a federation, the EU does not
have exclusive powers over foreign affairs, defence, and taxation.
Furthermore, most EU laws (which have been developed by consensus between relevant national government Ministers and then scrutinised and approved or rejected by the European Parliament) must be transposed into national law by national parliaments. Most collective decisions by member states are taken by weighted majorities and blocking minorities
rather than unanimity. Any treaties or amendments thereto requires
ratification by every member state before it can come into force.
However, some academic observers more usually discuss the EU in the terms of it being a federation. As international law professor Joseph H. H. Weiler (of the Hague Academy and New York University) wrote, "Europe has charted its own brand of constitutional federalism". Jean-Michel Josselin and Alain Marciano see the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg City as being a primary force behind building a federal legal order in the Union
with Josselin stating that a "complete shift from a confederation to a
federation would have required to straight-forwardly replace the
principality of the member states vis-à-vis the Union by that of the
European citizens. As a consequence, both confederate and federate
features coexist in the judicial landscape". Rutgers
political science professor R. Daniel Kelemen observed: "Those
uncomfortable using the 'F' word in the EU context should feel free to
refer to it as a quasi-federal or federal-like system. Nevertheless, the
EU has the necessary attributes of a federal system. It is striking
that while many scholars of the EU continue to resist analyzing it as a
federation, most contemporary students of federalism view the EU as a
federal system".
Thomas Risse and Tanja A. Börzel claim that the "EU only lacks two
significant features of a federation. First, the Member States remain
the 'masters' of the treaties, i.e., they have the exclusive power to
amend or change the constitutive treaties of the EU. Second, the EU
lacks a real 'tax and spend' capacity, in other words, there is no
fiscal federalism."
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing,
the chairman of the body of experts commissioned to elaborate a
constitutional charter for the European Union, was confronted with
strong opposition from the United Kingdom towards including the words
'federal' or 'federation' in the unratified European Constitution, and hence replaced the word with either 'Community' or 'Union'.
Indigenous confederations in North America
Map of the Five Nations (from the Darlington Collection)
In the context of the history of the indigenous peoples of the Americas,
a confederacy may refer to a semi-permanent political and military
alliance consisting of multiple nations (or "tribes", "bands", or
"villages") which maintained their separate leadership. One of the most
well-known is the Haudenosaunee (or Iroquois), but there were many others during different eras and locations across North America; these include the Wabanaki Confederacy, Western Confederacy, Powhatan, Seven Nations of Canada, Pontiac's Confederacy, Illinois Confederation, Tecumseh's Confederacy, Great Sioux Nation, Blackfoot Confederacy, Iron Confederacy and Council of Three Fires.
The Haudenosaunee Confederacy, historically known as the Iroquois
League or the League of Five—later, Six—Nations, is the country of Native Americans (in what is now the United States) and First Nations (in what is now Canada) that consists of six nations: the Mohawk, the Oneida, the Onondaga, the Cayuga, the Seneca and the Tuscarora.
The Six Nations have a representative government known as the Grand
Council which is the oldest governmental institution still maintaining
its original form in North America.
Each clan from the five nations sends chiefs to act as representatives
and make decisions for the whole confederation. The League has been
operating since its foundation in 1142 CE despite limited international
recognition today. In fact, Haudenosaunee issues passports for its
citizens, though travellers often face problems crossing State borders.
Serbia and Montenegro
Serbia and Montenegro (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) was a confederation that was formed by the two remaining republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFR Yugoslavia): Montenegro and neighboring Serbia. The country was reconstituted as a very loose political union which was established on 4 February 2003.
As a confederation,
Serbia and Montenegro were united only in very few realms, such as
defense, foreign affairs and a very weak common president of the
confederation. The two constituent republics functioned separately
throughout the period of its short existence, and continued to operate
under separate economic policies, as well as using separate currencies
(the euro was and still is the only legal tender in Montenegro, while the dinar was still the legal tender in Serbia). On 21 May 2006, the Montenegrin independence referendum
was held. Final official results indicated on 31 May that 55.5% of
voters voted in favor of independence. The confederation of Yugoslavia
effectively came to an end after Montenegro's formal declaration of
independence on 3 June 2006, and Serbia's formal declaration of
independence on 5 June.
Switzerland
Switzerland, officially known as the Swiss Confederation,
is an example of a modern country that traditionally refers to itself
as a confederation. This is due to the fact that the official (and
traditional) name of Switzerland in German (the majority language of the
Swiss) is Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft (literally "Swiss Comradeship by Oath"), an expression which was translated into the Latin Confoederatio Helvetica (Helvetic Confederation). It had been a confederacy since its inception in 1291 as the Old Swiss Confederacy,
originally created as an alliance among the valley communities of the
central Alps, and retains nowadays the name of Confederacy for reasons
of historical tradition. The confederacy facilitated management of
common interests (e.g. freedom from external domination, especially by
the Austrian Habsburgs,
development of republican institutions in a Europe composed of
monarchies, free trade, etc.) and ensured peace between the different
cultural entities in the central alpine area.
After the Sonderbund War of 1847, when some of the Catholic cantons of Switzerland tried to set up a separate union (Sonderbund
in German) against the Protestant majority, the resulting political
system established by the victorious Protestant cantons acquired all the
characteristics of a federation.
Historical confederations
Historical
confederations (especially those predating the 20th century) may not
fit the current definition of a confederation, may be proclaimed as a
federation but be confederal (or the reverse), and may not show any
qualities that 21st-century political scientists might classify as those
of a confederation.
List
Some have more the characteristics of a personal union, but appear here because of their self-styling as a "confederation":
