Federalism In The United States Canada And Australia

This book is a comparison of the history and politics of two sister societies, comparing Canada with Australia, rather than, as is traditional, with the United Kingdom or the United States. It is representative of a particular interest in promoting more contact and exchange among Canadian and Australian scholars who were investigating various features of the two societies. Because some of them were individually involved in aspects of federalist studies, an examination of the early evolution of federalism in what once were the two sister dominions seemed quite an appropriate area in which to begin comparisons. The book discusses Canadian federalism from about 1864 to 1880 and Australian federalism from about 1897 to 1914. It examines the background and changes wrought on early Canadian federalism and early Australian federalism.

Federalism: The Australian Experience offers readers a first-hand insight into one of the oldest federations in the world by an Australian expert, Prof Cheryl Saunders. The Australian Constitution is approaching its centenary and it is expected that students of political science, constitutional law, fiscal federalism and practitioners will in the years to come show a growing interest in how the constitution and practice are adapting to the demands of the 21st century. From a South African point of view, studies on Australian federalism have been somewhat neglected over the years. This is unfortunate and we hope that this publication will generate more interest in the subject. Some of the issues that could be of interest to South African researchers are for instance the treatment of indigenous people and efforts to accommodate their demands for land; the operation of the Commonwealth Grants Commission and its impact on policy, and the functioning of intergovernmental relations between the federal and state governments and also between state and local governments and between state governments themselves.

"When insurgent groups challenge powerful states, defeat is not always inevitable. Increasingly, guerrilla forces have overcome enormous disadvantages and succeeded in extending the period of violent conflict, raising the costs of war, and occasionally winning. Noriyuki Katagiri investigates the circumstances and tactics that allow some insurgencies to succeed in wars against foreign governments while others fail. Adapting to Win examines almost 150 instances of violent insurgencies pitted against state powers, including in-depth case studies of the war in Afghanistan and the 2003 Iraq war. By applying sequencing theory, Katagiri provides insights into guerrilla operations ranging from Somalia to Benin and Indochina, demonstrating how some insurgents learn and change in response to shifting circumstances. Ultimately, his research shows that successful insurgent groups have evolved into mature armed forces, and then demonstrates what evolutionary paths are likely to be successful or unsuccessful for those organizations."--Publisher's Web site.

Courts and Federalism examines recent developments in the judicial review of federalism in the United States, Australia, and Canada. Through detailed surveys of these three countries, Gerald Baier clearly demonstrates that understanding judicial doctrine is key to understanding judicial power in a federation. Baier offers overwhelming evidence of doctrine's formative role in division-of-power disputes and its positive contribution to the operation of a federal system. Courts and Federalism urges political scientists to take courts and judicial reasoning more seriously in their accounts of federal government.

Intergovernmental agreements are an important instrument in federal systems, establishing new social programs, regulating agricultural practices, and even changing constitutions. Despite their importance, there have only been limited attempts to understand agreements in a comparative context or to provide a theoretical framework for their study. This book addresses both of these deficiencies by comparing the use of agreements in six federations (Australia, Canada, Germany, South Africa, Switzerland and the United States) and considering why certain federations form more agreements than others. Parker analyzes the data using an institutional framework that considers the effects of seven variables, including the constitutional division of powers, the system of intergovernmental transfers, the size of the welfare state and the nature of governing institutions. In addition, the study provides the first ever comparative database of national intergovernmental agreements — a new resource for future research. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Political Science, Federalism, Government, Political Institutions, Political Theory and Comparative Politics.