Thursday, June 27, 2013
5.59 (PC Hoofthuis)
In the area of federal studies, the past has been dealt with profusely and many authors have acknowledged in their theories the influence of certain legacies on federal development and actual operation. However, they have only considered a small set of historical legacies and not clearly identified the mechanisms by which the past affects the present in federal systems. This paper draws on the neo-institutional theoretical literature that has been developed in recent years about historical legacies in federal studies but also in democratization studies, political economy, and political party development. It seeks thereby to use theoretically informed arguments to generate hypotheses about different types of institutional legacies that might play a role in the operation and stability (or change) in federal systems under present circumstances. The paper lays out an analytical framework for estimating the types and the effects of different legacies (societal, institutional, and ideational) on the current politics of federal systems. This framework is constituted by three sets of elements: types of historical legacies, political domains where historical legacies may have an effect, and mechanisms by which legacies affect the present. The empirical domains affected are the workings of current institutions and symbols, typical pathologies and trajectories of reform, the construed history and interpretation of the past and the constitution, the current elites’ discourse on the system and the need of reform, the public perceptions, attitudes or beliefs (federal culture) and individual or collective behavior.
