Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Dann, Philipp

Titel

Federal Democracy in India and the European Union: Towards Transcontinental Comparison of Constitutional Law

Ist Teil von

• Verfassung und Recht in Übersee, 2011-01, Vol.44 (2), p.160-176

Ort / Verlag

Institut für Internationale Angelegenheiten der Universität Hamburg

Erscheinungsjahr

2011

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Worldwide Political Science Abstracts

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• India and the EU face a similar challenge: how to democratically govern a polity of continental dimensions and confusing heterogeneity? This question forms the core of this paper, yet it starts one step before. Acknowledging how unusual (and untested) the comparison between the Indian nation-state and the supranational EU is, the paper first discusses whether it is at all possible to compare these two polities – and what methodological challenges this will entail. Concluding nevertheless that these challenges can be met. the paper analyzes the structure and evolution of Indian federalism and federal democracy since independence in 1947. On this basis, it compares the Indian model of federal democracy with that of the EU – and observes two distinctly different approaches. While the Indian model is one of electoral federalism where federalism takes place at the ballot box as regional parties voice local and regional interests and vie for seats in the central parliament, the European model is rather one of executive federalism where regional interest representation is delegated to state governments which are represented in a second chamber that takes major influence on central level decision-making.