Constitutions, Legislation, and National Integration
| Autor | Stephen Ansolabehere/María Socorro Puy Segura |
| Cargo del Autor | Catedrático de Gobernanza, Universidad de Harvard/Catedrática de Fundamentos del Análisis Económico Universidad de Málaga |
| Páginas | 77-92 |
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Constitutions, Legislation, and National Integration
S A
Catedrático de Gobernanza, Universidad de Harvard
M S P S
Catedrática de Fundamentos del Análisis Económico
Universidad de Málaga
SUMMARY
I. Region and Nation
II. Constitution
III. Legislation
IV. Integration
V. Interpretations and Implications
Most nations in the world today arose by joining together many local
cultures and economies under a common government and constitution.
From their beginnings nations have struggled with the challenges of making
a coherent nation out of many distinct cultures and economies. That is the
problem of cultural and political integration. Local areas have their own
languages and customs; they have their own legal systems; they have their own
distinctive economies deriving from their people, their natural resources, and
their histories. The nation’s laws must accommodate those differences, or risk
political division along regional lines, possible dissolution, and even civil war.
Examples of the failures of nations to achieve integration abound in
recent history. Throughout the world various regions have brought pressure to
dissolve their bond with the nation. Two million Catalans 90 percent of those
who voted elected to leave Spain in October, 2017. Scotland held a referendum
in 2014 to leave the United Kingdom, but chose to stay. The United Kingdom,
just two years later, voted to leave the European Union. There are also ample
cases where a region has been partially or imperfectly brought into a nation.
Puerto Rico, for example, is neither a state nor an independent country, but a
“commonwealth” of the United States. Puerto Ricans are citizens of the United
States, but Congress makes the laws governing Puerto Rico but Puerto Ricans
Stephen Ansolabehere – María Socorro Puy
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have no representation (with voting rights) in Congress. And, there have been
many instances where nations have dissolved, some times peaceably, such as
Slovakia and the Czech Republic, but more often resulting in civil war, such
as erupted in the United States in the 1860s, Spain in the 1930s, and the ex-
Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
The ability of a nation to adapt its laws to accommodate the varied
cultures, languages, and economies that it encompasses is certainly shaped
by the characteristics of those cultures and economies. Regions that have very
different religions and languages will have more difficulty integrating into a
common nation than will regions that share a common religion and language.
Regions that have very different economies may have difficulty finding
common ground on laws, such as governing bankruptcy and debt, if those
laws have opposite effects on the different regions.
The success of a nation is also determined by that nation’s constitution
the rules that the regions adopt when they decide to form a union. It is in the
constitution that the relationship between the nation and the region are first
established. That first step subsequently shapes what relation the regions have
to the nation, what laws the nation can and cannot create, the supremacy of
the national or the regional laws, and how well the various regions of a nation
can integrate their laws, customs, and markets into a common economy and
lasting union.
There are many varieties of constitutional relationships between the
nation and its regions, but the key factor is the degree of centralization or
decentralization of authority. Some nations have constitutions that vest all
power in the national government. In the United Kingdom, for example,
Parliament is the supreme authority. In Germany, all revenue is raised by the
central government and then distributed to the lander through laws passed
by parliament. Some nations, however, have very decentralized federal
governments. The states in the United States retain their authority to raise
their own revenues and pass their own laws, and the United States constitution
enumerates the specific powers of the national government. Spain presents an
unusual case. The Basque Region retains the power to raise its own revenue,
and it controls its own education system, its own health care system, and its own
police and justice ministry. Authority in this region is highly decentralized.
Every other region of Spain lacks the ability to raise their own revenue; they
depend on the national government for the distribution of public spending,
and they have relatively little control over even the local bureaucracy.
The varieties of federal relationships and varying degrees of national
integration raise questions at the heart of the very nature of modern
government. Why do some nations have centralized federalism and some have
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