Cyprus-Forum.com

[insan]

Re adelfe Michalis... I think you based and shaped your thoughts on a "centralised federation" model...

According to Ellis Katz whois Professor of Political Science at Temple University, Philadelphia. Pennsylvania, USA and Fellow at the Center for the Study of Federalism (http://www.temple.edu/federalism/) at the University. He is an authority on Federalism and co-edited the volume Federalism and Rights (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996). Professor Katz recently spoke at the International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Kandy on Federalism. This article, based on the text of that lecture, was prepared by ICES researcher Amalie Ellegala.

Here's some quotations from his speeches:






In recent years with the rise of ethnic conflict federalism has been seen as a solution to conflict in multi-ethnic societies. Back in the 1950s an eminent Political Scientist from Czechoslovakia did a survey of about 150 countries of the world. According to the survey 90% of them were multi-national, and multi-ethnic. The idea of one nation one state was the exception rather than the rule. Hence Sri Lanka is not alone in trying to deal with the problems posed by a multi-ethnic society. Many of these countries turned to federalism as a way of accommodating ethnic diversity, though it takes a lot of different forms.
Among the 25 constitutional federations, some are quite multi-ethnic. Belgium and Switzerland are two examples. After Second World War countries turned to highly centralised political models, either influenced by Marxist models of centralised planning, or in other cases, by the French model of democracy. However, since the 1980s the debate has shifted. Marxist central planning is no longer in vogue. The concern today is how to decentralise, devolve power, and how to deal with the problems of over centralisation in a democracy. This is a move away from the centralised French model of the democratic state.

Failure of Centralised State

Today there are over 25 countries in the world that are constitutionally federations. They range from very large countries such as Russia, United States of America, and Brazil to smaller countries such as Switzerland, Austria and Belgium. Federalism is generally associated with large territories. But smaller countries have also experimented with it.

There are a variety of reasons for countries to seek alternatives to centralisation. Failures of centralised government and planning are one reason. The introduction of free market economies is also an incentive to decentralization. In other countries federalism is an alternative to an authoritarian regime. One example is Spain. With the death of Franco, and the pressure for regional autonomy, Spain rebuilt itself more or less as a federal democracy. Spain has been relatively very successful in this experiment. The new federal democracy also allowed Spain to enter the European Union.



Power Sharing



Federalism is a system of power sharing or self-rule. That, and not the institutions of federal government per se, constitutes the substance of federalism. Power sharing takes many different forms. Spain, UK, and the European Union, none of which is a formal federation, are examples of federalism in the modern world. In other words federalism is an idea broader than its institutional structure.

Decentralisation Vs. Non-centralisation

Decentralisation is essentially an administrative concept. That is the centre decentralises power to the periphery. American businesses have become much more decentralised in this sense. It is not very effective and efficient to have centralised decision-making. It takes too long, mistakes are too costly, and therefore authority is decentralised to the field offices. According to the notion of decentralisation if there is a centre to decentralise that centre continues to exist to recentralise. Devolution is a kind of political decentralisation where the centre can devolve political authority but ultimately the periphery is accountable to the centre. Non-centralisation is a different concept. Federalism belongs to the camp of non-centralisation.

People as Source of Power

In federalism the centre does not give power. In federalism the people give power in their sovereign capacity The delegate power to both the national government and the states. It is a constitutional arrangement. Thus neither can the centre take power away from the states, nor can the states take power away from the centre. It is an arrangement created by the people. Through constitutional processes only the people can change it. In order to change this arrangement in the US it would require a constitutional amendment. To amend the US constitution it requires a national majority; you must get a 2/3 vote in both the House of Representatives and in the United States Senate. Then it also requires a majority of the states. In the US system it is 3/4 of the states, an extraordinary majority to ratify a proposed amendment. There is nothing magical about the 3/4, the point being that there is a system of compound majority, a national majority and state majority and you often find this sort of arrangement built in to federal systems. In federalism it is power that is delegated by the people and can only be changed by the people.

Power Sharing

Distribution of power and responsibility between the national government and the states is a critical issue in a federal government. When the US constitution was written the national government was created to deal with essentially four problems.
First, before the US constitution was written each state issued its own currency. Each state had tariff barriers so that if someone manufactured goods in Pennsylvania and tried to ship them to New York, New York would put high tariffs on that. The development of a national commercial system was impossible in this situation. So one of the functions of the national government was economic unity.


Second, national defence was the second task that was given to the national government.

Third, in foreign policy, the nation must speak with a single voice. Hence the US states are constitutionally forbidden to enter into treaties and dabble in foreign policy that is a federal government preserve.


Fourth, Madison in particular recognised the protection of individual rights as a problem. He said that if you had a small community in a state that was relatively homogenous, there was nothing to prevent the majority tyrannising the minority. This was a crucial problem for the Americans who valued liberty. The solution was to make it possible for the person to appeal from his/her state to the national political arena. American history is filled with countless examples of minority groups persecuted by their individual states that find redress in the national arena. To a great extent that is what the civil right movement has been about. African Americans could not walk through Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, or Georgia for redress of their grievances but they were able to turn to the national arena, especially to the US Supreme Court and the US President, to get relief.



Is a centrilised Federative Structure suitable for Cyprus due to its small territorial protectorates?

Or is centralisation something arised from irredentism? Or perhaps fear of partition?


What do you think adelfe MicAtCyp?

[michalis5354]

Name me just one of the many countries that has confederation.

switserland is one.

The Αnan Plan was not a REAL Federation because the Central State would only deal with some specific issues of running the Country and it had NO RIGHT AND NO MEANS to enforce its own limited law upon any of the constituent states

There was one central parliament and all laws passed through needed to be enforced.

There are no 3 states in Annan plan there is only one central state comprising (and representative)of two Constituent states that were not independent but directly DEPENDENT on the Central Government.

What you said is like saying that in USA are 70 states or in UK there are 5 states which is not true!

[michalis5354]

In recent years with the rise of ethnic conflict federalism has been seen as a solution to conflict in multi-ethnic societies. Back in the 1950s an eminent Political Scientist from Czechoslovakia did a survey of about 150 countries of the world. According to the survey 90% of them were multi-national, and multi-ethnic. The idea of one nation one state was the exception rather than the rule. Hence Sri Lanka is not alone in trying to deal with the problems posed by a multi-ethnic society. Many of these countries turned to federalism as a way of accommodating ethnic diversity, though it takes a lot of different forms.
Among the 25 constitutional federations, some are quite multi-ethnic. Belgium and Switzerland are two examples. After Second World War countries turned to highly centralised political models, either influenced by Marxist models of centralised planning, or in other cases, by the French model of democracy. However, since the 1980s the debate has shifted. Marxist central planning is no longer in vogue. The concern today is how to decentralise, devolve power, and how to deal with the problems of over centralisation in a democracy. This is a move away from the centralised French model of the democratic state.

This is the whole idea . That the reason a unitary state has failed in the past and will FAILL IN THE FUTURE if adopted.

[insan]

Our case in Cyprus have some exact similarities with Nigerian Federalism I think...

There are two schools of thought on Nigerian federalism: the centralists and the decentralists. The centralists seem to harbor a morbid apprehension of the idea of restructuring our polity, either out of fear of what this will entail or concern for their own privileged position. The reason for this fear is often not explicitly stated, but we can hazard a guess. They fear restructuring will lead to the disintegration of our country as one corporate entity. This is highly exaggerated and misplaced. Worse, they assume the protagonists of restructuring do not believe in the territorial integrity of Nigeria and restructuring is but one step towards the dismemberment or even demise of our country. The decentralists argue that they do not see the need for the overconcentration of power in the federal government to the extent that it retains 48.5% of the total revenue and is run by an inefficient and bloated bureaucracy. They also do not see the need for a Nigeria of 36 states, many of which are no more than glorified local governments that go cap in hand to Abuja for subventions.

http://www.usafricaonline.com/solarinfederalism.html

Papadopulos and his backers are centralists; and the others are decentralists; as far as I understand...

Instead of discussing those political points of views in order to find out which one is suitable for Cyprus Federalism; vast majority of Cypriots(Either consciously or unconsciously) prefered to flare and swear at each others political stance by defining each others as taritors or patriots... So much paranoia and pre-judices has gone on in last 50 years of Cyprus.

I sometimes ask myself if Cypriots are really advanced communities in this contemporary world...

I'm sorry for my harsh words regarding Cypriots but my intention isn't insulting the TC and GC communities which I'm also a member of... but this blind-fight really drives me crazy!

[michalis5354]

Decentralisation is essentially an administrative concept. That is the centre decentralises power to the periphery

This is also how most organisations are functioning today :They become more effective by assigning authority to individual branches and subsidiaries. No matter how big is the branch it has authority equivalent to larger branches. Decision making is much more effective.

Democracy is giving to the minority the RIGHT to express its opinion and not to dominate it with one way or the other! Thats why the USSR has failed and collapsed and we have now even separate states.



[/quote]

[michalis5354]

I sometimes ask myself if Cypriots are really advanced communities in this contemporary world...

I'm sorry for my harsh words regarding Cypriots but my intention isn't insulting the TC and GC communities which I'm also a member of... but this blind-fight really drives me crazy!

No you are not insulting the Cypriot community. This is true! We have all these OLD COWS politicians who fail to perceive what is happening internationally! And they seek to adopt OLD fashioned politics that nowadays are OUT of date.

[insan]

A federation is distinct from a state which is composed of self-governing regions but in which the autonomous status of those regions exists at the sufferance of the central government, and may be unilaterally revoked. Such a state is a form of unitary state Spain and Belgium are examples of unitary states that are superficially federal in structure.

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.c ... al%20state


That's what we need I think... A unitary state that would be superficially federal in structure... The only administrative problem of this kind of unitary state would be its unilateral revocations I reckon... and could be democraticaly secured by seperate majority votes of two communities senators ...


What's your opinions?

[erolz]

This is my first post here, so welcome to everybody

The fact is that an 18% of anything is a minority. Thats simple maths. Its a paradox to claim otherwise.

There is a difference between numerical minority and politcal minority. The concept that numerical minorites can have politcal equality, or disproportionate to their numers politcal representation is not an unusal or unique one at all.

Just take the EU for example. In some areas and aspects the RoC has total equality with numericaly larger memebers like germany and the UK. In the europena comission (from 1st Jan) it will apoint a single comissioner, just like the numericaly larger states like germany and the UK. In the european parliament the RoC has 6 seats with a population of approx 650,000 people which makes one seat per 110,000 of population. The UK has a population of approx 68,000,000 and 74 seats in the EU parliament which makes appox one seat per 900,000 of population. A similar disproportionate representation exits for the council of ministers also.

Surely then if your simplistic view that there is only such a thing as numerical minority and that any variance from this numericality in terms of representation is a 'perversion' of democracy is true within a republic or state then it must also be true between a union of such states? So will you be calling for a fairer EU where the RoC has no veto rights on any issues and its seats in the eu parliament, council of ministers, and eurpean comissioners should be massively reduced to bring it in line with 'numerical reality'?

[michalis5354]

Lets refer to the Annan plan who we are all more or less aware of!

I totally aggree with this

In federalism the centre does not give power. In federalism the people give power in their sovereign capacity The delegate power to both the national government and the states. It is a constitutional arrangement. Thus neither can the centre take power away from the states, nor can the states take power away from the centre. It is an arrangement created by the people

The Annan plan was drafted to address the core issues of federation as above and to satisfy to some extent some of the provisions of all sides concerned, together with aggreements signed etc I think the framework of the plan was very good indeed .

[Piratis]

Just take the EU for example

EU is not a country, its a union of independent countries.
In Cyprus there is only one country which is partly occupied by a foreign power.