defence and foreign policy, and because it seemed an efficient way to protect
minorities. Malaya acquired a federal constitution in 1948; Northern and
Southern Rhodesia, and Nyasaland were federated in 1953; and the West
Indies Federation was created in 1958. Many of these federations have not
survived because some of the component parts wanted complete control over
their own affairs; and the existence of a federal constitution did not prevent
civil war and general political instability in Nigeria.
Size is also a major factor in determining whether a federal constitution is
appropriate, since large areas are obviously more difficult to govern effectively
from a single centre. Canada, Australia, India and the USA nowadays need
federal constitutions, although Indian federalism is unusual in that the states
were redefined after the creation of the federal constitution, as much for
reasons of sheer size as because of their original political creation, in the same
way that the Soviet Union was originally and necessarily federal and its largest
successor state, the Russian Federation, is in the process of recreating highly
devolved regionalism.
The precise balance of power between the central and local authorities in
federal systems will vary between different federations and over time within a
particular system. In the USA, for example, powers not originally granted to
the federal government (among them the power to impose a federal income
tax) have been acquired by constitutional amendment. Less formal methods
have also been used to alter the federal–state balance. The courts have on
occasion changed their interpretation of the proper spheres of activity of the
federal and state authorities, as they did over reapportionment of congressional
seats and criminal procedure in the USA in the 1960s; the increasing depen-
dence of the states on the federal government for financial aid has in many ways
enabled the federal government to influence policies which are nominally
within the control of the state government. Some formally federal systems
operate rather more like a unitary system with an uncommon degree of
delegation. Germany is a federal republic, but in many areas the states act
as agents for the central government, administering nationally-determined
legislation; in some subjects, such as education, policing and land use, states
decide their own policies but the politics of the national government tend to
dominate all else.
Two constitutional features are found in most federal systems. There will
frequently be an upper house or senate (seesecond chambers) where the
states are represented in their own right and equally, as opposed to the
representation proportionate to population allocated in the lower house; and
there will usually be an enhanced role for the courts since the judiciary is
normally required to adjudicate in disputes between the central and local
authorities (seejudicial review). Federalism always remains a possibility for a
unitary state when regional, perhaps partially ethnic, divisions become too
Federalism