THE POLITICAL ARCHITECTURE OF INTERGOVERNMENTAL POLICY COORDINATION IN LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATIONS: AUSTRALIA, AUSTRIA, CANADA & SWITZERLAND 1945–2025

Abstract

This dissertation examines long-term and consistent differences in the dynamics and patterns of intergovernmental policy coordination among four liberal democratic federations (LDFs): Australia, Austria, Canada, and Switzerland. It argues that focusing on the configuration of representation in the central legislature can enhance our understanding of the dynamics of intergovernmental policy coordination. This approach complements existing research that has focused primarily on the preferences and constraints of political elites (Riker 1964; Simeon 1971; Elazar 1987) or on linguistic, national, and territorial divides (Erk 2008; Greer et al. 2023).

The dissertation develops a novel explanatory framework centred on the inherent tensions all LDFs face between ensuring regional equality and individual equality. Terming the unique way each country institutionalizes this tension the “federal equity bargain,” the dissertation applies this framework to examine patterns of intergovernmental coordination in three policy sectors: vertical fiscal equalization, higher education, and domestic economic union.

The broader aim is to comparatively assess these patterns in terms of their ability to facilitate egalitarian federalism—defined as maintaining cross-regional policy cohesion and individual fairness alongside high degrees of regional autonomy and difference. The dissertation concludes that LDFs combining countervailing intergovernmental dynamics—such as universalism with self-rule, or territorialism with shared-rule—better capture the contradictory tensions between the equality of individuals and the equality of regions at the heart of liberal democratic federalism, and thus more effectively approximate egalitarian federalism.