When Think Tanks Refuse Thinking: Why American Pro-Market Conservatives Oppose Market Integration

American pro-market conservatives often oppose use of federal authority to rein in anti-competitive behavior by market actors. Competitive barriers, whether created by local jurisdictions or the absence of national competitive rules, go unaddressed. In international comparison, especially considering the European Union's use of central authority for market openness, this is quite puzzling. Based on interviews and archival research, I trace inattention to market barriers to contradictions within Hayek's neoliberalism and an enthusiastic reception within the American academy of one possible interpretation of those writings. This conception of markets—competitive federalism—diffused into the conservative law and economics movements, think tanks, and eventually mainstream conservative politics. It permitted conservatism to align a strong pro-market rhetoric with demands for states’ rights and federal retrenchment, albeit side-stepping many significant issues in economic theory and policy. Thus, conservatives pursue spending and tax cuts, deregulation and decentralization, often to the detriment of market openness.

Intergovernmental Relations

Intergovernmental relations between the Scottish and UK governments are conditioned by path dependence from the pre-devolution arrangements, for example, in finance. They are also conditioned by the UK’s (uncodified) constitutional arrangements, such that the Sewel Convention has played a role, one which its authors might not have contemplated. Models of dual, co-operative, and competitive federalism are used to analyse the changing nature of intergovernmental relations. A dual federalism mode, under which governments get on with their own business, has developed into a mixture of co-operative and competitive relations. Achievements of co-operation include day-to-day official co-operation, but also intergovernmental agreement on major and difficult issues, such as holding an independence referendum, and the implementation of radical devolution of taxation and welfare. Intergovernmental competition includes political competition for votes, and economic competition through different packages of tax and welfare. Constitutional change has been a defining feature of intergovernmental relations over the last ten years. The chapter concludes by identifying some possible future trends—increasing economic and political competition, coupled with increasing demands for detailed co-operation over new powers—and the options for codifying and strengthening intergovernmental relations.

The Impact of Canadian Federalism on Telecommunications Infrastructure Development

This paper examines Canadian federalism's impact on broadband telecommunications infrastructure development in Canada by discussing the limits of the federal telecommunications regulatory sphere in relationship to provincial policy frameworks. I argue that the extensive centralization of federal regulatory powers over telecommunications has not been meaningfully leveraged to promote a national policy approach to telecommunications development. Telecommunications infrastructure development is further frustrated by vastly divergent regulation of right-of-way by provincial regulators and municipalities. As a consequence, telecommunications infrastructure development has become the domain of provincial governments. This paper further considers the emergence of a regime of competitive federalism and province-building through policy experimentation by provincial governments in the absence of meaningful fiscal and collaborative federalism.

Political Institutions in a Comparative Perspective

The Spanish transition to democracy from authoritarian rule in the 1970s was very successful and was taken as a model for other processes of political change by relatively peaceful means. But the expectation that it could give light to an exemplary democracy based on proportional representation and territorial decentralization has not been fulfilled. In comparison with most democracies in Europe, the Spanish parliamentary monarchy’s distinct features include single-party minority governments, partocracy or partisan control of separate institutions, competitive federalism with lack of cooperation among territorial communities and with the central government, neglect of the obligations to and commitments with the European Union, and high barriers to constitutional reform. Many preventive mechanisms that were conceived to favour political stability have turned into factors that have eroded electoral and social support for the results of the political process.

Apples, oranges, robots: four misunderstandings in today's debate on the legal status of AI systems

Scholars have increasingly discussed the legal status(es) of robots and artificial intelligence (AI) systems over the past three decades; however, the 2017 resolution of the EU parliament on the ‘electronic personhood’ of AI robots has reignited and even made current debate ideological. Against this background, the aim of the paper is twofold. First, the intent is to show how often today's discussion on the legal status(es) of AI systems leads to different kinds of misunderstanding that regard both the legal personhood of AI robots and their status as accountable agents establishing rights and obligations in contracts and business law. Second, the paper claims that whether or not the legal status of AI systems as accountable agents in civil––as opposed to criminal––law may make sense is an empirical issue, which should not be ‘politicized’. Rather, a pragmatic approach seems preferable, as shown by methods of competitive federalism and legal experimentation. In the light of the classical distinction between primary rules and secondary rules of the law, examples of competitive federalism and legal experimentation aim to show how the secondary rules of the law can help us understanding what kind of primary rules we may wish for our AI robots. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Governing artificial intelligence: ethical, legal, and technical opportunities and challenges’.

Centre-State Financial Relations: A Study on the Role of Finance Commission

A federal economy is usually characterised by the emergence of imbalances between functional responsibilities and financial resources of different tiers of government. Vertical imbalances in terms of resources and expenditure responsibilities emerge between different levels of government calling for transfer of resources from the Centre to the States. Thus, intergovernmental transfers are an inherent part of a multi-level fiscal system. In India, Finance Commission constitutes an important channel of Central transfers to the states. This paper looks at the role of Finance Commission regarding the devolution of taxes between the Center and the States from the divisible pool. In particular, the paper focuses on the Fourteenth Finance Commission FFC that has made far-reaching changes in tax devolution that will move the country towards greater cooperative as well as competitive federalism.

Competitive federalism, government's dual role and the power to tax

Theories of competitive federalism generally focus on exit as the principal mechanism for making governments responsive to the interests of those who are subject to their powers. This paper draws attention to the fact that democratic governments act in two distinguishable roles, as ‘territorial enterprises’ and as ‘club enterprises’. As territorial enterprises they define and enforce the rules and terms that apply to everybody, whether citizen or alien, who resides and/or operates within their jurisdictional boundaries. As club enterprises, they define and enforce the rules and terms of membership in the respective polity. The focus of this paper is on the implications of the fact that ‘exit’ means something different when one looks at governments’ role as territorial enterprises (exit = leaving the territory) in contrast to their role as club enterprises (exit = giving up one's membership status/citizenship).