Federal Constitutional Values and Citizen Attitudes to Government: Explaining Federal System Viability and Reform Preferences in Eight Countries

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Embargoed until: 2023-08-24
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Author(s)
Brown, AJ
Deem, Jacob
Kincaid, John
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2021
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Show full item recordAbstract
This study presents a measure of federal constitutional values as a dimension of federal political culture derived from four key features of federal systems. Tested in six federal and two non-federal countries, we find the measure is stable and taps enduring values, including confirmation that citizens who support devolutionary reform have stronger federal constitutional values. Defining federalism success as a system where citizens have strong federal constitutional values and high satisfaction with their current polycentric system, our results find Switzerland and Canada being the most viable, followed by the United States, ...
View more >This study presents a measure of federal constitutional values as a dimension of federal political culture derived from four key features of federal systems. Tested in six federal and two non-federal countries, we find the measure is stable and taps enduring values, including confirmation that citizens who support devolutionary reform have stronger federal constitutional values. Defining federalism success as a system where citizens have strong federal constitutional values and high satisfaction with their current polycentric system, our results find Switzerland and Canada being the most viable, followed by the United States, Australia, and Germany, while Belgium is not very successful. In the non-federal countries, substantial support for devolution and possibly federalism is found in France, but devolution is more contested in the United Kingdom. The results affirm the importance of public attitudes and political culture in understanding the performance of federal political systems and public support for federalist-type reforms.
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View more >This study presents a measure of federal constitutional values as a dimension of federal political culture derived from four key features of federal systems. Tested in six federal and two non-federal countries, we find the measure is stable and taps enduring values, including confirmation that citizens who support devolutionary reform have stronger federal constitutional values. Defining federalism success as a system where citizens have strong federal constitutional values and high satisfaction with their current polycentric system, our results find Switzerland and Canada being the most viable, followed by the United States, Australia, and Germany, while Belgium is not very successful. In the non-federal countries, substantial support for devolution and possibly federalism is found in France, but devolution is more contested in the United Kingdom. The results affirm the importance of public attitudes and political culture in understanding the performance of federal political systems and public support for federalist-type reforms.
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Journal Title
Publius: The Journal of Federalism
Funder(s)
ARC
Grant identifier(s)
DP140102682
Copyright Statement
© 2021 Oxford University Press. This is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in Publius following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version, Federal Constitutional Values and Citizen Attitudes to Government: Explaining Federal System Viability and Reform Preferences in Eight Countries, Publius, 2021 is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1093/publius/pjab031
Note
This publication has been entered in Griffith Research Online as an advanced online version.
Subject
Political science