Chapter 8

  1. What are the major alleged advantages of federal systems? What sorts of evidence and arguments have been used by scholars in their efforts to demonstrate these advantages? To what extent do you find them convincing? Make reference to at least one federal country that is associated with positive outcomes and another federal country that is associated with poor outcomes, and comment on what the comparison of those cases suggests to you about other factors that might influence how federalism matters.
  2. The United Kingdom lacks a single, written constitution. What are the advantages and disadvantages of this state of affairs? Based on the success of limited and democratic government over several centuries in the United Kingdom, would you recommend to other polities doing without a single, written constitution?
  3. A new polity has just emerged. You have been asked to advise the country’s leaders about the design of their new constitution. The polity is characterized by ethnic heterogeneity: several ethnic groups tend to live in different parts of the new country’s territory. Each group is about the same size, and there is a history of distrust between them. Members of each group fears that the other groups will take over the polity and impose their culture and institutions. What sorts of constitutional/institutional design solutions would you suggest to ameliorate these problems?
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