Federalism in Latin America

Federalism has returned to the centre of the research agenda on Latin American politics. The growing autonomy of subnational governments, tensions between national and local executive powers, and disputes over fiscal resources and institutional competences raise pressing questions about the design, practice, and future of federal arrangements in the region. This panel seeks to bring together research that examines Latin American federalism from a range of theoretical, methodological, and empirical perspectives, with the aim of fostering a comparative dialogue on its challenges and transformations. We welcome contributions on countries across the region, particularly comparative studies that engage with the relationship between constitutional design and political practice, and that critically examine both the promise and limitations of federalism as a means of dispersing political power and deepening democratic governance.
Papers might explore questions such as: How have federal systems in Latin America sought to accommodate regional, ethnic, and other forms of diversity? How do political parties, fiscal arrangements, intergovernmental relations, and processes of centralisation and recentralisation affect the functioning and resilience of federal systems? What drives cycles of decentralization and recentralization in the region, and how do they reshape the balance of power between national and subnational governments? How have federal arrangements responded to contemporary pressures, including democratic backsliding, political instability, insecurity, economic inequality, and demands for greater territorial autonomy?
More broadly, the panel asks to what extent existing theories of federalism adequately capture the distinctive experiences of Latin American federations, and what these experiences can contribute in turn to broader theories of federalism and multilevel governance.