Tuesday, May 14, 2013

A "Banking Union" or Coordinated State Laws and Regulations?

A subtle though important difference exists between American and European federalism, each of which covers both the "kingdom" (i.e., early modern, now mostly republics) and "empire" (i.e., ancient and early modern, now usually huge federal systems) scales. So I am referring to federal systems like the U.S., E.U. and Russia (and U.S.S.R), rather than to federal systems within any of their respective political subunits (e.g., Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany). The difference between the E.U. and U.S. that I discuss here can be grasped by looking at the two competing proposals for federal bank regulation in the European Union. The crucial question facing the E.U. finance ministers concerns which system of government. 


The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires.

This picture depicts the distinctive European model of modern federalism wherein the state governments play a salient role in implementing (and modifying) federal law.   source: mapperywordpress.com