THE ＧＬＯＢＡＬＩＺＡＴＩＯＮ ＆ ＧＯVＥＲＮＡＮＣＥ ＰＲＯＪＥCＴ， ＨＯＫＫＡＩＤＯ ＵＮＩＶＥＲＳＩＴＹＷＯＲＫＩＮＧ ＰＡＰＥＲ ＳＥＲＩＥＳ

Bottom-up Federalism:
The Early Modern Contribution to Local Governancein a Globalizing World
Ⅳ−０９

Thomas O. Hueglin, Wilfrid Laurier University＊

Paper for the Workshop Local Governance in a Global Era –In Search ofConcrete Visions for a Multi-Level Governance, 7-8 December 2001＊

None of these papers should be cited without the author’s permission.

Bottom-up Federalism:
The Early Modern Contribution to Local Governance in a Globalizing World
Thomas O. Hueglin, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada
thomashueglin@attcanada.net

Preface:Johannes Althusius was a political theorist, Calvinist church elder, and active
local politician at the beginning of the 17th century. In his political theory, the famous
Politica Methodice Digesta of 1603, widely read at the time and with several expanded
editions to follow, he tried to defend the autonomy of smaller communities, cities andreligious minorities, against the rising tide of state absolutism. Although he remained at
the margins of the classical canon of political thought during the age of the modern state,
he is generally given credit as the first modern theorist of federalism (Hueglin 1999).
Almost exactly one year ago, I attended a conference on the principle ofsubsidiarity in Emden, Germany. In fact, the conference was held in the very church
where Althusius had been active some 400 years ago. I had been asked to talk about theconceptual origins of subsidiarity, and I mentioned in passing that its insertion in article
3b of the Maastricht Treaty of the European Union was at least in part owed to the factthat the research team of then Commission President Jacques Delors had identified it asa truly European concept with roots not just in 19th century Catholic social doctrine but
in fact much earlier in the Protestant tradition that Althusius came from and contributed
to further.
I knew this because my friend and colleague Ken Endo had written about it(1994), but I was immediately and aggressively attacked by Herr Professor Doktor Hans
Isensee, one of Germany’s leading professors of public law, one of the close advisers of
the former Chancellor of Germany, Helmut Kohl, and himself one monumentally
pompous pain in the neck. Basically, the professor held forth that the principle ofsubsidiarity as enshrined in the European Union was a decisive victory of European
Catholicism alone, no doubt spearheaded by his mentor Kohl, and that it was ludicrous
to even suggest that the European tradition of Protestantism had anything to do with it.
Who is right, Ken Endo who spent some time at the Commission in Brussels as
a humble PhD student, or the famous German professor? Well, let me say this: If Ken
has been wrong, then probably so because he had no knowledge of the money that Kohl
used from his secret black accounts in order to assure a Catholic victory in Brussels.
More on the serious side, I would submit to you that making this an issue ofeither/or amounts to a complete misunderstanding not only of the case in point1anecdotally reported, here, but also of the idea and practice of federalism in particular.
For this presentation, I have been asked to report on the concept of bottom-up
federalism in Althusius’ theory and its relevance to local governance in a globalizing
world. In order to comply with this assignment, I will have to address the following
three questions: 1. What is it about the early modern period that makes it interesting forour own time? 2. What exactly does Althusius contribute to the theory and practice offederalism? 3. What are indications that this should be relevant in our own time?
1. The Early Modern Setting
Contexts
I begin with some contextual descriptions. We generally recognize the earlymodern period as period of transition, from the older medieval order to the modern era.
The medieval world had been characterized by a plurality of overlapping rule. Kings
ruled their kingdoms, princes their principalities, and free cities ruled themselves. Fromthe Holy Roman Empire down to the last fiefdom, all ruled on the basis of their own
rights and privileges. Territorial boundaries were obviously overlapping, and juridical
boundaries often contested. Differences had to be settled bilaterally, or at the Imperial
Diets.
To a considerable extent, these autonomies had to do with space, distance andthe lack of rapid communication. They also had to with feudal bonds as well as prideand loyalty for places. Excessive particularism in turn was contained in a sense of
Christian universality. The old order was something like a community of communities
governed by a mix of unity and diversity. By employing these modern metaphors, we
already get a sense of where the relevance of that order may lie for our own times.
The modern epoch, of course, came to be characterized as one of sovereign
territorial nation-states. Sovereignty meant that regions, localities and all otherintermediate powers lost their autonomous rights of self-governance. This did not
happen over night, and neither did it happen everywhere to the same extent. But in theend, some of the large states such as France, England and Prussia succeeded incentralizing military, fiscal and administrative power, and the smaller territories either
had to follow suit or become absorbed into the larger ones (Tilly 1992, 190). Again, we
already get a sense, here, that the modern state-centred system of politics may no longer
provide the most appropriate model of governance for the 21st century.
Generations of historians have pondered the question what brought about thistransformation which roughly took place between 1500 and 1700. There are some2

important clues, though. The Renaissance with its rediscovery and emphasis of asecularized humanism weakened traditional loyalties by placing more emphasis onindividualism. The so-called discovery of the New World placed an unprecedented
wealth of resources into the hands of some but not others. Commercialization andcapital accumulation began to transcend the capacities of regional and local market
places. The Reformation destroyed the bonds of Christian unity.
The 16th and 17th centuries were centuries of religious and territorial wars. The
worst of these, the Thirty Years’ War, 1618-48, did much to weaken what we are now
accustomed to call the resolve of the smaller territories. France emerged as the major
continental power. The 1648 Peace Treaty of Westphalia upheld the plurality of some160 “states” as well as numerous other territories within the German Empire, and it left
untouched the limited self-governing rights of some 4,000 “hometowns .“ But the
Empire was now a “confederation of sovereign territories,” and at least the more
powerful rulers could begin to transform internal plurality into absolutist statehood(Bendix 1978, 378-80).
Concepts
The transformation brought on its way by the Westphalian Peace Treaty not only
let to a new territorial state order, it also changed profoundly the leading images oflegitimate governance. The issue was who should represent the Empire during thenegotiations with the other European powers, and recourse was taken to the twopreeminent political theories of the epoch, Jean Bodin’s Les Six Livres de la République(1576), and the Politica Methodice Digesta of Johannes Althusius.
Bodin had given to the world the first definition of sovereignty as “puissanceabsolue & perpetuelle” (1.8). Althusius had held against him that the right ofsovereignty is "neither supreme and perpetual, nor above the law” (IX.21). The imperial
camp would routinely invoke Bodin in order to lay claim to the Emperor’s exclusive
right of representation, while the anti-imperial camp took recourse to Althusius in its
successful quest of having the estates included as territorial representatives in their own
right (Hoke 1998, 141-52). Ironically, Althusius won but Bodin prevailed: The estates
were included but Bodin’s doctrine of sovereignty lived on as supreme law within theabsolutist territorial states that emerged from the renunciation of imperial supremacy. It
is worth exploring the conceptual differences of the two positions further:
Bodin and Althusius both defined as the subject matter of politics the rights ofsovereignty in a commonwealth composed of households and other intermediate socialorganizations. They both began their discussion of politics with family and household as3

the natural and timeless beginning of social life. By declaring the establishment ofsovereign rule as the ultimate end of social organization, however, Bodin subordinatedthese households and other intermediate social organizations to a status that wasfunctionally dependent on that end. Here is where Althusius begged to differ.
Precisely because families constitute the natural beginning of social life, heinsisted, they are governed by special sets of rules specific to them, and not by a generalrule of sovereignty. This principle of specificity applies to all communities or, as hecalled them, consociations, e.g. villages, cities and provinces which all precede realms
or states and are prior to them "just as the simple or primary precedes in order what has
been composed or derived from it" (Politica XXXIX.84). This then led him to reject"Bodin's clamours" (1603 Praefatio) that the rights of sovereignty as the ultimate end
must be exclusively located in the highest order of governance. Instead it follows
logically that their ownership belongs to “none other than the entire people consociatedfrom several smaller consociations in one symbiotic body” (1614 Praefatio).
Althusius also explained why Bodin and others had reached different
conclusions. They try to determine the nature of sovereignty before examining social
life in cities and provinces, he held, and thus deduce, erroneously, the specific natureof the latter with the help of principles that are not on the same level of generality. This"conflicts with the law of method" (XXXIX.84).
Put differently, the difference in method is that Bodin first determined the mostgeneral principle of politics, sovereignty, and then deduced from it the nature oforganized social life, whereas Althusius first examined the nature of organized social
life and then determined sovereignty as its most general principle—by means of
induction rather than deduction. In the first case, the quality and organization of social
life become dependent variables of sovereign rule. In the second case, sovereignty
appears as a dependent variable of the nature and organization of social life.
The implications for political theory are considerable. Bodin falls into a tradition
that defines politics predominantly, if not exclusively, as a hierarchical system oforganized public power. All social rights and obligations stem from one universal
source of legal authority. Althusius, by contrast, represents a tradition that defines
politics in a much wider sense. For him it is primarily a horizontal process ofcommunication among a plurality of groups or communities which all possess their own
rights and obligations. Sovereignty as the communication of universal right is the end
product of that process, not the starting point.
The implications for federalism are equally significant. From the Bodinian
perspective of the sovereign state, federalism inevitably must take on the form of the4modern federal state: the law of the federation ultimately breaks the laws of its member
units. Primacy is given to the efficiency requirements of nation-state governance. From
the Althusian perspective, on the other hand, federalism is a balancing act among equals,
confederal rather than federal because “every constituting body is prior and superior towhat is constituted by it” (XVIII.8). Sovereignty therefore is not a constitutional
certitude which determines who gets to do what in a federation. In fact, it only exists
when the process of shared governance works and all agree. Federal sovereignty in the
Althusian sense is a process of negotiated and shared sovereignty.
Again, it seems quite obvious that these methodological and conceptual
distinctions can be helpful in the current search for solutions to the problems oflegitimate multilevel governance. The firm grip of state governance has become
loosened, by the electronic flexibility of international production and finance as well as
by the regulatory powers of international government organizations (IGOs). Regions,
localities and other social organizations are directly affected by these developments.
They appear no longer firmly “nested” within the state. Instead their relationship withthe state can be described as a new form of “interconnectedness” (Caporaso 1996). Even
the American model of federalism with its assumptions of federal supremacy may nolonger provide the most adequate construction of multilevel governance for the 21st
century (Elazar 1999). It is time to take a closer look at how exactly Althusius
constructs his federal polity as a system of bottom-up multilevel governance.
2. The Construction of Bottom-Up Federalism in the Political Theory of Althusius
Consociation
All social communities are part of the political and they are all called
consociations. Politics is the art of constructing such communities for different social
purposes at different societal levels, from the family, guilds and professional colleges tocities, provinces and the universal commonwealth. It is important to understand what
Althusius means by saying, in one breath, that the social purposes pursued by eachconsociation are specific and different, but that they are at the same time all politicalcommunities constructed upon the same principles.
Althusius distinguishes private and public consociations, and among the latter,particular and universal consociations (see Appendix). Families, guilds and colleges are
private because these natural as well as civil consociations promote the limited andspecific interests of household, craft and profession. Cities and provinces in turnprovide public space for the accomodation of these diverse interests within the5particular boundaries of locality and region. The universal commonwealth unites andprotects a plurality of particular places under a bond of common standards of respectand mutuality. A the same time, however, all these consociations are political because
politics is a multilevel process of community building that includes all forms of humaninteraction or, as Althusius calls it, the communication of goods, services and rights(Politica I. 7). The organization of such communication is the purpose of the politicalprocess within consociations and among them.
Althusius distinguishes between public and private but not between political andprivate. This is an essential difference to the construction of modern liberal societies.
Polis and oikos are not separated. Economic activities in the market place may serve
private ends but they are nevertheless part of the communication of goods and services
and therefore part of the political. As a Calvinist, Althusius fully endorsed what Max
Weber would later call the “protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism.” Yet he still
was far away from the post-Lockean view of private accumulation as a limitless
individual right. The very idea of economic activities as a from of mutualcommunication indicates that such activities would remain under political supervision.
And the purpose of such supervision, as we already know, is the protection of allcommunities or consociations, small and large, in their specific rights and freedoms.
Herein lies the difference. Unitary states are constructed to serve national
purposes. In federal states, national priorities typically supersede regional and local
needs. IGOs such as the World Bank, the IMF or the WTO provide regulatory
frameworks for credit flows and the exchange of goods and services, but these arenegotiated among nation-state governments. Regions and localities have to live with theconsequences. Of course, nation-state governments represent citizens and these can
influence policy making through the democratic electoral process. That process only
provides very indirect control over international treaties and agreements. They also canhardly be undone, and, even in federal systems, regions and localities are not part of thenegotiations. Moreover, decision making in IGOs is tied to the financial power of its
members. Smaller states, usually more directly affected by the decisions than larger
ones, possess limited powers of persuasion at best. Subnational units of governancepossess none. To call this a top-down process of decision making does not require
further elaboration.
Before the world came to be governed by a dichotomous power scheme, reasonof state on the one hand, and corporate laissez-faire on the other, Althusius was able todesign a different process of legitimate governance. Borrowing from an old andvenerable formula of Roman Law, he established as the most general rule for the6

process of decision making that “what touches upon all, must be agreed by all” (IV.20).
This means that any particular community should retain veto power (operationalised bya consent requirement) and self-regulatory autonomy in matters affecting it in aparticular or unequal way, whereas common decisions (allowing majority voting) are
possible in matters pertaining to all communities equally or in the same way. This does
not necessarily amount to a “decision trap” (Scharpf 1988). It is a safeguard forsmaller communities to be heard. It compels the larger communities to listen. And it
fosters communication, or, as we would say today, deliberation, about what exactly
should be left to majority voting in the general interest of all. The Althusian state is anegotiating state.
Compact
The constitutional foundation holding this state or commonwealth together is acompact among its members. Contrary to the later Hobbesian social contract, thiscompact or covenant is not a fictitious construction whereby it is assumed that allindividuals defer to public authority in the name of general safety. Based on his
Aristotelian and therefore rather more optimistic view of human nature, Althusius saw
natural socialibilty as the primary bond among human beings. To this end, the idea of asocial compact was meant to organize such sociability.
Hobbes deduced his view of human nature from the state of “warre” (Leviathan
VIII / 62) in 17th century England. Accordingly, he constructed a dichotomous politicalsystem in which state order had to contain civil society. Still two centuries later, Hegel
would speak of the interests of civil society as “outside the absolutely universal interestof the state proper, and he would define it as a “battlefield” of private interest against
common concern (1821, 288 / 289).
At the beginning of the 17th century, Althusius did not yet know this modern
distinction of state and society. But just as he refuted Bodin’s doctrine of absolute statesovereignty, he would have rejected visions of a society of radically autonomous
individuals. He would have held against Hobbes that the war, “as is of every man,against every man” (Leviathan, ibid.), was not at all expression of a politically
unmitigated state of nature. He would have insisted that it was the result of inadequate
political organization violating principles of natural sociability.
Civil society for Althusius means politically organized society. As we alreadyknow, this means the establishment, maintenance and protection of a plurality ofsmaller and larger communities or consociations serving differentiated sets of needs andinterests. Appropriate structures for political action, immediate, intermediate and7universal, foster solidarity and civil behaviour. The compact holding this plurality ofcommunities together is in reality a compact of compacts. The fundamental orconstitutional law of establishing sovereignty and governance in a universal
commonwealth is "nothing but certain pacts by which many cities and provinces cometogether and agree to establish and defend one and the same commonwealth” (Politica
XIX. 49). These cities and provinces come together as pre-existing political entities, andthey are themselves lawfully constituted by agreement among their members,households, and organized interests.
Althusius carefully separates the social compact from the mandate to govern. All
governance is part of the communication of right among lawfully constitutedcommunities. These determine, by mutual agreement, the extent to which they want tobe governed at the next higher level of consociation. This means that the governing
bodies at that next higher level are not part of the original compact. In all instances,
therefore, the combined will of the members of a consociation prevails over its
government: "For greater is the authority and power in the many than in the one who
has been constituted by the many and is less than they are” (XXXIII. 20).
As the modern world would demonstrate so dramatically, such a radicalizedbottom-up perspective could quickly degenerate into extreme particularism and disunity.
The outcome of the Westphalian Peace was not what Althusius had envisaged as auniversal commonwealth. While the idea of absolute sovereignty had become
territorially internalized into the new state system, anarchy and conflict became
externalized into the new regime of international relations. There would be leagues andalliances, to be sure, but no overarching compact among states.
Federalism, however, in the Althusian or any other sense, means balance,
between the particular and the universal, autonomy and solidarity. The purpose ofpolitics is to construct such a balance. Precisely because there is no presumption ofsupreme universality, the members of the Althusian commonwealth are compelled toengage in perpetual negotiations about their mutual commitment to general norms andbehavioural standards. Such a commitment needs agency. Throughout most of themodern age, neither reason of state nor liberal individualism provided much of suchagency. As Althusius suggested, it must come from interest communities realizing thatthey can achieve their goals only through negotiated cooperation. In an age ofglobalized relations, states may become such communities of interest. But they will inturn need support and guidance from an organized citizenry.

8Consecutive Federalization
In the modern state, the transmission belt for such support and guidance isparliamentary representation. Individual citizens elect representatives, and parties
compete for the support from citizens. In federal states, they do this at two levels ofgovernment, regional and federal. At the federal level, two legislative chambers provide
dual representation, from national and regional populations. At the regional level there
may be second chambers as well. Their representatives, however, are typically electedfrom subregional constituencies determined by demographic boundaries. They do notnecessarily represent particular local communities.
Such representation, on the basis of territory and population, and the
majoritarian mode of decision making that goes with it, requires a high level of social
homogeneity, of shared history, communication and experience (Kielmannsegg 1996).
It has to rely on a common ideology, common language, and culture. In a globalizing
age of intensified transnational production, trade, and migration, their unevensocioeconomic effects on regions and localities, and the resurgence of identity politics
more generally, such homogeneity may no longer be a given. At the time of Althusius,
it only existed in small communities. For the sake of peace and stability, it had to bereorganized for larger ones.
As we already know, there were two solutions. Remember Bodin? His solution
had been the establishment of sovereign rule as the ultimate end of social organization.
As long as there was supreme and unchallengeable authority over everyone, social
diversity did not matter. The sovereign state could even tolerate different religious
groups as long as these did not possess any autonomous powers of their own. The
modern liberal state has been constructed upon this very idea. It successfully integrated
moderate levels of diversity. It failed to deal with radical, or, shall we say,fundamentalist expressions of identity, whether these were religious, ethnic orregionalist.
The Althusian solution was to recognize diverse communities as building blocs
for the construction of an inclusive body politic, populus in corpus unum, the organizedbody of the people (Politica IX. 3). The representatives of guilds and colleges would sit
in city councils, those of cities and rural communities would make up provincial
councils, and all parts of the land would be represented alike in the universal councils of
the commonwealth. This has been called a system of consecutive federalization. In
modern terms, one could describe it as a system of second chamber governance. It canalso be called a system of corporate federalism because the representatives at each levelare elected by the lower level councils and not by the people directly.

9For those of us coming from federal countries where intergovernmental conflictoften obscures, delays or outright paralyses what common sense would identify as alogical course of action and decision making process, these Althusian constructions may
well-nigh appear as a nightmare. Yet the same voices that have been most concerned
about these procedural shortcomings of federalism, also tended to lay the blame at thedoorsteps of governments promoting their own interests instead of those of the societies
they are supposed to serve (Cairns 1977). Typically, given the two-storeyed
construction of federal systems, the conflicts of federalism are bipolar in nature. The
multi-storeyed or “cybernetic” construction of federalism in the political theory of
Althusius (Riklin 1994) may not only be a more adequate response to the multi-layered
complexities of a late modern world, it may also be more responsive to societal interests
and needs.
Subsidiarity
Decision making in the two-storeyed federal state is anchored in a rather simple
division of powers. Historically, federation came about in most cases as a compromise
between economic modernizers and cultural traditionalists. Consequently, trade andcommerce were designated as federal powers, and states, provinces or cantons retained
control over language, education and social welfare. Soon this became a problem formodernizing and democratizing societies. Federal trade and commerce policies createdor reinforced patterns of uneven regional development. Overburdened with social policy
problems, regional governments became dependent on federal transfers. Fiscal revenue
was increasingly spent by governments which did not have the capacity to raise it.
Fiscal distribution and transfer schemes became the main preoccupation of federal
systems. Under the juridical umbrella of ultimate federal supremacy, both levels ofgovernment are today active in most policy fields. This in turn has been recognized asboth an efficiency and an accountability problem.
It would seem that a further pluralization of levels of governance must muddy
the waters even more. Yet it is here that Althusius plays his last trump: subsidiarity.
Remember Ken Endo? He suggested an intellectual line from Althusius to Jacques
Delors, the master mind behind the European Union’s Maastricht Treaty and its famousreformulation of the principle of subsidiarity. Since I do not want to preempt Ken’spaper, here, I will simply try to point out how the Althusian - and European - concept ofsubsidiarity differs from conventional divisions of power in federal systems.
The essence of subsidiarity is that decisions ought to be taken at the lowest
possible level of governance. It is a principle of political intent and guidance, therefore,

10and not of juridical certitude. The central question then is not who has the right to dowhat, but instead, who should do what in the best interest of all. This has both anegative and positive connotation. Negatively, the universal commonwealth must notinterfere with regional and local self-government when this is not necessary or desirable
by mutual agreement. Positively, however, the smaller communities are held toestablish joint governance because, as Althusius writes, "what requires the faculties,
strength, aid and enthusiasm of all ought also be done with their common consent:(Politica XVII. 60).
Can such a vague appeal to solidarity be operationalised in any kind of practicalway? Althusius makes two suggestions. First, in what we have already recognized as anegotiating state, there is an obligation to ongoing deliberation. In what was a complex
world already at the beginning of the 17th century, there is an obvious need for joint
regulation and action. Provided with reasonable institutions and structures, citizens will
make reasonable choices and decisions. To borrow from contemporary citizenship andidentity discourse, the construction of the Althusian federation is not binary but
relational. Guided by structural patterns of inclusion, its citizens understand that
autonomy of the smaller communities is only possible through constructive
relationships with others.
Secondly, Althusius does not follow the later pattern of separating entire policy
fields. In fact, he provides nearly identical lists of public tasks for cities, provinces,and the universal commonwealth. No constitutionally fixed answer is required as towhether welfare or trade should be regional or national tasks, respectively. Instead, andwith few exceptions such as defence and money printing, each level of community is
free to become active in any policy field. The principle of subsidiarity obliges all
participants to come to an agreement about who should do what and to what extent.
This means that the commonwealth will provide general standards by means offramework legislation, whereas the smaller communities will adopt and implement
flexible policy programs according to their preferences and needs.
3. Signs of RelevanceFor those who still think that all this is rather outlandish or outright clumsy incomparison with the classical model of federalism, I will end with some observations
about relevance.
Multilevel governance no longer is a disputed concept and reality. We candiscern at least five levels of governance, limited local governance in cities and11municipalities, subnational governance in provinces, cantons or states, national
governance, transnationally integrated governance in the European Union, under therules of Nafta, Asean and Mercosur, and global governance in the form of regulatory
regimes provided by the World Bank, IMF and WTO.
At the same time we notice a politicization of regional and identity politics that
defies the conventional distinction of political and private spheres. Culturalcommunities in Belgium have been recognized as autonomous political actors in the1993 constitution, for instance. Party systems accentuate regional rather than national
priorities such as the PDS in Germany or the Bloc Quebeçois in Canada. Business elites
align themselves with regional governments as in Catalonia. And a plethora of civic
movements, from Greenpeace to Aboriginal peoples and the anti-globalization camp
have learned to use electronic interconnectedness for their purposes.
In the wake of this consociationalization of politics and civil society, we also
note a trend from federalism to compacted confederalism. In the most obvious example,
the European Union, the member states remain masters of the treaties even though an
impressive level of supranational governance has been achieved. The obvious need forsome sort of coordinated global governance will eventually have to follow that lead, or
it will not be. Federalization or devolution in some of the most notorious unitary states,
Spain, Britain, and even France, remains tied to negotiation and arbitration. The
German Länder have augmented their powers with regard to European policy making,and even in the United States there is talk about a devolution revolution.
The Althusian concept of consecutive federalization and council representation
has lived on in the German Bundesrat, and it has found its way into the construction of
the European Council as well. In both instances, council members represent lower levelgovernments and not the people.
The European Union also provides the most obvious example of decision
making on the basis of subsidiarity. The clause in Article 3b of the Maastricht Treaty
whereby “the Community shall take action, in accordance with the principle ofsubsidiarity, only if and in so far as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be
sufficiently achieved by the Member States,” provides an important qualifier forCommunity action. It guides European governance towards the provision of a common
understanding of ends, not means, and it does so by following the German model offramework legislation by which the federal level of government provides the generalrules of the game but leaves the implementation and administration to the Länder
(Hueglin 2000).
If we take these few illustrations and examples seriously as an indication of how

12governance can and must respond flexibly to the complexities of a late modern world, it
seems that a new kind of bottom-up federalism will indeed have to replace the model ofthe sovereign territorial nation-state, and of the modern federal state as its only
significant variation. Althusius, who lost the battle at the beginning of the modern era,might still win the war in the end.
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