"Critical Turnings in Federalism"

Backer, Larry Catá. (1999) "Critical Turnings in Federalism" . In European Union Studies Association (EUSA) > Biennial Conference > 1999 (6th), June 2-5, 1999, pages 32, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Abstract

No matter how hard we try to fix authoritatively the meaning of words, no matter how hard we try to make eternal our ordering of the political universe, communities seem to be able to subvert the classification systems that politicians and armies, priests, academics and philosophers, painstakingly construct. So it is with the form of political organization we try to understand as federal; so also is it with the great division between domestic and international law. To engage in an exploration of federalism in the context of great division we have made between the realms of domestic and international law is thus both an act of memory and a look to the future. Today I will speak very briefly about the ongoing conversations about federalism within the United States and the European Union in the context of the distinctions we make between national and international systems of governance.