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192 W. J. M. Mackenzie
or disintegration is formally a matter of the determination of State boundaries
by international law. Within the State, the framework of government is still
primarily territorial, though everywhere criss-crossed by functional fields of
authority. The territorial dimension is at any moment of time of great political
importance somewhere in the world: it is also of great scientific interest as a
frame for the correlation of a large range of variables provided by aggregative
data.
These two approaches, functional and territorial, are not mutually exclusive,
but it is possible to distinguish two forms of study different in emphasis. One
of them is the formal study of institutions, political and administrative. The
study of federalism, from The Federalist papers in 1787188 to the work of Pro-
fessor Watts on federations created in the British Commonwealth since 1945,35
has served as a focal point in the study of the political unification in a formal
sense. There is a sort of spectrum extending from the inchoate institutions of
world government to the constitutional safeguard of the rights of local com-
munities, even down to the level of communes within a unitary state. In a formal
sense, federalism occupies a key point, as it purports to provide a point of com-
promise between the sovereignty of a union and.the sovereignty of its members.
This appears at first sight to be the most hopeful solution for the question of
creating States competent to survive and attain economic progress. But in fact
federations have been rather unsuccessful since 1945 (was this perhaps merely
because the British had not sufficient power to sustain them?), whereas there
has been a strong growth of looser associations, regional and functional, and
various ways have been found to make life possible for small States unwilling
to lose their identity. These complex arrangements lack the precision and author-
ity of State sovereignty: but the spontaneous growth of regional arrangements,
commodity arrangements, functional arrangements perhaps marks an easier
line of progress, leading to world co-operation and not to the exercise of sover-
eignty by a federation of mankind.
There has always, since 1789, been speculation about the economic and social
conditions within which federations are viable; and in the same vein there have
been many recent studies indicating how the older federations have adapted their
constitutions, in practice though not in law, so as to take account of fundamen-
tal social and economic changes. The older federations were perhaps lucky, in
that they became established in times of economic and social decentralization,
and acquired an identity as States and nations before they had to take the strain
of twentieth century pressures for stronger defence, better social welfare, and
higher taxes. In any event, the constitutional principles of unification are now
studied with proper regard to economics and social context. As a result of the
teaching of C. J. Friedrich and others, federal government would now generally
be regarded as a continuing process of adaptation, not as a legal bargain sealed
once and for all time.
Similarly, as regards decentralization and local government in a unitary
State, and the latent conflict between the self-determination of communities
and the field services of the central government. There is a great deal to learn
in a formal sense about the structure of central and local government and their