Federalism and Local Politics in Russia

48 Michael Burgessthe special arrangements for the bilingual Brussels Capital Region – combiningterritorial and non-territorial federal elements – demonstrate theinnovative strengths of asymmetrical federalism as part of a multi-polarresponse in the context of a multilingual federation with strong bipolar tendencies.In contrast, it may be recalled that the centralized ‘unitary-federal’state of Germany preferred uniformity to diversity and that German societyat large has always been suspicious of asymmetry as akin to inequality andinjustice. Yet the German case has always exhibited a de facto asymmetryparticularly regarding economic matters mainly as a result of German unificationin 1990 and the impact of European integration due to theMaastricht Treaty ratified in 1993. The recent federal reforms in 2006, however,have signified a marked shift in the direction of a modest de jureasymmetry. Here the Länder have been given new powers designed to reduceuniformity by enabling them to deviate from federal legislation as well asfrom federal rules for the implementation of federal laws. Moreover, the endof ‘framework’ legislation (directives from the federal government), thereduction in the number of ‘common tasks’ (shared responsibilities), andconcurrent legislation and the award of new, if modest, competences for theLänder have combined to give them more autonomy and in so doing bringsthe cherished mantra of de jure symmetry closer to the reality of de factoasymmetry.In India it is safe to assume that the federation would not have survivedintact without the implementation of both de facto and de jure asymmetry. Ifwe take into account its colossal population of just over one billion togetherwith its huge multilingual, multicultural and multinational complexitiesspread across twenty-eight constituent units, it requires little imagination toappreciate how far it could sustain long-term legitimacy, order and stabilitywithout the adoption of de jure asymmetrical practices. These are widelyused and with considerable success: ‘in a social system characterized by …“asymmetrical obligations among unequals”, special status and multilevelarrangements encountered no conceptual objections’. 66 The Indian constitutionbegan with the assumption of asymmetry in the special status accordedto Jammu and Kashmir in Article 370, giving it a measure of autonomy thatdistinguished it from all other states, and since then it has not been hard tofind concrete evidence of such flexible adjustment and adaptation to changingneeds and demands not only in Assam, Punjab and Kashmir but also inNagaland, Sikkim, Mizoram and Manipur. The delicate constitutional andpolitical balance to be struck in such a huge country as India between constituentcultural-ideological identities, the territorial integrity of the constituent unitsthemselves and the larger unity of the federation can therefore be viewed as ‘anextended discovery of the minimum degree of uniformity necessary formaintaining a coherent union’. 67We can see from this short comparative survey of asymmetrical federalismthat in many federations it is now regarded very much in a positive vein,bordering on virtue. In short, it has become a highly normative or