IN SEARCH OF THE FEDERAL SPIRIT by MICHAEL BURGESS.

76 In Search of the Federal Spirit
relative social homogeneity of 1950s Australia as we are likely to find in the
mainstream literature. It suggested that the concept of federal society-cif it is
worth using at all-should not be confined to cases of social heterogeneity.
Miller's standpoint constituted one answer to Stein's question, posed earlier,
whether or not Australia had a federal society, while Galligan's position was
endorsed in its remarks about the Significance of local communities but not in
respect of his complete dismissal of social factors.
So was the sociological approach simply bad theorizing about federalism?
Livingston was certainly not alone in his focus upon societal factors rather
than formal institutions. In an influential article written by Charles Tarlton
titled 'Symmetry and Asymmetry as Elements of Federalism: A Theoretical
Speculation', published in The Journal of Politics in 1965, the emphasis upon a
'social federalism' was unmistakable.Y The shadow of Livingston's sociology
of federalism loomed large. Tarlton's definition of asymmetry in federal states
referred to 'differences of interest, character and makeup that exist within the
whole society' and he confirmed that the diversities in 'the larger society find
political expression through local governments possessed of varying degrees of
autonomy and power'. In short, the political institutions corresponded to 'the
real social federalism beneath them'i'" An argument more consistent with
Livingston's social structural assumptions would have been hard to conceive.
And it is also important to note that the contemporary Significance of asymmetrical
federalism has served in good measure to sustain the focus on
society-state relations in comparative federahsm.t" This suggests that Galligan's
dismissal of the sociological approach to federalism as bad theorizing
was more hasty and ill-considered than anything else, and conveniently
ignored the real practical problems of cultural-ideological diversity that
existed in other federations.
The sensible conclusion to be drawn from this controversy about the presence
or absence of a federal society in terms of social homogeneity and social
heterogeneity is that in reality the concept of federal society does not require
that its meaning be restricted to one particular type of social cleavage or group of
identities. It is one thing to suggest that a particular constellation of culturalideological
cleavages constitutes a federal society; it is quite another to imply that
the absence of these societal characteristics renders this concept invalid in other
cases. The evidence in the mainstream literature on the sociological approach or
the society-driven school of thought about federalism, then, suggests that federal
states can be just as viable in conditions of relative social homogeneity as they are
in circumstances of relative social heterogeneity. Certainly there is a different
dynamic at work in both of them, but the operation of their political systems is
adapted and adjusted to take account of the peculiar interaction of their socioeconomic
and cultural-ideological specificities. In this particular regard, it is fair
to recall the role of Livingston's so-called instrumentalities, which, their ambiguities
notwithstanding, were tailor made to fit the society that created them." In