Federalism and UAE with India and USA reference

Table of Contents

1     Introduction. 3

2     Main Body. 3

3     Conclusions. 5

4     References. 6

Introduction

Today we are living in a globalized world where different forms of government are employed to have things run smoothly. The varying types of government have been proven for largest to oldest democratic nations and monarchies, including; India and the United States, for instance (Paquette, 2019). Federalism is one of the most commonly used forms of government even today. Federalism form of government ensures that no one entity holds full power; there is .distribution of power between the national government and different units such as provinces/states (De Alwis, 2019). The government adopts a particular form of government to sanction how resources are used; in some cases of the provincial government or federal governments, allotment of funds, and power used (Paquette, 2019). In this essay, the chosen form of government to be discussed in federalism. The focus will be to detail the advantages and disadvantages of federalism keeping India and United States under consideration.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Federalism

For larger governing states, federalism has been known to serves numerous advantages. More notably, federalism is involved in power delegation and a lack of pressure on the federal government to manage state affairs (Tariq et al., 2018). One of the principal advantages of federalism is that it provides states or government units to maintain their separate entity governing powers are shared between the local and federal government (Ahmad et al., 2017). According to Ahmad et al. (2017), there is no direct definition of federalism written in any constitution, but the system exists with dispersed power among national and states. Another advantage of federalism is that it allows stability, especially in a country with different communities coexisting. Different states will have various events, celebrations. This allows a higher level of accessibility to the public for participation in decision making and connection with the government (Tariq et al., 2018).

Federalism essentially is an adequate dispersion of autonomy from the federal to local governments (Paquette, 2019). Essentially, it is a comparatively more localized and customized power distribution process and policy structuring system. The federal government tends to have less burden when the decision making power has been provided to the local government, where resolving minor issues in smaller areas is a frequent practice. Federalism is often a result of the conflicts that arise between the provincial and federal governments. Competition generally is seen in instances where there are excessive autonomy and customization of laws and regulation (Tariq et al., 2018). As a result of these issues, tension is caused by the local governments of a state. Another challenge of federalism is that states adopt a different approach towards the same matter, the leader’s lack of a nationalized plan on the subject (Ahmad et al., 2017). Different states have different laws for similar issues leading to difficulty between interstates working and unified policy framework and legal complications for the country (De Alwis, 2019).

India and the USA both are the largest democracies in the world. However, a close examination of the system reveals that both countries have adopted the federalism form of government. The application of federalism in both countries has significant variations.

Federalism India

In the case of India, the federalism approach is bifurcated into constitutional divisions. However, the application of federalism in India is quasi based, as the constitution declares India union of states as well (Radin, 2017). The national powers are segregated between The State List, The Union List, and Concurrent List. Different states in India have been accorded different levels of autonomy, and mostly there is a mixed approach with no clear guideline of application of the form of government (Sofi and Khan, 2018). These divisions in India enable acceptance and recognition for the differences, which may escalate as a result of policy structures as a result of various demographic modifications fluctuating from one state to another (Sofi and Khan, 2018). All items mentioned in the union list, parliament or central government has full legislative powers on the record some of the items in the list include, armed forces, energy, foreign affairs, citizenship, transportation units, postal, telecommunication, commerce, banking and courts of law to name a few (Radin, 2017). While state list items mainly include maintenance of law and order, police, local administration, etc. and rationalization of union items at the state level. While the concurrent list includes matters of marriages, property rights, education, civil matters planning, unions, and similar issues. The list is self-explanatory in the transfer of power and application.

Federalism in the USA

One of the largest democracies in the world, the United States of America, is also an application of the Federalism form of government. Still, there is a slight difference from India that the system of federalism in practices has taken considerable time to regularise (Ahmad et al., 2017). For instance, in the case of the USA, the formulation of the concurrent list took an extended amount of time. Before this, the United States has followed a federalism structure related to the argumentative position existing between the central government and states over the procedure and division, which fits the best (Radin, 2017). Keeping in view these prevailing conditions USA’s fundamental government adaption of the concurrent list is useful in inducing a list of sources to the states which are more defined and less argumentative. Coming back to the argument related to federalism adoption in India and the US, both of these countries have been listed in bureaucracy as a comparative aspect of federalism (Paquette, 2019). Hence, it can be asserted that the US has free dissemination of authority and power with personal administrative instruments. This information has been taken considering India’s lack of federalism. In relation, the following strengths and weaknesses have been accumulated related to the provided administrative capabilities. State-level policymaking freedom in the USA is exceptionally high compared to India (De Alwis, 2019). Different laws about marriages, property, police, and crime exist in the USA. The USA is exposed to severe federalism disadvantage of having many policies and a lack of a unified policy framework in the country (Tariq et al., 2018).

Application of Federalism in the UAE

In terms of UAE, there is the free application of federalism with the central government has limited power in matters of states. However, learning from the USA and India, it can be seen that the benefits of not having federalism are that there is a tightly knit political system without interference of parties (Radin, 2017). As a result, there is less conflict and elections time wastage. From Emirate from Emirate, there is only one legal code provided with flexibility. In UAE, the Federalism system enables the states to have a say in the decisions making with the Federal National Council. Within the council, each of the Emirates is allowed to represent themselves, and based on the size of the Emirate; they do have a say (Tariq et al., 2018).

However, weaknesses of the system are that the selection of leadership is not based on the choice of public, and there is a change in the central direction possible in case of a rule-based approach. Also, the president, who is also the ruler of the UAE, is the one with all the rights (Paquette, 2019). An immense monarchy where people don’t have a say in the decision-making process. Even in simple methods such as driving license making, there is increased bureaucracy practice (Sofi and Khan, 2018).

This also provides an opportunity for the country, as UAE implements federalism where states have impressive autonomy. As a result, there are lesser contradictory circumstances between the Emirates (Ahmad et al., 2017). Within the system, there is equivalent representation enabling them to have an opportunity in decision influencing position for every emirate. Additionally, with such a government structure, the local government election is considered to be less problematic within the collection because the rule will make the final decision of the state. However, this form of government has its share of negativity, as it may lead to increased bureaucracy who tends to reduce the efficiency and pace of decision making (Sofi and Khan, 2018).

A review of federalism in the context of UAE suggests that federalism in the UAE has more advantages as compared to disadvantages. For UAE, the scores for are pretty low as a result of the bans that have been put on political parties, and electoral system for the Head of the Emirates elections (De Alwis, 2019). Nevertheless, in such instances where there are prohibitions and bans put by the government, the UAE federal system is said to have the upper hand as compared to Indian and US counterpart (De Alwis, 2019). In terms of the US system’s bureaucracy, UAE stands one step short, however in other categories such as autonomy, freedom of decision making, power dissemination and another concurrent list of activities deliverance in each Emirate state; they are said to be high in contrast to US and India both. Lastly, it is essential to note here that with lesser traditional elections being held, UAE has smaller inter-emirate conflict as the power lies in the hands of the hereditary rulers (De Alwis, 2019).

Conclusions

The essay aimed to evaluate the principle of federalism being a mode of government. SWOT analysis has been conducted to figure out the pros and cons of adopting this approach in the UAE, for instance (Ahmad et al., 2017). Besides, a compare and contrast evaluation has been done, keeping in view India and the United States. On the whole, it can be concluded that although India and the USA are leading democratic nations, nevertheless, both countries have been making use of federalism for different purposes as per its demographics. Keeping UAE in view, lesser conflicts are existing between the Emirates (De Alwis, 2019). Nevertheless, when it comes to the citizens, it is significant dementing. As a result, it can be concluded that even though UAE adopts federalism, which would be beneficial for its operations nonetheless, there is a wide range of differences existing between the monarchical political system in UAE as compared to India and the USA (Radin, 2017).

References

Ahmad, M., Yousaf, N., and Shah, Z., 2017. Federalism in the United States and Pakistan: A Juxtaposition. Transylvanian Review, 1(1).

De Alwis, R., 2019. Federalism or devolution of power? Sri Lanka’s perspectives. Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies.

Paquette, J., 2019. Cooperation and Competition: Cultural Governance and the Politics of Federalism. In Cultural Policy and Federalism (pp. 77-122). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Paquette, J., 2019. Federalism. In Cultural Policy and Federalism (pp. 1-30). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Radin, B.A., 2017. USA and Indian Federalisms: Similarities and Differences. Indian Journal of Public Administration, 63(4), pp.685-689.

Sofi, W.A., and Khan, A., 2018. Federalism: An Idea Behind the Success of Indian Democracy. In Challenges and Issues in Indian Fiscal Federalism (pp. 159-169). Springer, Singapore.

Tariq, M., Malik, M.S., and Qumber, G., 2018. Prospects of Federalism in Pakistan. Global Social Sciences Review, 3(2), pp.358-370.