Featured Research Project

Ideas, Interests, and Institutions: Fiscal Redistribution and Territorial Politics in Four Federal Systems (SSHRC Standard Research Grant, 2008-2012 [in collaboration with André Lecours, University of Ottawa])

Grounded in historical institutionalism and the related scholarship on ideas and public policy, this project explores the politics of horizontal fiscal redistribution in four federal systems: Australia, Canada, Spain, and Switzerland. The project raises two major questions: Why does the territorial redistribution of financial resources become a major political issue in some federal states while it remains much less controversial in others? When there is strong politicization, how does it occur? Our four cases exhibit a strong contrast between two political outcomes. On the one hand, fiscal redistribution between regions is highly contentious in Spain, where regions like Catalonia question the legitimacy of territorial redistribution, and in Canada, where some provinces (most notably Alberta, Québec and Newfoundland) have questioned patterns of equalization. On the other hand, in Australia and Switzerland, territorial transfers have not triggered similar levels of territorial conflict. To explain this contrast in outcomes, the project explores the role of ideas and institutions in the political construction of territorial interests surrounding horizontal fiscal redistribution.

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