Federalism, Regionalism and Territory

The 2012 IAFCS Conference has the ambitious aim of exploring the role of the territory within the theory of federalism, which present some interesting peculiarities when compared to the case of unitary states. We supported this issue because we are observing that territoriality has been gaining in importance, in Italy and across European countries, both in the organization of the decentralization system and from the standpoint of the understanding of the organization of the federal state itself. By looking at the papers discussed in the conference, one can observe that the issue of the territory in federal states is connected to the economic and political dimensions, as well as those regarding ethnicity and local communities. However, the problem of regionalism is still far to be solved. To this regards, a reinterpretation of the territory more closely related to community may provide a solution. It is important to overcome the concept of territoriality as mere territory with a narrow meaning, static and unchanging. The importance of understanding territoriality as political territoriality has been emphasized. This approach is better equipped to capture the amalgam of socio-economic and cultural elements encapsulated in a spatial organization. More generally, territoriality in federal states and federal political systems must be viewed as part of the larger conception of the politics of difference that inheres in discussions of federalism and federation.