Federal and unitary government-disharmony and frustration

Abstract

The notion of disharmony or “divisive bickering” as a universal feature of federal governments was discussed in an earlier article in this journal by William Riker and Ronald Schaps. Here an attempt is made to analyze this notion of disharmony, to question whether disharmony results from the kind of opposition they seek to measure, and to supplement their analysis by identifying, and developing a crude measure for a kind of harmony (or lessened frustration) which it is the peculiar genius of federalism to achieve.