Journal Articles and Essay
The Centre will publish from time to time regular essays on federalism and multi-governance experience both in Australia and from other countries, written by distinguished academic visitors to the School of Politics and International Relations. These essays will provide new comparative perspectives on what outside scholars find interesting and problematic about federalism here and beyond. The idea is to look beyond Australia, or, to consider Australia in comparative perspective in order to find new questions and renew debate.
From GST to gambling to gun buybacks, Australia’s federation isn’t working
Author/editor:Tracy Beck Fenwick
Year published:2026
GST distribution. National Disability Insurance Scheme reforms. Data centre regulation. The national gun buyback. These are just some of the big policy challenges the federal government is trying to navigate with the states and territories, many of which were raised at this week’s meeting of…
Income, place and perceptions of fiscal fairness: evidence from Australian federalism
Author/editor:Fenwick, Tracy and Thiago N. Silva
Year published:2026
How do citizens assess whether the state or territory in which they live receives its ‘fair share’ of federal resources? We develop a theory of dual positional logic, which holds that perceptions of fiscal fairness emerge from the intersection of individual income and territorial context. Citizens…
Grassroots fiscal centralization: subnational delegation of revenue authority in Argentina
Author/editor:Jorge P. Gordin and Tracy Beck Fenwick
Year published:2025
The concept of delegation offers scholars of federalism a novel analytical framework for examining previously overlooked aspects of fiscal centralisation. Adopting a bottom-up approach, we develop a taxonomy of delegation types to assess the dynamic evolution and feedback effects of key milestones…
Consenting to Centralization? Comparing the Subnational Delegation and Abdication of Fiscal Authority in Argentina and Australia
Author/editor:Tracy Beck Fenwick and Jorge P. Godin
Year published:2025
Why do some subnational governments consent to the centralisation of fiscal authority? This article’s explanatory framework is built on the cases of Argentina and Australia. It adopts an inverse perspective to explain why subnational entities in these two cases assented to revenue centralisation…
Patterns of political career movements in multi-level systems: a cross-national comparison of twenty-seven countries
Author/editor:Semenova, E., & Dowding, K.
Year published:2023
We introduce the special issue and provide an extensive review of the career patterns of politicians in twenty-seven multi-level countries worldwide, the largest number ever analysed. Based on the wider evidence, we provide a new synthesis and explanation of those patterns. While supporting…
Women, support for sovereignty, and feminism: the case of Quebec
Author/editor:Katrine Beauregard, Brenda O’Neill & Elisabeth Gidengil
Year published:2020
Independence movements are a feature of multiple stateless, territorially concentrated nations in established democracies, including Canada, Spain and the United Kingdom. Women’s and feminist movements in democracies are directly engaged in these nation-building processes. Multiple investigations…
Casting a look at a ‘federal’ schooling system
Author/editor:Jennifer Wallner
Year published:2015
Over 2014, the Abbott Government made it clear that it intends to make major changes to the way federalism works in Australia and one of its primary targets is education. As it was released two days before Christmas, we would all be forgiven for missing the roles and responsibilities paper put out…
Reforming the ‘dog’s breakfast of federalism': why the Commonwealth can’t have its cake and eat it too
Author/editor: Tracy Beck Fenwick
Year published:2014
Upon reading Issue Paper 1, “Reform of the Federation” (Commonwealth, 2014) and based upon the terms of references of the White Paper itself, it does not seem evident that there is any real intention or attention being given to actually distributing power to the States and Territories, and local…