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Revisiting Federalism: Core And Basic Characteristics, Haiting Zhang

haiting zhang

ABSTRACT This article makes analytical and comparative studies on the essential characteristics of federalism: legally shared sovereignty, constitutional specific division of powers and a court arbiter role. The essence of a state is sovereignty; the allocation of sovereignty within a state thus determines its nature. Because of the inconsistency between legal sovereignty and political sovereignty, to study federalism from a legal point of view requires determining where legal sovereignty resides. The traditional sovereignty atom was split in accommodation of the dramatic theoretical and political revolution early in America’s history; the theory of popular sovereignty largely contributed to the transformation. In …