Ebook: Foreign Relations in Federal Countries

This fifth book in the Global Dialogue series explores foreign policy in federal countries, which often varies among such countries and differs considerably from that of unitary countries. Foreign policy has traditionally been the responsibility of central governments. In countries with a unitary system of government this state of affairs is relatively unproblematic since most powers accrue to, and most public policy is conducted at, the national level. In federal countries, however, constitutional powers and responsibility for the conduct of public policy are shared between the federal government and constituent units - states, provinces, cantons, and so on - with each order of government responsible for a set of functions.