Boundary control and education policy in federal systems: explaining sub-federal resilience in Canada and Germany

ABSTRACT

The development of the modern nation-state was an inherently centralising process. Education policy and the institutionalisation of mass public schooling played a key role in this process, facilitating industrialisation and the generation of mass loyalty toward the state. In almost all federal systems, however, education policy remained an exclusive jurisdiction of the sub-federal level, with important long-term implications. Adopting a most dissimilar case design by using two contrasting cases – Canada and Germany – this paper argues that boundary control has been an effective mechanism for sub-federal governments to consolidate and retain authority over education policy, despite recurring pressures for more harmonisation or even uniformity. Although both federations differ profoundly in terms of their institutional characteristics and macro-sociological contexts, boundary control strategies variously allowed sub-federal actors in both federations to thwart efforts of the federal level to assume a greater role in education policy over time.

KEYWORDS:

• Comparative federalism
• education policy
• schooling
• intergovernmental relations
• comparative-historical analysis
• boundary control

Acknowledgement

I thank Jürgen Schriewer and the two anonymous reviewers for extremely helpful comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The main focus of this study is on schooling, as a core element of education policy.

2 The case study on Germany spans three different regimes: the German Reich, the Weimar Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany since 1949. As a consequence, the length of both case studies varies.

3 Most other provinces followed in the following years, like Manitoba (1870), British Columbia (1871), and Prince Edward Island (1873). Saskatchewan and Alberta were established in 1905, and the Dominion of Newfoundland eventually joined in 1949.

4 With the notable exception of Quebec, where the Catholic church remained influential until the 1960s and Newfoundland, which joined the Canadian federation in 1949 as the last province.

5 Brophy vs Attorney General of Manitoba, [1895] A.C.202.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jörg Broschek

Jörg Broschek is a Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Comparative Federalism and Multilevel Governance and Associate Professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo. His current research focuses on institutional and policy reforms in federal systems. His latest publications include Configurations, Dynamics and Mechanisms of Multilevel Governance (co-edited with Nathalie Behnke and Jared Sonnicksen, Palgrave Macmillan 2019); The Multilevel Politics of Trade (co-edited with Patricia Goff, University of Toronto Press, 2020) and ‘The Federalisation of Trade Politics in Switzerland, Germany, and Austria‘ in Regional and Federal Studies (2021, online first).