Sistema fiscale e "inclinazioni" del federalismo

Abstract

In political science federalism refers to a political system with a constitution that guarantees some range of autonomy and power to both central and decentralized levels of government. That is the federalism in static sense and its principal issue refers to the distribution of sovereignty between the different levels of government in federal states. Instead, federalism in a dynamic sense is a concept of power and it is defined as a federalizing process, in an ongoing evolution depending on centripetal (cooperative federalism) or centrifugal forces (dual federalism). The transformation of the federalist system in the United States after the New Deal is a clear example of it: the principles of welfare state had a great influence on the centralization of fiscal frameworks (with the support of Supreme Court sentences). This brief essay has the purpose of verifying whether the fiscal system can be an indicator of change in federalism inclination. Does the adoption of fiscal federalism in Italy following the Reform of the V Title of the Constitution represent a step toward dual or cooperative federalism? The answer to this question is very complex, but the safeguarding of the welfare in some backward areas may depend on it.