The Political Economy of Decentralised Federalism: A Historical and Analytical Account of Classical Anarchist Constitutional Design

This project starts with the claim that the anarchist political economy of decentralised federalism is relevant to our contemporary political problems today, more than ever. Classical anarchists envisioned and described the type of political systems that can both emancipate people from the structures of political and economic oppression, and remove the coercive, centralised, punitive, and exploitative agency of the nation state. To date, research on anarchism has either focused on the history of anarchist thought, or anarchist currents in new social movements. This project will, however, develop ground breaking research that explores anarchism as a constitutional politics. It will add to this historical and
theoretical recovery, by specifying and evaluating, analytically, the alternative institutional design to the state that we find in that classical anarchist literature. The contribution to mainstream political philosophy is also clear: the political economy of decentralised federalism enriches our political imaginations. In particular, this project speaks to questions of devolution, asymmetric federalism, protection of minority rights, subsidiarity, equality and different meanings of 'taking
back control' in the context of post-Brexit Britain.

This project proposes to reconcile a libertarian socialist account of freedom and equality with non-statist constitutional design principles. This involves unpacking an anarchist political economy of decentralised federalism, which is anti-capitalist. This research thus speaks to the libertarian requirements for freedom and the republican defence of constitutional restraints on power while bringing to light an under-appreciated tradition of anti-statism in the history of political thought.

The primary research question for this thesis is 'How and in what way does an anarchist political economy of decentralised federalism balance the demands of liberty and equality?' To answer this question, I will aim to demonstrate that the political economy of decentralised federalism reconciles liberty and equality on left-libertarian terms and meets republican defences of freedom without its attendant statism. By showing the real world applicability of this model, with examples drawn from a number of contemporary settings, this thesis will move us towards a more grounded, realist, and institutional design driven 'political political theory', which is motivated to rebuild more just, equal, and free institutions
beyond the narrowly defined existing notions of private property and state.

This PhD thesis will provide a philosophically rigorous account of the principles that underpin the constitutional political economy of decentralised federalism. By exploring classical anarchists, and putting their ideas into communication with contemporary republicanism and libertarianism, the PhD research will challenge political and constitutional theorists to take anarchism more seriously. However, throughout my dissertation, I will show that anarchist constitutional theory has the potential of going further than that by providing a useful resource for public policy and real politics. The historical account of decentralised federalism can reinform and improve our modern political discussions by showing alternative institutional and constitutional arrangements that can motivate political theorists and policy-makers towards rebuilding more just, equal, and free institutions beyond the narrowly defined existing notions of private property and state.

With historical textual analysis and analytical methods such as rational reconstruction, I will critically assess the contribution of anarchist theory of property rights and decentralised federalism to contemporary debates in politics and political theory, and improve the understanding of the key concepts and arguments in anarchist political thought with an explanatory approach and conceptual clarity.