In the western tradition, stateless federation has its roots in anarchist theory, starting with William Godwin’s notion of uniting the parishes on an ad-hoc basis to deal with necessary issues that affected them, but avoiding any institutions that would permanently stand above them. The anarchist federal idea was most thoroughly explored by P.J. Proudhon, who imagined an ascending structure of levels, each dealing with issues relevant to the local area, the larger region, and so on. The key difference between anarchist and liberal federations is that in anarchist federations are based on equal and reciprocal contracts between diverse groupings -- ranging from individuals to families to towns and regions -- in which ‘the contracting parties retain more sovereignty and a greater scope of action than they give up’ (Proudhon 1979: 43).
This is the theory, what about the practice? The
Northeast Federation of Anarcho-Communists [NEFAC] has been very active
of late in central Canada and the northeastern United States. As a bilingual,
multinational organization, it crosses many borders. In addition to its multilingual
and multinational identity, NEFAC also advocates struggles to ‘overthrow
capitalism, the state, patriarchy, and white supremacy’ (NEFAC 2002: 22),
thereby pushing federation to its limit as a form of groundless
solidarity.
The Federation of Revolutionary Anarchist Collectives
[FRAC] is another revolutionary anarchist organization that is working towards
a broader form of organization, but with a focus on loosely linked ‘revolutionary
nuclei’ rather than on a unified federative structure.
References:
Proudhon, P-J. 1979. The Principle of Federation. Toronto: University of Toronto
Press.