Multilevel constitutionalism and federalism: Reflections upon the congress on the path to federalism in the state of autonomies

© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. All rights are reserved. There is nothing new about making a connection between federalism and the different tiers of competence typical of complex legal-political organisations. Currently, it is no longer possible to approach a legal theme without taking into account the different levels of legal systems that may influence the object of analysis. In fact, in many countries, most legal institutions are regulated by more than one system. Globalisation, reinforcing both bilateral and multilateral International Law, European integration, the unleashing of processes of redefinition of competences in sub-state bodies, born of the need to better tackle policies that profoundly impact the lives of citizens, have made it necessary to address the study of institutions, rights, bodies, guarantees, etc., not only in classical unitary legal systems, characteristic of the nation-state, but also at other levels, depending upon the degree of internationalisation or regionalisation of the area under study and upon the level of legal integration resulting from these processes.