Structural, political, judicial, and popular safeguards have their unique weaknesses and failings, but they do not operate in isolation. We know through the theory of separated powers that the safeguards contest one another beneficially: one safeguard, say, the judiciary, can check another, such as the political safeguard. Mutual antagonism is only a part of their intersecting influence. Safeguards also bolster one another's performance and stand in where others are weak. Federations are most successful when the safeguards complement and reinforce one another. I now begin to construct a systems theory of safeguards, where each is a unique component. In this chapter we will consider the coverage capacity of safeguards, the completeness of their ability to reduce each of the different forms of opportunism.

THE ISSUE: COVERAGE AS A NECESSARY CONDITION

To this point, I have described the challenge of a robust design as recasting incentives for the governments. Each has a natural temptation to deviate opportunistically from the division of authorities; without a shift in incentives, they would act on this temptation, and the resulting noncompliance reduces—perhaps destroys—the utility of the union. Therefore, it is necessary (although not sufficient) in the federation to minimize opportunism; federal design is a problem in compliance maintenance. I am not about to abandon this approach, but I do need to make it more nuanced.

The standard method for overcoming compliance problems is to alter the incentive structure by introducing sanctions, or negative consequences for noncompliance.