Federation is the horizontal coordination of autonomous groups through delegates who carry revocable mandates, not permanent representatives who accumulate decision-making power. Each participating group retains its autonomy; the federation coordinates action across groups without subordinating any to a central authority.
This structure distinguishes anarchist federation from state federalism, in which a central government holds final authority over constituent units. In a federation, authority flows upward from the base: delegates convey the decisions of their assemblies and can be recalled at any time. No delegate speaks for their group in the way a legislator speaks for a constituency. The mandate is specific, temporary, and accountable.
Mikhail Bakunin advocated federation as the organizational form for a post-state society, and the First International’s conflicts between Bakunin and Karl Marx turned in part on this question — whether revolutionary organization required a centralized party or a federated network of autonomous sections. Contemporary examples include the Zapatista councils of good government and the cantonal system of Rojava.
Federation is not the absence of structure. It is a specific kind of structure that distributes power rather than concentrating it.