Chapter 3 Federalism and Nationalism

Forging Federalism The United States rebelled against a unitary system and rejected a federation after trying one for a decade. The Constitutional Convention created a new hybrid form of government: a federal system of shared and overlapping powers. Power is divided and shared between national and state governments. American federalism is further complicated by local governments, which are reliant on state government for their authority.

Who Holds Government Authority? The central question in federalism is where to place responsibility—on the state or national levels. State-level policy has at least four advantages: It responds to local needs, enables innovations in the laboratories of democracy, protects individual rights, and enhances choice. National-level policy also has four main advantages: it enhances fairness (avoiding a race to the bottom), equalizes resources, promotes national standards and best practices, and facilitates coordination. Understanding the pros and cons of federalism is important as we decide whether to create national standards and programs or whether to leave judgments to local populations. This question is generally decided issue by issue and program by program.

How Federalism Works The Constitution grants the national government both enumerated (or explicit) powers and inherent (or implicit) powers. You can read it to emphasize broad national powers (using the elastic clause) or state dominance (emphasizing the Tenth Amendment). There have been three important eras of federalism: dual federalism included clearly demarcated authority (the layer cake); cooperative federalism, arising with FDR’s New Deal, introduced federal dominance and blurred lines of authority (the marble cake); President Reagan’s New Federalism relies on federal funds, but shifts more decision making about spending those monies back to the states; President Obama’s progressive federalism sets national goals but relies on state innovations to achieve them .

Issues in Federalism Today Americans have long felt a strong sense of nationalism. This helps bind together a large and diverse nation with a fragmented government. “Strong nation, weak national government” is a longstanding American paradox. A weak government means that American institutions (and officials) rank relatively low on three dimensions: size, authority, and independence. The political results of this paradox include an emphasis on citizen participation, the importance of building alliances, and a reliance on power and money.