Written by: Carol Weissert

Those of us who teach federalism to undergraduates know that it can be a tough slog. Students often relate better to personalities and hot-button policy issues than to institutions and policy formation. In the U.S. for many years, the simplistic ‘cake’ analogy of layer or marble cakes seemed to resonate and serve as a quick, if inadequate, depiction of federalism.

Scholars of federalism deal with different problems—notably how to capture the importance of federalism in governmental outcomes—from policy choices to corruption. It doesn’t help that there isn’t simply one federalism blueprint—rather the two dozen federal systems vary enormously in their choice of legislative organization, system of representation, size, fiscal arrangements, and autonomy. How can scholars make conclusive findings about federalism per se when the operation of these systems varies so much? Also problematic is that American and comparative scholars have often operated as separate subfields with little cross-over or building on the other tribe’s research.

The good news is that federalism scholars are making enormous progress in developing new measures and recognizing innovative avenues for research. Gone is an over-reliance on descriptions and one-country analyses, highly dependent on history and constitutional language. Dynamism and change are a key concern for many federalism scholars as is tying federalism scholarship to important overarching issues such as elections, hyper-partisanship, and blame casting.

In Rethinking Federalism Studies, I evaluate the state of federalism research, identify areas of success, and propose suggestions for future study. For federalism scholars, the book provides an up-to-date, expansive review of the state of our art. Although targeted to federalism and comparative politics and policy scholars, this book is also informative for non-scholars who live in a highly intergovernmental world.

The two audiences—federalism scholars and citizens in federal societies—share the need for relevant research—research that informs our understanding of what works and what doesn’t; what is achievable and what might be best dealt with outside government; and what issues are on the horizon—not yet before us but on a clear path of relevance.

Local problems are increasingly national, even international, concerns as probably best illustrated by climate change. Solutions to these Richter-scale sized problems are not in the domain of one government or group of governments; they begin with recycling and taxes at the local level, incentives, partisanship and often big-footing at the state level, and regulations, partisanship, and funding uncertainty at the national and international levels. Other problems, such as the impact of COVID-19, are wide-spread but not equally distributed. What COVID taught us was that it was a state/provincial responsibility to recognize variances with their borders, and it was a local responsibility to deal with issues in their own community. Ideally there would be cooperation among federal, state, and local governments, but in the U.S. and abroad, politics interfered, and local autonomy was often ignored or, even worse, overridden.

Issues of relevance highlighted in this book include how federalism is affected by and affects major cross-cutting concerns such as quality of elections, international pandemics, public skepticism of government, and extreme polarization defining parties and citizens, and a society that seems to consider conflict—not consensus—the desired behavior.

For example, consider federalism in times of crisis. Shared power is the essence of federalism, but it can and often does lead to confusion in disasters, especially those that occur quickly. States carry most of the burden for dealing with emergencies and natural disasters ranging from hurricanes to nuclear plant scares, from fires, floods, and droughts to toxic releases in drinking water. States also have the primary responsibility for responding to public health threats under a broad police power that the federal government in the U.S. was never given. However, the U.S. government does provide important backup, if not leadership, in national emergencies. And it was leadership that was missing in the U.S. Covid crisis—leaving states to compete with each other for safety equipment in the early days and offering highly divergent and partisan-based approaches as the pandemic persisted. Blame casting ensued, and some scholars and others argued that federalism was at fault. Others called federalism the institution that allowed states and localities to step up when the federal government refused to act.

The scorecard for other federal countries was mixed.  Some countries saw cooperation among governmental levels that promoted a united approach; others were plagued by intergovernmental conflict, dominance of political, not policy, issues, and even corruption.

The good news is that federalism scholars systematically examined the role of federalism across a number of countries and drew some conclusions: notably that governmental capacity is key in responding to a crisis which affects different parts of a country differently and transparency and accountability are important in defining citizen support and engagement. The bad news? That there has been little effort on the part of policymakers to make changes to avoid intergovernmental problems in the next emergency. Specifically, public health funding and shoring up the capacity of local governments to deal with emergencies—both recommendations from scholars—have not been evident to date. And as we move farther and farther from the 2020 outbreak, it seems unlikely to be a future course of policy action.

Two other areas of policy and political relevance are intergovernmental relations and fiscal federalism.

If federalism is a bit opaque and even boring, intergovernmental relations suffers from those plus a sometimes bewildering morass of additional governments and policy foci. Scholars recognize that the operation of government depends on federal, state, and local elected and appointed officials working in concert. Long gone are days of picket-fence federalism where bureaucrats at local, state, and national levels worked together to implement programs and policies, replaced by networks of actors, many of whom are not government employees. The long and porous lines of responsibilities—which governments should do what—are strained by governors eager for the national spotlight, carrying out immigration policy actions and even rescues of American citizens in times of international crisis, and more importantly, by state attorneys general bringing suit against federal governmental activities couched in political, not legal, rationales. No wonder citizens remain confused about what their governments do—they do it all.

Long a mainstay in federalism research, fiscal federalism was dominated for decades by economists who studied intergovernmental grants and assignment of functions. When the subfield became more discipline eclectic, institutions and policy dynamics were in play as well. Scholars have also taken the lead in empirical analyses of the impact of federalism on the size of the public sector, economic growth, corruption, and on democracy. As in other federalism subfields, most of this research has focused on developed countries, but several recent scholars have broken the mold by analyzing intergovernmental fiscal relationships in developing countries which tend to be more centralized and more institutionally and policy fluid. Another recent area of scholar engagement is state resistance to federal direction including exit options. This resistance is not going away, and it is evident in the U.S. and other countries as well.

Clearly federalism is relevant—not simply a quiz question for undergraduates in political science classes. Equally clear from the analysis in this book is the importance of federalism research for the development and maturation of multi-level governance in the U.S. and across the world. Given the common public skepticism of government, this may seem an overreach– if not a pipedream. However, as this book chronicles, research on intergovernmental cooperation, cross-fertilization of scholarship, and a focus on policy dynamics in addition to traditional concerns about institutions is much needed and can play a role in the future of federalism and good policy outcomes.  Rethinking Federalism Studies aims to help scholars and non-scholars alike find their way more clearly along the path to improvements this critical field.

Carol Weissert is emerita professor of political science at Florida State University and author of Rethinking Federalism Studies published in September 2023.

Rethinking Federalism Studies
Carol S. Weissert, Professor Emerita, Department of Political Science, Florida State University, US is available now.

Read the introduction and other free chapters on Elgaronline.