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Puppy Federalism and the Blessings of America

University of Pennsylvania Law School

Federalism is a system of governmental organization that grants subunits of a polity definitive rights against the central government. It allows these subunits to maintain different norms, or policies, from those of the central government. Thus it differs from decentralization, which is a strategy that the central government adopts in order to carry out its norms or policies more effectively. Federalism is a useful approach when people in a given area have such basic disagreements that they will not agree to live together in a single polity and be bound by its decisions. The United States is blessed with a sense of national unity that makes federalism unnecessary. This was not the case prior to the Civil War, however, and our continued nostalgia for that period induces us to adopt puppy federalism, which looks like the real thing but isn't. Legal scholars should not allow themselves to be fooled; however, as current legislation by the Republican Congress indicates, real federalism garners no support in our political system.

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 574, No. 1, 37-51 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/000271620157400103


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