Race, Federalism, and Voting Rights

In Shelby County v. Holder, the Court struck down an important provision of the Voting Rights Act, section 4, on federalism grounds. The Court argued that Congress no longer had the power to enact section 4 because of the “federalism costs” imposed by the Act and because the Act violated basic principles of federalism. Unfortunately, the Court failed to articulate the costs to federalism imposed by the Act, much less conduct a cost-benefit analysis in order to determine whether the benefits of the Act outweighed its costs. Moreover, the Court failed to discuss whether the Reconstruction Amendments ought to matter at all to the federalism debate. In this Essay, we ask three basic questions in response to Shelby County. First, what does the Court mean by “federalism costs,” and why have these costs undermined the constitutionality of the VRA? Second, does the failure to discuss Reconstruction and the Reconstruction Amendments undermine the Court’s decision in Shelby County? And third, we ask how should we understand the utility of federalism in the context of race and voting. We suggest that if one purpose of federalism is that it enables minorities to engage in self-rule, we should ask whether federalism enables racial minorities to engage in self-rule

The Economic Effects of Federalism and Decentralization – A Cross-Country Assessment

This paper is based on the conjecture that institutional details matter and that attempts to estimate the economic effects of federalism by drawing on a simple dummy variable neglect potentially important institutional details. Based on a principal component analysis, seven aspects of both federalism and decentralization are used as variables for explaining differences in (1) fiscal policy, (2) government effectiveness, (3) economic productivity, and (4) happiness. The results show that institutional details do, indeed, matter. Different aspects of federalism impact on the outcome variables in different degrees. This study adds to our knowledge on the transmission mechanisms of federalism and decentralization.Federalism, Federalism, decentralization, Fiscal federalism, Economic Effects of constitutions, constitutional economics.

Federalism at the Crossorads: Old Meanings, New Significance

Federalism has remained a contested concept. The constitutional certainties of the modern federal state are under attack from confederal practices of negotiated agreement. Such practices have their traditional roots in the political theories of Althusius and Montesquieu. The central argument of this article is that the American Federalists broke with that older tradition and deliberately misinterpreted Montesquieu along the way. Consequently, the predominant reading of federalism emphasizes federal supremacy over the idea of a social compact among equal partners, territorial representation dominates over the recognition of social community, and the allocation of divided powers is guided by national prerogatives rather than regionally differentiated policy needs. Recent trends towards a more collaborative form of federalism indicate that the old model of constitutional federalism may be replaced by new practices of treaty federalism

The Economic Effects of Federalism and Decentralization - A Cross-Country Assessment

This paper explores the idea that institutional details matter and that attempts to estimate the economic effects of federalism by employing a simple dummy variable neglect potentially important institutional details. Based on a principal component analysis, seven aspects of both federalism and decentralization are used as variables for explaining differences in (1) fiscal policy, (2) government effectiveness, (3) economic productivity, and (4) happiness. The results show that institutional details do, indeed, matter. Different aspects of federalism impact on the outcome variables to different degrees. This study adds to our knowledge on the transmission mechanisms of federalism and decentralization.federalism, decentralization, fiscal federalism, economic effects of constitutions, constitutional economics

Federalism, Subsidiarity, and the Role of Local Governments in an Age of Global Multilevel Governance

This article argues that current legal and political systems are incapable of dealing with human conflicts on multiple spheres (federal, state, local) simultaneously. The two dominant political theories that are supposed to solve this problem - federalism and subsidiarity, are inadequate. This article then argues that federalism and subsidiarity must be understood as distinct from one another, and subsidiarity is a better fit for the task of articulating multi-level governance, even if only as a tool for loosening the grip of federalism over our political and legal theory

Federalism, Liberty, and Equality in United States v. Windsor

This essay argues that federalism played a profoundly important role in the Supreme Court\u27s decision in United States v. Windsor, which struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Arguments to the contrary have failed to appreciate how Justice Kennedy\u27s opinion employed federalism not as a freestanding argument but as an essential component of his rights analysis. Far from being a muddle, as many have claimed, Justice Kennedy\u27s analysis offered one of the most sophisticated examples to date of the interconnections between federalism, liberty, and equality

Federalism, Education-Related Public Good and Growth when Agents are Heterogeneou

In this paper we use an endogeneous-growth model with human capital and heterogeneous agents to analyse the relationship between fiscal federalism and economic growth. Results show that federalism, which allows education-related public good levels to be tailored on the human capital of heterogeneous agents, increases human capital accumulation. This in turn leads to higher rates of growth. The benefits of federalism are stronger the larger the intra-jurisdiction variance of agents’ human capital.Fiscal Federalism, Endogenous Economic Growth, Overlapping Generations, Heterogeneous Agents

Federalism in Middle Europe: a model for a future European education system?

The article discusses the principle of federalism as a potential institutional principle of the future education system in Europe. It reminds of the strengths and weaknesses of federalism in the history of Central Europe and clarifies the differences between Germany, Austria and Switzerland with respect to the practice of federalism in the education sector. The implications for the variability of structures, the competition of solutions, the allocation of financial resources and for participation are worked out under the auspices of their relevance for a future European education system. (DIPF/Orig.

Old and New Theories of Fiscal Federalism, Organizational Design Problems, and Tiebout

This work is a contribution to the Second Generation Theory (SGT) of fiscal federalism that studies fiscal federalism through contemporary economic and industrial organization theory. First, it establishes context by introducing the two classic motivations in support of federalism, namely, incentives and knowledge. Second, it succinctly discusses the incentive-based organizational approach of the SGT. Third, it shows that the Tiebout model already embeds an organizational approach, which instead rests on a knowledge motivation. The underlying theme is that the SGT should include both the incentive and knowledge motivations for fiscal decentralization.Economic organization, Incentives, Knowledge, Second Generation Theory of fiscal federalism.

Capital Accumulation and Social Welfare in Fiscal Federalism and the Unitary System

This paper presents an analysis on capital accumulation and social welfare in fiscal federalism and the unitary system by using an overlapping generations model. We introduce three possible cases pertaining to how government tax policy towards individuals could be formulated: the government imposes tax on young and old generations under fiscal federalism (case A); the government imposes tax only on young generation under fiscal federalism (case B) as well as under the unitary system (case C). We show that, the level of steady-state capital accumulation as well as social welfare in case A is greater than those in cases B and C if certain conditions are satisfied. Our results suggest that, fiscal federalism is more preferable than the unitary system.Capital accumulation; Fiscal federalism; Unitary system; Overlapping generations