Federalism is a compound form of government that incorporates a general authority with regional rulers in a single political order. It is assumed to permit a large extent of regional self-rule and protect against tyranny. Regarding effectiveness, federating is a more efficient form of government since the decentralization of power allows the states to solve their problems. Besides increasing citizen participation in the political process, it eases conflict management by letting various communities establish their policies (Bakvis & Skogstad, 2020). This division enables those with irreconcilable differences to existing separately. American Federalism still works today by continually creating multiple opportunities for interested parties to determine the political machinery. For instance, if one seeks to address a toxic waste management problem, they can petition local, state, or federal authorities depending on the nature of the issue and accessibility.
The successful management of some of the current issues can be traced to federalism. By creating democracy laboratories, state authorities experiment with ideas, the failures, and successes of which offer valuable lessons to other regional governments. For example, California consistently became the first to create environmental regulations and measures adopted by other states. Being a zero-sum game with one level of leadership prevailing at the other’s expense, federalism lacks a perfect record of solving disputes in the past. It has entrenched inequality by fostering economic disparities across different parts of the country by enabling a race-to-the-bottom situation where states compete for enterprises by eliminating the barrier of high taxes and strict regulations. Other alternatives to the decentralization system include unitary government and confederations. The unitary system is more applicable to compact nations with homogenous populations; hence, it is unsuitable for a country as big as the United States (Michener, 2018). On the contrary, confederations combine a loose central rule dominated by more robust state authorities; it may stand a better chance by enhancing cooperation.
References
Bakvis, H., & Skogstad, G. (Eds.). (2020). Canadian federalism: Performance, effectiveness, and legitimacy. University of Toronto Press.
Michener, J. (2018). Fragmented democracy: Medicaid, federalism, and unequal politics. Cambridge University Press.