In this comprehensive analysis of federal or convenantal forms of government, Elazar explores the roots of federalism, traces its historical development, and portrays how federalism has been employed to promote workable governmental systems for people with diverse traditions. He identifies the several elements of federalism as a basis of political association, and describes how federalism defines political justice, shapes political behavior, and directs humans toward civic synthesis of the two. Elazar scans the centralizing and decentralizing trends in contemporary federal systems and explains why federalism is resurfacing as a significant political force in the postmodern epoch. He contends that through its covenantal foundations, federalism is an idea whose importance is akin to natural law in defining justice and delineating the origins and proper constitution of political society. ISBN 0-8173-0240-9: $28.95.
In this forward-thinking book, fifteen leading scholars set forth cutting-edge agendas for research on significant facets of federalism, including basic theory, comparative studies, national and subnational constitutionalism, courts, self-rule and shared rule, centralization and decentralization, nationalism and diversity, conflict resolution, gender equity, and federalism challenges in Africa, Asia, and the European Union. More than 40 percent of the world’s population lives under federal arrangements, making federalism not only a major research subject but also a vital political issue worldwide.
Classic Books Library presents this brand new edition of “The Federalist Papers”, a collection of separate essays and articles compiled in 1788 by Alexander Hamilton. Following the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776, the governing doctrines and policies of the States lacked cohesion. “The Federalist”, as it was previously known, was constructed by American statesman Alexander Hamilton, and was intended to catalyse the ratification of the United States Constitution. Hamilton recruited fellow statesmen James Madison Jr., and John Jay to write papers for the compendium, and the three are known as some of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Alexander Hamilton (c. 1755–1804) was an American lawyer, journalist and highly influential government official. He also served as a Senior Officer in the Army between 1799-1800 and founded the Federalist Party, the system that governed the nation’s finances. His contributions to the Constitution and leadership made a significant and lasting impact on the early development of the nation of the United States.
Challenging the myth that the federal government exercises exclusive control over U.S. foreign-policymaking, Michael J. Glennon and Robert D. Sloane propose that we recognize the prominent role that states and cities now play in that realm. Foreign Affairs Federalism provides the first comprehensive study of the constitutional law and practice of federalism in the conduct of U.S. foreign relations. It could hardly be timelier. States and cities recently have limited greenhouse gas emissions, declared nuclear free zones and sanctuaries for undocumented immigrants, established thousands of sister-city relationships, set up informal diplomatic offices abroad, and sanctioned oppressive foreign governments. Exploring the implications of these and other initiatives, this book argues that the national interest cannot be advanced internationally by Washington alone. Glennon and Sloane examine in detail the considerable foreign affairs powers retained by the states under the Constitution and question the need for Congress or the president to step in to provide "one voice" in foreign affairs. They present concrete, realistic ways that the courts can update antiquated federalism precepts and untangle interwoven strands of international law, federal law, and state law. The result is a lucid, incisive, and up-to-date analysis of the rules that empower-and limit-states and cities abroad.
The balance between state and federal health care financing for low-income people has been a matter of considerable debate for the last 40 years. Some argue for a greater federal role, others for more devolution of responsibility to the states. Medicaid, the backbone of the system, has been plagued by an array of problems that have made it unpopular and difficult to use to extend health care coverage. In recent years, waivers have given the states the flexibility to change many features of their Medicaid programs; moreover, the states have considerable flexibility to in establishing State Children's Health Insurance Programs. This book examines the record on the changing health safety net. How well have states done in providing acute and long-term care services to low-income populations? How have they responded to financial incentives and federal regulatory requirements? How innovative have they been? Contributing authors include Donald J. Boyd, Randall R. Bovbjerg, Teresa A. Coughlin, Ian Hill, Michael Housman, Robert E. Hurley, Marilyn Moon, Mary Beth Pohl, Jane Tilly, and Stephen Zuckerman.
This project pulls together classic and modern readings and essays that explore theories of federalism. Spanning the Seventeenth through Twenty-first-centuries of European, U.S. and Canadian thinkers, this attempts to be a comprehensive reader for students in political theory. The emphasis throughout is on the normative argument, the advantages or disadvantages of federal and confederal arrangements compared to unitary states, and on the relative merits of various proposals to improve particular federations or confederations. These also draw on the full range of political science subfields: from political sociology, political economy and constitutional studies to comparative politics and international relations. There are also readings, both contemporary and historical, that attempt to clarify conceptual issues.
AFTER an unequivocal experience of the inefficacy of the subsisting federal government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America. The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the UNION, the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world. It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind. This idea will add the inducements of philanthropy to those of patriotism, to heighten the solicitude which all considerate and good men must feel for the event. Happy will it be if our choice should be directed by a judicious estimate of our true interests, unperplexed and unbiased by considerations not connected with the public good. But this is a thing more ardently to be wished than seriously to be expected. The plan offered to our deliberations affects too many particular interests, innovates upon too many local institutions, not to involve in its discussion a variety of objects foreign to its merits, and of views, passions and prejudices little favorable to the discovery of truth. Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument, and consequence of the offices they hold under the State establishments; and the perverted ambition of another class of men, who will either hope to aggrandize themselves by the confusions of their country, or will flatter themselves with fairer prospects of elevation from the subdivision of the empire into several partial confederacies than from its union under one government.
In Search of the Federal Spirit is a major new examination of the theory and practice of federal state formation in the post-Cold War era. It introduces the concept of the federal spirit as a means of exploring the emergence of a range of new political models.
