Week 9 - Federalism and the State

Question 1

What is the difference between Layer Cake and Marble Cake Federalism?

Answer 1

Layer Cake: an approach to Federalism being ‘vertical separation’; emphasises a clear separate mandate for national and sub - national governments. There is a clear difference between what the government’s do

Marble Cake: This emphasises that there are unclear boundaries and whilst there is a clear difference, it is less clearly defined and depending on what slice of cake you are looking at - state boundaries can therefore change

Question 2

What amendment is Federalism supported by?

Answer 2

10th amendment

Question 3

Outline Centriepital Federalism

Answer 3

This pulls power into the centre; the case of Washington claiming more and more power for itself combined with states relying on the central government for funds and the Supreme Court has also acted as a centralising force

Question 4

Outline Centrifugal Federalism

Answer 4

Process of pulling apart. Power moves further away from Washington ; nullification which was where state governments would disagree with policies and therefore they would not follow it - this has extended to non - implementation where states believe that there are certain areas where they are sovereign and therefore do not have to apply or follow those certain laws

Question 5

How is the 10th amendment a limit on Federal Power?

Answer 5

It is ‘the power not delegated to the US by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people’. This summarises the idea that if the Constitution has not given a certain power to the Federal Government, then this power belongs to the states.

Question 6

What is Dual Sovereignty?

Answer 6

This focuses on the idea that people have two levels of citizenship - a citizen of the United States and a citizen of one’s state

Question 7

Dual Sovereignty and the case of North Carolina…

Answer 7

Dual sovereignty says that Congress can’t deprive free speech, but a state legislature can.

North Carolina’s law against anti - slavery criminalised public dissent of slavery or criticism of racial inequality and was punishable by death. This was constitutional under the First Amendment.

Question 8

What happened under the Roosevelt administration? How did he threaten the Courts?

Answer 8

Under the administration, major social policies and economic stimulus programs were passed and the Supreme Court stepped in saying that there was nothing in the Constitution that allowed a distribution of wealth and other factors such as setting up employment benefits etc.

He responded threatening the Court by saying he would keep adding Justices until he had a majority that would vote in his favour - threat was enough and the Supreme Court agreed with him

Question 9

What are the Jim Crow Regimes?

Answer 9

These originated from the idea that state governments claimed that civil rights were a responsibility of the State Government’s alone and therefore, schools had to be racially separated and it also banned no inter racial marriages

Therefore, federal governments needed to invade the states to enforce national - level civil rights

Question 10

Why was dual - federalism never fully operational?

Answer 10

Because it depended on the policy area and depending on who was in office - or on the Supreme Court, Congress has been able to provide wide forms of intervention

Question 11

Give examples of early federal activism?

Answer 11

Grants for the disabled and agricultural regulation

Question 12

Give examples of power that has been deferred to the States?

Answer 12

Civil rights - except during the post - civil war reconstruction era (1860s-70s)

Question 13

What is the Tiebout Model?

Answer 13

Proposed by Charles Tiebout and it is based on the idea of competition. Therefore, states will compete with each other to deliver better services and conditions for the people that live within the states, willingly improving their standard of living; citizens will move to states that set up superior models

Question 14

Describe the meaning of ‘State Laboratories’ in regards to Federalism

Answer 14

This regards states as policy innovators and this is because federalism allows a state to try something and if it goes wrong, it will not affect the rest of the country. And then if it goes right, then the rest of the country will want to adopt that model - this approach has been embraced in political economics

Question 15

Briefly outline the model of New Federalism with an example

Answer 15

Originated from Reagan who advocated that the federal government had done too much and therefore the public services were inefficient and could not deliver their policy effectively. It cut the government from doing these services and gave power to the states - therefore, if the state deem it important enough, then they will find the money to improve it

Question 16

What key advantages do the States have over the Federal Government?

Answer 16

They sometimes find it easier to win citizen’s loyalties as their purview includes most of the issues that were familiar, local and important to citizens’ daily lives

Question 17

What is a consequence of nationalisation for political representation?

Answer 17

This is because a political system represents people based on where they live, and nationalisation therefore as a result can undercut each district’s claim to have its own unique communities of interest

Question 18

Explain the Welfare Magnets Hypothesis

Answer 18

This is the idea that the poor would flock to states with generous welfare benefits, advancing the idea that many states enact rules to limit benefits to new residents

Question 19

What are the explanations for a lack of mobility?

Answer 19

Home - ownership rate rose from 63% in 1965 to a high of around 69% in 2005; thus potentially making moving more costly for many households.

Furthermore, job match quality has become more location - specific over time, meaning that workers may have become less inclined to change communities. There has also been a rise in dual - earner households, who may be more constrained in their location decisions

Question 20

What are SFE Programs?

Answer 20

These are where state - level courts ordered a change in education finance intended to increase the resources available to low - income children. Some of these equalisations required a change in spending at the local level whilst others required increases in state spending to equalise resources available to localities.