American Federalism as American Exceptionalism

Samuel Krislov

Publius: The Journal of Federalism, vol. 31, issue 1, 9-26

Abstract: Americans paradoxically claim uniqueness for their political system, yet promote it as a model for others. This is especially true of federalism, the clearest example of American exceptionalism. At its inception, American federalism was produced in an environment closely approximating what scholars have since distilled as optimal conditions for fostering such a system. In other contexts, federalism has not flourished, because those preconditions are seldom approximated. Remarkably, American federalism has adjusted to meet drastically changed social, geographic, and political conditions, and the case for its continued adaptiveness and appropriateness remains strong. Although enclaved state differences in economics and religion are no longer a reality, these and other differences are widespread especially on a regional basis. Even on a statewide basis, cultural mixes keep the country heterogeneous. The U.S. Constitution has been reinterpreted to permit rather more nationalized control in accordance with this process of eliminating differences. Indeed, this is to the point where federalism could become legally problematic, explaining the Rehnquist court's recent decisions. Copyright , Oxford University Press.

References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/ (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:publus:v:31:y::i:1:p:9-26

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Publius: The Journal of Federalism is currently edited by Paul Nolette and Philip Rocco

More articles in Publius: The Journal of Federalism from CSF Associates Inc. Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().