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The role and importance of cooperative federalism for the US political system

The United States of America is a successful developed country with flourishing

economy and complicated infrastructure. Nowadays the U.S. obtains leading positions in world

rankings of monetary, trade, investment, business, labour, financial freedom, property rights,

judicial effectiveness, and government integrity. The country also is the leader in global indexes

such as Human Development Index, Democracy Index, Rule of Law Index, Corruption

Perceptions Index, Globalization Index and Global Competitiveness Index. The Global

Competitiveness Report shows that the United States tops other countries in the areas of

infrastructure, ICT adoption, macroeconomic stability, product market, labour market, financial

system, market size, business dynamism, innovation capability. All these achievements became

true due to proper government of all external and internal processes of the country.

The political system of the USA is cooperative federalism, which is the result of many

decades of transformation and integration. The country’s state and federal government serves

various functions both exclusively and concurrently, such cooperation brings positive effect, as it

helps to solve the complicated issues at different levels of government, but it also has several

potential drawbacks. Cooperative federalism is important not only to the political system of the

United States, but it is also the basis of internal policy of many successful countries. Democratic

breakthrough of the United States of America is partly the result of masterful functioning of

cooperative federalism because citizens can directly participate in domestic affairs of their

country, states can monitor and change the process of adoption of new programs. The
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implementation of the system of cooperative federalism into governmental structure of the U.S.

accelerated the development of the country and made it one of the most prosperous in the world.

The political system of the United States of America had been evolving steadily, until it

reached the condition it has today – cooperative federalism. Initially, the struggles between state

and federal government were constant, the ruling political system was confederation, it was

governed by the U.S. Articles of Confederation, and the states had the greater authority than the

national government – until 1870s, when the system of dual federalism was established. This

system was also called “layer-cake” federalism, because the power was delegated to the layers of

government – federal (national), state, local etc. Dual federalism distinguished the functions of

each branch of government, which means that each function was served solely either by federal

government or state government. The jurisdiction of each side was determined by Supreme

Court, so any attempt to overstep the boundaries was blocked. The provisions of the laws

concerning working conditions, for example, the limitation of working hours, taxes, crime,

passed by federal and state governments could not coexist at the same time, even the Supreme

Court was uncapable of resolving such disputes. The Great Depression occurred in 1930s, and

dual federalism played itself out eventually. Dual federalism was replaced by cooperative

federalism which was one of the means introduced by the New Deal program of President

Franklin D. Roosevelt to overcome the Great Depression. Basically, the program suggested that

state and federal governments would have functions they need to serve exclusively and

concurrently. Over the years this system started being called “marble-cake” federalism as the

line between the layers became blurred. This system is still working today, and it is walking

through numerous changes and variations as it continues to adjust to modern political world.

The functions served by national and state governments in cooperative federalism cover

every segment of life of citizens, military and foreign affairs. As mentioned before, the functions

are divided into exclusive and concurrent. Among the exclusive functions of national

government are coining money, declaring war, regulating foreign commerce, raising army,
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conducting foreign affairs. The national government provides control for the equality of the

national currency in each state, the financing of armed forces, the diplomatic relations with other

countries. Exclusive responsibilities of state government are conducting elections, ratifying

Constitution amendments, regulation of intrastate commerce, managing education, giving

licenses and establishment of local governments. State governments organize elections at each

state where citizens choose their candidate, control the financial processes occurring within each

state and ratify amendments to the Constitution suggested by federal government, provide

citizens with driving, professional, academic licenses and solve problems connected to

education. The concurrent functions include lawmaking, law enforcement, establishing courts,

eminent domain, chartering banks and taxation. This means that both state and federal laws, law

enforcement agencies, such as FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) and local police, Supreme

Courts and local courts, state and federal expropriations, federal and state taxes can successfully

coexist and meet the needs of American citizens.

The system of cooperative federalism allowed the governmental institutions to allocate

functions between each other and seems to be perfect. However, such system can sometimes be

inefficient because it involves the differentiation and decentralization of power. Such provision

may constitute a problem for the national government because it loses the full power to dictate

the law which can be useful at certain situations. Moreover, when it is important for national

defense or economic growth of the country to sacrifice state interests in order to win more than

lose in long-term perspective, numerous negotiations with state governments can prevent the

national government from serving its direct function and disrupt the balance between the national

and state powers. Nevertheless, the methods of influencing the opinion of state governments are

not too inventive and complicated – national government can motivate state governments to

collaborate through the system of grants and bonuses. For example, state governments can

receive extra financing, if it accepts the law adopted by national government or does not object

to certain financial reforms introduced by national government. So as not to allow such situations
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go worse, national governments in all federalism countries try to establish mutually beneficial

relations with all state governments upon the cultural, ethnic, or religious basis.

Democracy is the important part of the policy of the United States of America. It is

logical that the political system of the country does not contradict the general principles of the

community, so cooperative federalism is, obviously, a perfect choice for the U.S. It enables

citizens to take part in the political life of the country and to work alongside with governments in

order to improve the quality of life in the United States. Cooperative federalism divides the

power equally between the people and branches of government creating favourable conditions

for ongoing existence of democracy.

All in all, the United States of America walked through a long and difficult path to

achieve everything it has today. The transformations of political system of the country over the

years were the reactions to extraordinary conditions inside and outside the country. It is possible,

that cooperative federalism is not the last stage of political evolution of the U.S. Although it has

some drawbacks, in the context of effectiveness and stability the advantages surely outweigh the

disadvantages. For now, it is the best suited system which ensures mutually beneficial relations

between the layers of government and allows the country to obtain further achievements in the

area of trade, foreign affairs, industrial relations, etc. Moreover, it builds up the foundation for

future improvement of economy, policy and law, which are in constant evolution in the whole

world.
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Works Cited

“A History of Federalism in the United States”. Brewminate. 24 Feb. 2018.

https://brewminate.com/a-history-of-federalism-in-the-united-states/ Accessed 8 April

2020.

Global Competitiveness Report 2019. World Economic Forum. 9 Oct. 2019.

http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_TheGlobalCompetitivenessReport2019.pdf

Accessed 8 April 2020.

“The Evolution of American Federalism - American Government 2e”. OpenStax. 21 Feb. 2019.

www://openstax.org/books/american-government-2e/pages/3-2-the-evolution-of-

american-federalism Accessed 9 April 2020.