Federalism is the American political system\u2019s arrangement of powers and responsibilities among national, state, and local governments. While the general principle of divided power under federalism is fairly easy to grasp, in practice the commitment to this sort of \u201csovereignty sharing\u201d has become far more complex over time. During the early years of the republic, the clear divisions of authority between the levels of government gradually\u00a0evolved into a more interconnected and cooperative reality\u2014a reality that also includes ongoing\u00a0conflict and competition as the nation grapples with policy challenges the framers of our system didn’t anticipate.<\/p>\n
In this modern context the national government has accumulated far more power than was originally designed into the system, mostly because of continuing attempts to deal with the consequences of industrialization, as well as increased efforts to defend civil rights and liberties. Big-ticket political controversies of the day have focused attention on debates over the proper arrangement and location of governing power. Republicans\u2014especially since the 1970s\u2014tend to be associated with calls to \u201cdevolve\u201d power back toward the states in the name of democracy, however problematic that may be in a post-industrial era characterized by concentrated private power. Meanwhile, Democrats are often more comfortable moving authoritative decisions up the ladder to the federal level. Of course we need to be careful with these generalizations since, as we have seen, they tend to break down from time to time depending on the issue at hand. It\u2019s complicated!<\/p>\n