Tensions Of American Federal Democracy

Tensions of American Federal Democracy uses an original analytical framework combined with comparative perspectives – including those of other modern federal democracies – to explore the jigsaw puzzle that is the state of American federal democracy. The USA has a complex political system prone to "divided government", which has become highly polarized in recent years. The reasons for this extend further and deeper than party diversification or rising populism. This book provides an original contribution encompassing the US polity and its overall development. The author explores how the US constitution has predisposed branches and levels of government to multiple forms of separation of power and constituency; and how developments in democratic and federal government over time have fostered more competition, diffusion, and decoupling, despite earlier trends to more cross-branch and cross-level cooperation. The book thus addresses a multifaceted inquiry, interrogating and conceptualizing the connections between institutions, ideas, and political development, while exploring the interlinkage between the institutional parameters of multidimensional division of powers, constitutional political ideas and their contestation, and the limitation of the state in the US federal democratic system. This book will appeal to students and scholars of political science, American government and constitutional politics, federalism, comparative politics, and political theory.

Nationalist and local traditions vie within the American federal system and the American experiment with self-government. Bringing together contributions from history, political science and sociology, this book focuses primarily on the local, seeking to recapture its origins, explain its current impact and assess its worth.

Ten essays discuss federal democracy, the form of government of the United States. The first essay discusses the origins of American federalism. The second examines why we have a federal system, the functions federalism serves, and the consequences of federalism for the American political system. Federalism in the Constitution and constitutional law are treated in the third essay. The importance of cultural pluralism in American life and the role of American federalism in supporting pluralism are the foci of the fourth essay. The roles that the local community, the states, and political parties play in the federal system are examined in essays 5, 6, and 7, respectively. State, local, and professional roles in citizenship education are discussed in the eighth essay. The ninth essay explores how high school U.S. history and government textbooks approach federalism. The concluding essay describes resources on federalism that can be used in curriculum development at the secondary and college levels. Many of the essays are followed by topics for further study and suggested readings for teachers. (RM)

The Two Faces of American Freedom boldly reinterprets the American political tradition from the colonial period to modern times, placing issues of race relations, immigration, and presidentialism in the context of shifting notions of empire and citizenship. Today, while the U.S. enjoys tremendous military and economic power, citizens are increasingly insulated from everyday decision-making. This was not always the case. America, Aziz Rana argues, began as a settler society grounded in an ideal of freedom as the exercise of continuous self-rule—one that joined direct political participation with economic independence. However, this vision of freedom was politically bound to the subordination of marginalized groups, especially slaves, Native Americans, and women. These practices of liberty and exclusion were not separate currents, but rather two sides of the same coin. However, at crucial moments, social movements sought to imagine freedom without either subordination or empire. By the mid-twentieth century, these efforts failed, resulting in the rise of hierarchical state and corporate institutions. This new framework presented national and economic security as society’s guiding commitments and nurtured a continual extension of America’s global reach. Rana envisions a democratic society that revives settler ideals, but combines them with meaningful inclusion for those currently at the margins of American life.

Historian David Moss adapts the case study method made famous by Harvard Business School to revitalize our conversations about governance and democracy and show how the United States has often thrived on political conflict. These 19 cases ask us to weigh choices and consequences, wrestle with momentous decisions, and come to our own conclusions.

The reigning consensus holds that the combination of free markets and democracy would transform the third world and sweep away the ethnic hatred and religious zealotry associated with underdevelopment. In this revelatory investigation of the true impact of globalization, Yale Law School professor Amy Chua explains why many developing countries are in fact consumed by ethnic violence after adopting free market democracy. Chua shows how in non-Western countries around the globe, free markets have concentrated starkly disproportionate wealth in the hands of a resented ethnic minority. These “market-dominant minorities” – Chinese in Southeast Asia, Croatians in the former Yugoslavia, whites in Latin America and South Africa, Indians in East Africa, Lebanese in West Africa, Jews in post-communist Russia – become objects of violent hatred. At the same time, democracy empowers the impoverished majority, unleashing ethnic demagoguery, confiscation, and sometimes genocidal revenge. She also argues that the United States has become the world’s most visible market-dominant minority, a fact that helps explain the rising tide of anti-Americanism around the world. Chua is a friend of globalization, but she urges us to find ways to spread its benefits and curb its most destructive aspects.

Best Book Award • Mormon History Association A brilliant young historian excavates the brief life of a lost Mormon city, uncovering a “grand, underappreciated saga in American history” (Wall Street Journal). In Kingdom of Nauvoo, Benjamin E. Park draws on newly available sources to re-create the founding and destruction of the Mormon city of Nauvoo. On the banks of the Mississippi in Illinois, the early Mormons built a religious utopia, establishing their own army and writing their own constitution. For those offenses and others—including the introduction of polygamy, which was bitterly opposed by Emma Smith, the iron-willed first wife of Joseph Smith—the surrounding population violently ejected the Mormons, sending them on their flight to Utah. Throughout his absorbing chronicle, Park shows how the Mormons of Nauvoo were representative of their era, and in doing so elevates Mormon history into the American mainstream.

Intergovernmental Relations in the UK provides a timely and up-to-date analysis of a turbulent decade in British politics and presents a fascinating case study of intergovernmental relations and territorial power in a devolved unitary state. As over time a widening range of powers has been transferred from the Westminster Parliament to the devolved legislatures in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, intergovernmental relations have become increasingly important to deal with the corresponding overlaps of legislative and fiscal authority. However, leaving the European Union has exposed the weakness of the intergovernmental architecture and challenged the functionality of the UK’s multilevel polity. Until now, the question of how powerful the devolved administrations really are has not been satisfactorily answered. The author uses insights from comparative studies of federations to develop a systematic account of shared rule and intergovernmental relations. This book examines how informal institutions and practices can provide political influence beyond formal structures, with reference to an extensive range of institutions, practices, policies and political decisions. Unlike other studies focused predominantly on the state of the Union, this volume points to the interplay between conflict and cooperation, and demonstrates that the proclaimed ‘break-up of the Union’ is accompanied by efforts to integrate the different jurisdictions. This book will be of interest to scholars and postgraduate students of comparative politics, political systems, multilevel governance, regional and federal studies, British politics and public administration. It will also appeal to politicians, government advisers, civil servants and other practitioners who seek a better, more nuanced understanding of the UK’s multilevel constitution and politics, and the nature of intergovernmental relations in the UK.