What is Federalism?

Federalism is a widely recognized feature of American government. Federalism is a constitutional division of governmental power between a central or national government and regional governmental units (such as states). Each having some independent authority over its citizens.

The federal system consists of a national government and state governments existing independently of each other in the same territory while commanding the loyalties of the same individuals as citizens of both state and nation. Under the Constitution, the powers of all governments are drawn from the same fundamental source—the sovereign people—and are exercised concurrently. States, in turn, are composed of numerous subjurisdictions, such as cities, counties, municipalities, townships, and special districts, which are dependent entities chartered by the state.

The original rationale for establishing a federal system in the United States was to prevent the concentration and misuse of power by a strong national government. The states were viewed as protectors of individual liberties against the national government—and many are again coming to view the states in that light. The nature and operation of federalism have been the subject of controversy since the founding of the Republic.

Intergovernmental relations (IGR) are all the activities and interactions occurring among governmental units of all types within the U.S. federal system. There are two important points to understand about the key terms in this discussion, namely, federal and federalism. First, federal technically describes the formal relationships among different levels of government and various qualities of those relationships. In a more colloquial sense, however, many people refer to the national government as “the federal government.”

Second, federalism has been used to refer to one variety of federal practice, with the main emphasis on states and state authority (by implication, at the expense of national government authority). When we use the term federalism, we will be referring to the fundamental distributions of power between national and state governments.