Authors: Lipset
Summary: This long entry of about 3800 words defines federalism, discusses its fundamental principles and historical roots, analyzes modern federalism, and concludes by briefly considering successful federal systems.
The entry defines federalism as an associational and aorganizational form uniting distinct, mostly autonomous political entities under a comprehensive governmental system. Federalism is a system of constitutionalized power sharing that combines self-rule and shared rule. Today, federalism is one of the most popular and widely employed forms of government, and the entry introduces a number of different variants with corresponding examples.
Six fundamental principles underlie federal systems. These are noncentralization, democracy, checks and balances, open bargaining, constitutionalism, and fixed units. The entry discusses each of these principles individually, and then explores federalism's historical origins. The first recorded federal system goes back 3200 years to the ancient Israelite tribes, and the ancient Greeks and Romans had their own variants as well. The entry follows federalism's development through medieval Europe into the seventeenth century.
The modern federal prototype is the American colonies, particularly New England. Modern federalism works in an ambiguous or even seemingly paradoxical way--the essence of the federal principle is the contemporaneous perpetuation of union and noncentralization. Non only is federalalism a structural arrangement, it is also a particular approach to sociopolitical behavior and participation. The entry details this analysis in three parts, focusing separately on maintaining union, maintaining noncentralization, and maintaining the federal principle. Many examples are used to demonstrate propositions. The most successful federal systems operate in reasonably homogeneous political environments conducive to popular government, cooperation and self-restraint.