Punitive federalism is characterized by the federal government’s use of threats and punishment to suppress state and local actions that run contrary to its policy preferences. Building on this perspective, and informed by increasing polarization, we highlight how coercive federalism is being exercised punitively. Conceptually, coercive federalism describes federal efforts to bend subnational governments to its will through financial withholdings and regulatory initiatives ( Posner 2007, 391–392). Over time, however, the image of benign intergovernmental cooperation partially gave way to coercive federalism ( Kincaid 1990). In particular, subnational governments received financial inducements in exchange for assisting with federal policy implementation ( Maciag 2017 Stauffer, Pontari, and Samms 2018 Stebbins 2019). transitioned from dual to cooperative federalism ( Corwin 1950 Weiser 2001 Zimmerman 2001), state and federal governments increasingly shared policy implementation responsibilities. Building on this background, we discuss the importance of polarization for understanding recent federalism developments. More broadly, polarized federalism has taken its place among entrenched concepts such as coercive, cooperative, and dual federalism ( Conlan 2017 Grumbach 2018 Kincaid 2017).
Reflecting this prominence, Annual Review of American Federalism overview articles regularly emphasize polarization ( Goelzhauser and Konisky 2019 Krane 2004 Pickerill and Bowling 2014). As such, the concept is regularly invoked to illuminate the study of federalism ( Jensen 2017 Nolette 2017 Volden 2017). Polarization is, of course, a defining feature of contemporary American politics ( Abramowitz 2010 McCarty 2019 Theriault 2008). The state of American federalism is characterized by polarization and punitiveness.
0 kommentar(er)
