ABSTRACT
The Concept of Federalism Federalism has evolved since the founding of the United States of America, and it has expanded to democracies across the globe. The competitive federalist system facilitated state leadership and the diffusion of innovative policies that addressed climate change and energy issues in the absence of comprehensive federal action in the United States. From Charles Tiebout’s (1956) classic work on citizens “voting with their feet” to conservative theorist James M. Buchanan’s (1995) writing on competitive federalism as the “ideal political order,” states competing-and collaborating-is a value in American political culture. Not all of the experiments in Supreme Court Justice Brandeis’s characterization of states as “laboratories of democracy” succeed. The failure of California’s electric utility restructuring, for example, provided the model of how states ought not to proceed on an energy-related issue (Harrington, Palmer & Walls 2006). Successes, however, can bring new models of innovation or new modes of implementation that enhance state policy and can impact the nation as a whole in dealing with a difficult global commons problem.
