ABSTRACT
According to the conventional wisdom, the American “state” is small, weak, and decentralized. The U.S. is the welfare state laggard that has never quite caught up with its older siblings in western Europe. Americans stubbornly remain more market-oriented and more tax-averse than citizens of other advanced industrial democracies. Some attribute this to American political culture, most importantly its devotion to individualism, its distrust of government authority, and its commitment to equality of opportunity rather than equality of results. Others emphasize our fragmented political institutions, especially our distinctive combination of federalism, separation of powers, and bicameralism. The extent to which American institutions and political culture reinforce each other makes it difficult to decide which of these two features is more important for explaining our predicament: our constitutional structure was designed to limit the authority of the central government, and our political culture provides no sustained impetus for major policy or constitutional change. Moreover, the conflict and inefficiencies created by our system of “separated institutions sharing power” no doubt increases distrust of government. As a result, those who favor a more assertive, European-style state usually call for both institutional reform—moving toward some form of parliamentary government and strengthening the authority of the national government over the states—and a new “public philosophy,” one more suitable for our “collectivist age.” Those who do not favor such changes, in contrast, celebrate “American exceptionalism” as a source of economic dynamism and a protector of our liberties.
