ABSTRACT
For many years, students of American federalism have struggled to develop parsimonious explanations for the joint activities of local, state, and national governments. Hierarchy, however much it may appeal to the desires for rationality and effective government action, does not describe, and cannot prescribe, the politics of federalism in the United States. Like the fiscal federalism model, the public choice framework assumes the superiority of markets as mechanisms for producing and distributing benefits, justifying government intervention only in cases of market failure. This chapter documents the assertions by reviewing several important conceptual models of American federalism now in use. These models reflect the legal and cultural context within which the political issue of federalism is debated. The chapter suggests that they reflect considerable improvement in the ability to move beyond confusion to an appreciation of intergovernmental political behavior.
