Recent scholarship has examined the persistence and erosion of subnational undemocratic regimes (SURs) within nationally democratic countries. This article analyzes how "varieties of federalism" generate different levels of subnational unit autonomy (SUA), which in turn shape distinct pathways of SUR erosion. Because SURs across federations do not enjoy the same degree of autonomy, the coalitions required to weaken them vary. In high-SUA federations, SUR erosion typically demands broad coalitions spanning all three federal branches and sometimes the military. In low-SUA federations, informal partisan agreements may suffice, while medium-SUA systems tend to exhibit intermediate patterns that require moderately encompassing coalitions. Coalition dynamics are especially important in presidential federations, where coordination among federal branches might not be possible for SUR erosion. We show this argument through a comparative historical analysis of Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and the United States, demonstrating how cross-national differences in six key federal institutions generate distinct pathways of SUR erosion.
When Thomas Jefferson established a military academy at West Point, he set an important and underappreciated precedent in American federalism and national education. Despite his initial reservations about its necessity, and consequently its constitutionality under Congress's express powers to raise an army and regulate the militia, he unexpectedly carried forward the unexecuted designs of Adams, Washington, Hamilton, and others for a national educational institution. He did so only when the necessity for national defense was assured and when political circumstances rendered it sufficiently safe for states' rights. The "national defense" argument for federal education policy continued through the nineteenth-century Morrill Acts and into the mid-twentieth century, with the passage of the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) of 1958 and its revisions. The NDEA, however, would also relax the traditional bond between defense and national education, such that hardly a trace remains in contemporary debates over national education and federalism.
Abstract This introductory article argues that American federalism’s relationship to democratic backsliding is conditional, bidirectional, and mechanism-dependent. Building on recent studies, we develop a framework identifying when federalism protects democracy and when it facilitates erosion, while specifying how it does so through three mechanisms: litigation, political safeguards, and cultural supports. The empirical record from 2025 to 2026 illustrates that these mechanisms operate simultaneously, often within the same state and through the same institutions. We examine election administration, redistricting, and policy geography across several issue areas, finding that federalism both blocked acute national threats and enabled ongoing subnational erosion. The analysis reveals that protection is strongest when mechanisms reinforce each other, that state capacity variation amplifies divergence across the federation, and that executive strategies of fiscal extortion, administrative fragmentation, and personal legal jeopardy against subnational officials are testing the limits of federalism’s safeguards against democratic backsliding.
Abstract The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act were the largest combined climate legislative package in US history, built on a cooperative federalism framework that distributed hundreds of billions in federal dollars through multilevel coordination across federal, state, and local institutions. This cooperative federalism approach was central to the Biden administration’s jobs-and-justice climate agenda, and premised on voluntary state participation, private sector alignment, and shared administrative capacity. In this article, we use three case studies—IRA labor requirements, IRA fossil fuel community support programs, and the Solar for All program—to evaluate whether this agenda proved durable through design and execution to the Trump administration’s more combative federalism approach. We conclude that Biden’s jobs-and-justice cooperative federalism approach produced measurable short-term impacts but remained structurally vulnerable, lacking the durability to withstand political transition. This evidence suggests limited opportunities for cooperative federalism in the current era of US climate policymaking.
The Trump administration's ongoing effort to dismantle the US Department of Education marks the most significant federalism development in education policy in decades. Although framed as a return to local control, the restructuring relies on unilateral executive action that is fragmenting rather than devolving federal authority. Drawing on the historical evolution of federal power-from ESEA's emergence of a federal role, through the accountability politics of NCLB, to ESSA's approach to devolution-this article argues that meaningful decentralization requires institutional capacity, legal clarity, and intergovernmental coordination. The elimination of ED undermines each of these foundations. By subverting Congressional authority and simply reallocating responsibilities across multiple federal agencies while eliminating thousands of expert staff through executive authority, the administration simultaneously weakens federal oversight, increases administrative burdens on states, and accelerates partisan divergence in education policy. This case illustrates the limits of executive federalism as a tool of devolution: the federal role persists, but its institutional efficiency erodes, producing fragmentation that threatens equity, coherence, and stability of American education governance.
Abstract A distinctive feature of the second Trump administration has been its use of extortion tactics to force compliance with its political agenda. In its dealings with universities, law firms, and media outlets, a new mode of governance has emerged. By threatening to cut funds, withhold regulatory approval, or initiate civil or criminal enforcement, the government aims to pressure its targets into bilateral “deals” on the administration’s terms, and to induce others to follow suit. This article examines how this approach has shaped intergovernmental relations, producing “federalism by extortion.” Although transactional dealmaking is not new to US federalism, constitutional principles limit the federal government’s ability to coerce state and local action. In theory, these doctrines offer sub-federal governments stronger protections from extortion than private entities. Yet the administration and its congressional allies have repeatedly raised the cost of noncompliance, revealing a political economy in which federalism’s safeguards appear weaker than assumed.
Canada's constitution is often viewed as a barrier to transformational political change. In the context of Indigenous-state relations, the federal government's arbitrary jurisdictional control over "Indians and Lands reserved for Indians" under section 91(24) especially frustrates Indigenous nations' ability to realize self-determination. This frustration persists despite Aboriginal rights being formally entrenched in section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982. However, the recent Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) decision in Reference re An Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and M & eacute;tis children, youth and families (2024) may signal the Court's acceptance of new informal paths to constitutional change that could support Indigenous people's inherent right to self-government. We argue that the Court's reference decision legitimates the use of section 91(24) to respect Indigenous jurisdiction and binds the Crown to such commitments, thus promoting a treaty federalist vision of Canadian federalism backed by the honor of the Crown.
