Intergovernmental Political Competition in American Federalism

Abstract

Many policies in the United States are jointly determined by federal and state actions. In the game theoretic model offered here, politicians in both the state and national governments seek credit for providing goods desired by the public and avoid blame for the taxes necessary to provide the goods. In line with Peterson's (1995) theory of functional federalism, the level of government that is better able to supply particular goods and services tends to take the lead in their provision, even to the extent of fully crowding out much less efficient governments. However, under a broad set of circumstances, both state and national politicians seek credit via public spending, and their joint provision leads to a relative "oversupply" of public goods and services, and thus to "overtaxation." Under joint provision, states vary in their responses to changing federal spending patterns based both on the causes of the national changes and on state characteristics.

Intergovernmental climate change mitigation policies: theory and outcomes

“…Dozens of bills requiring a minimum level of renewable electricity sales have failed over the last several decades because of alliances between powerful regional utilities and their congressional allies who have argued that this policy would raise costs due to a lack of renewable energy supplies (ESs) (Snyder 2007). State heterogeneity also predicts federal-state conflict in formal models in the assignment of authority at the policy design phase (Volden 2005). Furthermore, our claim that the likelihood of policy enactment is correlated with political conflict is consistent with other political theories, including legislative incentives such as credit claiming and blame avoidance (Weaver 1986).…”

“…The above discussion on federal mandates and preemption describes conflict or political competition for power between vertical levels of government during the policy design phase (Breton 1998;Volden 2005). Our main hypothesis is that the likelihood of successful enactment of public policies decreases with increased intergovernmental conflict, ceteris paribus.…”

Second-Order Arguments for Second-Order Elections? Measuring “Election Stakes” in a Multilevel Context: The Case of Norway

“…In multilevel democracy the lines of responsibility will be more or less intertwined, and various levels of authority may even be competing. This situation places considerable burdens on the electorate (Anderson, 2006;Volden, 2005). Voters are supposed to know which elements of their political preferences are relevant to focus on in elections to each specific level of representation.…”

“…Not only are relationships of influence and responsibilities often diluted, various levels of government may also pursue competing goals or engage in blame shifting, thereby further blurring lines of responsibility (Anderson, 2006). To use a phrase from the literature on American federalism: "These systems are not layer cakes; they are more like marble cakes" (M. Grodzins quoted in Volden, 2005). Since the distinction between national and subnational arena issues is not concurrent with distinctions of policy areas, issues cannot be separated according to arenas by merely subsuming issues under categories of policy areas.…”

Transnational Legitimacy in a Globalising World: How the European Union Rescues its States

“…The EU supplements its member states: legitimacy is not an 'either/or' calculation. This acquires more importance in light of the peculiar form of the 'credit-assignment' problem -familiar to students of all multi-level political systems (Bednar 2006;Volden 2005) -that operates within the Union. Not only do politicians in member states tend to blame the Union for policy failures (Economist 2005), but they often take credit for its achievements, thereby reinforcing their own claims to functional legitimacy.…”