Dual and Cooperative Federalism - Essay Example

Federalism Federalism refers to a governmental system whereby the ity is split in to two sovereignlevels of the government; State and National. The idea of federalism was brought forth to provide solutions to the problems that arose due to the multiple States in nations. For instance, the government of United States of America shares its power with a number of local governments or States. Ohio is among the States that share its power with the federal government; laws such as those that govern collection of taxes are shared.

Dual Federalism refers to a political arrangement whereby power is shared between the state and national governments in well clarified terms. The local or State governments exercise these powers without any interference from the federal or national governments. On the other hand, cooperative federalism refers to a political arrangement whereby the local, state and national governments interact in a cooperative and collective manner so as to solve the most common problems. In cooperative federalism, policies are separately made in a system which is dominated by national government.

Thus, dual federalism and cooperative federalism can be compared and contrasted in a number of ways: To start with, in dual federalism, the federal and State levels of governance are place in separate spheres; they do not work together in resolving issues. The two governments should be coequal but the State’s limitations are outline in the constitution. On the other hand, in cooperative federalism, the federal and state governments work together under similar laws and regulations in order to achieve or solve particular issues.

In addition, cooperative federalism apply the laws in the constitution of the federal government. The founders of federalism hoped to create a government system that is similar to a unitary system. However, the states were included in the system since they already had established government systems that were functional. Thus, the founders of the federalism granted the national government powers and reserve the remaining powers to the local or state governments. Moreover, these expressed powers given to the national government provide an avenue for expansion of the implied powers.

Federalism further involves complex relationships among a number of states. For instance, in the United States of America, the constitution of United States of America requires the states to honor all the public acts and the decisions being made by the judiciary of other states. Moreover, federalism involves a number of limitations on the state authority, especially involving the relationships between the state governments. The local governments are not recognized in the federal constitution thus they are used by the states to perform or rather conduct normal activities of the government.

Thus, federalism still remains the best governance system in United States of America. This is one of the US achievements as it transferred or rather created an effective constitution structure of the political institution. Hence, federalism and the entire separation of power in the national and state governments relieve other law enacting bodies off the burden of law implementation. In addition, federalism regulates or rather limits the United States of America national government by creating two distinct powers thereby hindering the influence of local and national government powers.

All these give the internal government different role or functions thus forcing them to share the available powers.