Federalism and Diversity

Two great tastes that go great together

Source: 2020 Census Redistricting Data (Public Law 94-17 1) Summary File https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizations/2021/dec/diversity-index.jpg

I remember many years ago catching a glimpse of the Summer Olympics and seeing the US volleyball team playing China. The first image was of the US team receiving the ball and the players were what you would expect from a US team - a mix of races: white, Black, Latino, and Asian. It was a representation of talent drawn from our pluralistic society. Then the ball went over the net to the Chinese side and everyone was Chinese. Now you’re probably saying, “No kidding.” But it took me a second to process, because my mind immediately asked, “where’s the diversity?” And then it caught up with reality, and I said to myself, “Duh.” 

I’ve been working on a book chapter about health policy that I was asked to write for a colleague who is putting together a text book on the US healthcare system and I have been thinking about what makes policy making in the United States unique. I think what makes us unique is our system of government: federalism. 

Federalism refers to a system of government where there are overlapping, semi-autonomous governments, and a citizen is subject to each of them. When federalism works well, each government level checks the other to prevent it from getting too much power. This prevents a tyrant from grabbing all the levers of power. In the US, the Federal government has a scope limited by the Constitution, and all of the powers the Constitution does not explicitly give to the Federal government are supposed to remain with the states. The state of New Hampshire, for example, has policy-making powers that the Federal government does not have, and the politicians in the state government jealously guard those powers from Federal encroachment. As a citizen in the US, you are subject to Federal, state, county, and city/town governments, all of which are semi-autonomous from each other. This is not true in countries like France, the UK, or Japan, for example. These countries, and in fact most countries in the world, are unified governments, meaning that the states or territories or whatever are basically local offices of the national government, and only have the powers the national government grants them. 

Federalism makes it hard for anyone to take hold of the whole country, but it also makes policy-making hard. I joke sometimes it fits into the “why we can’t have nice things” category. But in fact, it was a choice the Founders made because if you make it easy to have nice things, you also make it easy to have awful things, depending on your point of view. What seems nice to me may be bad for your, and vice versa. So instead of letting whomever controls the government decide, we devolve that power to the local level, or to individuals.

Devolving policy power to the local level is important because unlike most other countries, the United States has always been a multicultural, pluralistic society. Even in its early years, the United States was geographically and demographically diverse. Today the United States is the third largest country in the world by population (339M) distributed over the third largest geographic area (9,833,517 sq km). Many smaller countries have much more homogenous populations where policy making is easier because of the smaller population, limited geography, and racial homogeneity. I found the graphic above when I went looking for measures of racial diversity. It really drives home how diverse our country really is. 

I then went looking for measures of diversity at the international level and found a number of references back to a 2003 study that scored countries on their ethnic diversity. The study showed France as having an ethnic diversity score of 10.3%, the United Kingdom at 12.1%, even China had a diversity score of only 15.3%, while the US stood at 49.0% (Alesina, et. Al., 2003). Some of this has changed, particularly in Europe, over the last 20 years, but I suspect the move is a few percentage points, not a doubling or tripling. A number of studies have shown that high levels of fractionalization, meaning high levels of ethnic, linguistic, religious, and cultural diversity in a society tend to lead to low-trust and high levels of violence and low levels of growth. 

We all know the US is a long way from perfect in terms of racial integration, but I think what is interesting is to ask, given our relatively high level of diversity on all fronts, not why do we have some violence, but why don’t we have more? 

A part of the answer at least is federalism. Federalism allows for local governance. By allowing states to retain broad policy powers, the Constitution empowers them to adjust to their own population’s needs, while trying to attract new citizens and businesses from other states. Although policy made at the state and local levels adds to the fragmentation of the overall system, the political fragmentation of the United States allows governance to be closer to the citizens, where the people making policy, at least at the state and local levels, have a greater understanding of the needs of their citizens. As a result of its high level of diversity, the US population has diverse needs that arise from differences in geography, population density (rural vs. urban), and culture. Policies that work well in urban areas may not work well in rural areas, and vice versa, and policies that appeal to one racial or ethnic group may be offensive to other racial or ethnic groups. One-size-fits-all policy made at the national level is unlikely to meet the diverse needs of such a society. 

Some researchers I read suggest that federalism has been eroded since the New Deal era began giving the Federal government more policy authority, encroaching on the states. In an early draft of the chapter I mentioned I am writing, I wrote that the states have primary policy authority over all things economic that happen within the borders of the state, including healthcare. My coauthor, who is a hospital CEO, commented that most of the regulations he has to deal with are from the Federal government (specifically the Center for Medicare and Medicaid, “CMS”). He’s right, of course, and that is evidence of the erosion of federalism. Many of us follow national politics like a professional sports league with two teams, and know very little about politics at the state or local levels, where arguably more policies are made that affect each of us on a daily basis and should draw more of our attention. More and more, we expect the Federal government to pass laws that will fix local problems. But look at the map again. What works in Texas may not work in New Hampshire and vice versa. Having lived in both places, I can tell you they are very different. And just because New Hampshire is mostly populated by people who belong to the artificial category “white” now (they didn’t all belong to that category not all that long ago, but that’s another story) does not mean there is not a high level of diversity here. It just doesn’t come in skin tone as much. Race is just one measure of diversity. 

What works to keep the US from engaging in more violence is more freedom and respect for difference, as embodied in a federalist form of government. The erosion of that respect, especially by centralization of power, makes grabbing the levers of power at the highest levels a more desperate thing. I think this helps explain why our national elections are becoming so contentious. It feels like if your team doesn’t win the presidency and control Congress, your needs won’t be met. That wasn’t how the US system of government was envisioned in the Constitution. It shouldn’t matter that much to the typical citizen who happens to be in the White House at any given time. It should matter more who is on our local town council or mayor.

All that said, the US is a remarkable success story. Despite everything, as a country we have accomplished something few other nations have been able to accomplish in the history of humanity: a highly diverse population spread across a vastly varied geography, with different races, ethnicities, religions, and other differences living together and flourishing without large-scale violence. It’s not perfect. But it’s pretty remarkable and worth celebrating. And worthy of preserving.