Baber Tocqueville Federalism

Tocqueville analyses the success of the American system under the United States Constitution. He states: “…the real weakness of federal governments has almost always been in the exact ratio of their nominal power. Such is not the case in the American Union, in which, as in ordinary governments, the Federal power has the means of enforcing all it is empowered to demand” (Tocqueville 158). Thus, the distinct nature of the American political system arises from the ability of the central government to execute the laws it has produced – a principle of federalism. The states retain their identity yet are also subject to the regulation of the federal government; herein lies the premise behind the development of international law. Baber and Bartlett advocate for the philosophies of deliberative democracy to govern the

They state: “In the world imagined by deliberative theorists, the mechanisms and institutions of interest aggregation (voting, parties, interest groups) are to be supplemented by processes that allow for ‘genuinely thoughtful and discursive public participation in decision making’” (Baber and