Federalism is a structure of government that divides power between a central governing authority and other integral political units such as provinces or states. This government system was developed after the Articles of Confederation received harsh criticisms because of the lack of power granted to the federal government. According to this model of government neither level of government, state or federal, can interfere with the affairs that are not within their division of responsibility. Dual federalism is an accurate depiction of the early stages of the American governmental system. The Supreme Court dedicated a great deal of energy to create boundaries between the national and state governments’ responsibilities. This clear division in responsibilities led to the national government handling national functions and state governments handling state functions, cooperation between national and state governments was not common during this era. The boundaries that were between the national and state functions made it difficult for either level to address a problem that ends up on the boundary. Dual federalism also disregards the prospect that collaboration between the national and state government could be an effective tool that benefits both …show more content…
During this time there was a dramatic shift towards the creation of a strong national government, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal was the first step towards increasing the power of the national government. This new government system became known as cooperative federalism, this government system emphasized the benefits of cooperation among different levels of government because joint efforts could produce results that are beneficial to all levels. No level of government is likely to have more good ideas than another, cooperative federalism allows the best ideas to be discovered regardless of what level of government the idea came