Table Of Content‘Strangely, American federalism has been largely absent from American
political development scholarship. Jared Sonnicksen’s insightful, stimulating,
and ambitious book represents a significant contribution to filling this gap.
Building on the concept of immanent fragmentation as an institutional reality
and regulative idea, this innovative account of American federal democracy
“in” and “through” time has a lot to offer, for students of American politics
and comparative federalism alike.’
Jörg Broschek, Associate Professor and Canada Research
Chair in Comparative Federalism and Multilevel Governance,
Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada
TENSIONS OF AMERICAN FEDERAL
DEMOCRACY
Tensions of American Federal Democracy uses an original analytical framework
combined with comparative perspectives – including those of other modern federal
democracies – to explore the jigsaw puzzle that is the state of American federal
democracy.
The USA has a complex political system prone to “divided government”, which
has become highly polarized in recent years. The reasons for this extend further
and deeper than party diversification or rising populism. This book provides an
original contribution encompassing the US polity and its overall development. The
author explores how the US constitution has predisposed branches and levels of
government to multiple forms of separation of power and constituency; and how
developments in democratic and federal government over time have fostered more
competition, diffusion, and decoupling, despite earlier trends to more cross-branch
and cross-level cooperation. The book thus addresses a multifaceted inquiry, interro-
gating and conceptualizing the connections between institutions, ideas, and political
development, while exploring the interlinkage between the institutional param-
eters of multidimensional division of powers, constitutional political ideas and their
contestation, and the limitation of the state in the US federal democratic system.
This book will appeal to students and scholars of political science, American
government and constitutional politics, federalism, comparative politics, and political
theory.
Jared Sonnicksen is a senior researcher in the Institute for Political Science at the
Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany.
Federalism Studies
Series Editor: Soren Dosenrode
The end of the Cold War profoundly altered the dynamics between and within the
various states in Europe and the rest of the World, resulting in a resurgence of inter-
est in the concept of federalism. This shift in balance has been further fuelled by the
increase in the number of conflicts arising from the disaffection of the diverse ethnic
or religious minorities residing within these states (e.g. Sudan, Iraq). Globalization is
forcing governments not only to work together, but also to reconsider their inter-
nal roles as guarantors of economic growth, with regions playing the major part.
Federalism Studies offers academics a complete and in-depth understanding of fed-
eralism and intergovernmental relations in historical, theoretical and comparative
contexts. Intended to be international and interdisciplinary in scope, the books in
the series are designed to build a common framework for the constructive analysis
of federalism. Contributions are welcome on topics which explore federalism as a
theory; as a political system and as a form of conflict management.
Federalism, Secession and International Recognition Regime
Iraqi Kurdistan
Alex Danilovich
Comparative Paradiplomacy
Jorge A. Schiavon
Tensions of American Federal Democracy
Fragmentation of the State
Jared Sonnicksen
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/
Federalism-Studies/book-series/FEDSTUD
TENSIONS OF
AMERICAN FEDERAL
DEMOCRACY
Fragmentation of the State
Jared Sonnicksen
Cover image: © Getty Images
First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 Jared Sonnicksen
The right of Jared Sonnicksen to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent
to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Sonnicksen, Jared, 1978- author.
Title: Tensions of American federal democracy : fragmentation of the state
/ Jared Sonnicksen.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. | Series:
Federalism studies | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021039806 (print) | LCCN 2021039807 (ebook) | ISBN
9781032067452 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032067445 (paperback) | ISBN
9781003203674 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Federal government--United States. | Divided
government--United States. | Democracy--United States.
Classification: LCC JK325 .S68 2022 (print) | LCC JK325 (ebook) | DDC
320.473--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021039806
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021039807
ISBN: 978-1-032-06745-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-06744-5 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-20367-4 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003203674
Typeset in Bembo
by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)
To Michaela, Julius, and Samuel
CONTENTS
List of figures x
Acknowledgments xi
Prologue xiii
1 Introduction: exploring the limited state 1
2 Towards an analytical framework 24
3 Constitutional immanence in the USA 62
4 The state of American federal democracy 104
5 Democratic divided government 141
6 Multilevel divided government 169
7 Politics of the Constitution 205
8 Conclusion: the decoupled polity 242
Epilogue 253
Index 256
