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Publius: The Journal of Federalism Advance Access published online on January 24, 2008
Publius: The Journal of Federalism, doi:10.1093/publius/pjn002
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of CSF Associates: Publius, Inc. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

National Election Cycles and the Intermittent Political Safeguards of Federalism

Sean Nicholson-Crotty*
*University of Missouri; E-mail: nicholsoncrottys{at}missouri.edu

Scholars have challenged the notion of "political safeguards of federalism" in a large and well-developed body of work on the use of coercive policy tools by the federal government. This study suggests, however, that there may be some utility in re-examining the political factors that help to constrain the growth of national power. Specifically, it argues that the need to win votes from subnational constituencies makes national lawmakers less supportive of mandates, preemptions, and tax sanctions during election cycles and, thus, provides an intermittent safeguard of state authority. It tests and finds evidence for hypotheses related to that general argument in analyses of the passage of coercive federalist policies over the last thirty years.


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