Federalism and Regionalism

• Pages: 137-178

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 

Federalism and Regionalism

Introduction

e similarities and dierences between Canada and the United

States extend to the manner in which they both adopted federal

systems of government, which are now two of the oldest such sys-

tems in the world. e Americans innovated modern federalism;

the Canadians copied it — sort of. Federalism is a system of two or

more levels of government. It exists to square the circle of divers-

ity and unity in societies that are divided regionally, linguistically,

culturally, economically, or in other ways. In federal systems there

is one national government for the entire country plus any number

of sub-national governments. In Canada, there is a national gov-

ernment, ten provinces, and three territories. In the United States,

there is a national government, f‌ifty states, f‌ive territories, and the

District of Columbia. In this chapter, we will look f‌irst at the impact

of regionalism on Canada and the United States, and then link that

factor to the quite similar but also dierent systems of federalism

in both countries.

THE SAME, ONLY DIFFERENT

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A. The Origins of American Federalism

and the Canadian Adaptation

Both Canada and the United States exhibit a propensity to base

voting and policy-making on the factor of regionalism. Regional

political dierences within Canada and within the United States

explain a lot about the development of dierent political values,

policy solutions, and election outcomes in both countries.

1) American Regionalism

Building on the work of Daniel Elazar on the United States, some

political historians have looked at the development of regional

political cultures based on original European colonial settlement

patterns. ey have identif‌ied four broad political cultures based

on the region of colonial European s ettlement, the original Euro-

pean settlers, how each community organized itself, and the view of

government held by the settlers. Beginning in the seventeenth and

eighteenth centuries, these groups arguably laid the basis for mod-

ern American society. ese four political cultures are the moralists,

the individualists, the traditionalists, and the populists.

Moralists landed mainly in New England. ey originally repre-

sented Puritan small-town culture, holding a view that governments

should play a role improving the local community as well as society

as a whole. ey believed in the good of the commonwealth as repre-

sented by the power of government to advance the public interest.

Citizens run for public oce with the belief that government and

bureaucracy is a force for good and that issues matter. A strong ethos

of public service coupled with an aversion to corruption in politics

are signif‌icant aspects of this way of thinking. ese views were later

reinforced by large numbers of Scandinavian immigrants and spread

across the upper Great Lakes into the Midwest and the Northwest.

Individualists landed mainly in the mid-Atlantic states and

included Dutch and Quakers engaged in commercial merchant

activities. ey were in some ways the opposite of the moralists.

Federalism and Regionalism

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ey represent big city culture, and see government as a tool to

promote individual interests. Many Catholic immigrants who saw

politics as a way to improve their status in society joined them.

Individualists expressed faith in the free market and saw govern-

ment’s role as ensuring the functioning of the market. Bureaucracy

is regarded negatively to the extent that it interferes with patronage,

which is in turn ref‌lected in the politicians’ aspirations for material

gain that is at the base of their motivations for running for oce.

e individualists and their political culture eventually migrated to

the central Midwest and western states.

Traditionalists landed in the South, and were typically the second

or third sons of British aristocrats who emigrated because they

would not inherit the family estate back in Britain (which went to

the eldest son). ey created a rural, agricultural-based plantation

culture. Given their aristocratic background, they saw the role of

government as preserving the traditional social order. Politicians

sought oce with an attitude of noblesse oblige; with great wealth

comes the responsibility to give back to those who are less fortun-

ate. Politics was regarded as an exclusive competition between rival

factions which were often family-based. Bureaucracy is seen with

suspicion as it interferes with the personal relationships at the heart

of an elitist and closed governing circle. Compared to other areas,

the Traditionalist areas got few new immigrants in the s and

early s, although their descendants moved westward through

the southern and southwestern states.

Populists landed in the colonial West region near the Appala-

chian Mountains, and were typically of Scottish-Irish background.

ey included the settlers constantly pushing westward across the

Ohio Valley into Indian territory during and after the Seven Years’

War (–). ey had an extended family culture, and often

resisted government authority. ey saw it as limiting their oppor-

tunities and infringing on their freedoms. e Populists moved

westward, often into other hilly or mountainous areas, and were

joined by many German political and religious dissidents who also

tended to distrust government.