Federalism promotes democratic participation

The argument

Proponents of this position argue that federalism changes the relationship between a voter and the state, and that participation follows from that change. People are more likely to engage with politics under a federalist system because they are less likely to feel alienated: people's confidence that their political system works is raised by the ability to see grassroots democracy in action. The diagnosis behind the claim is about distance. Disengagement with politics is often fuelled by the belief that an out of touch central government somewhere is controlling everyday life — a belief that is hard to dispel when the decisions that matter are taken far away and their effects arrive with no visible connection to any vote. Federalism attacks that perception at its source, because voters in regional elections can see the effects of their vote on the community. Where the distance between the ballot and the outcome is short enough to observe, voting stops being an act of faith. Voters are also far more likely to see their views and values reflected in local laws, since laws made close to a community can vary with it rather than being written to one national average. The structural half of the argument reinforces the psychological one. Under federalism there are likely to be more local elections and more politicians from the local community interacting with the electorate. More organs of state are given power on a local basis, which means it is easier for people to get involved with politics in their own community — as candidates, as members of local bodies, or simply as voters with more contests in which to cast a vote. Federalism therefore allows for more meaningful voter participation. People's votes are more likely to be heard, which decreases voter alienation, and there are more bodies of government for people to get involved with on a local level.

Premises

Counter-arguments

In the US in particular there is not much evidence people are engaged in their local community or know anything about local politics. In many countries the turnout for local elections is far lower than the turnout for national elections. In the US turnout in local elections have been consistently low in comparison with national elections. Local government is just as likely to be taken over by wealthy and out of touch elites as the central government is. Small communities often contain a large number of voters who hold extremist views and who put pressure on local government. As a result, local government often endorses strange, extreme, and unhelpful laws which increases voter frustration with democracy. More local government does not necessarily create more democratic engagement. Local government is just as likely to be out of touch, elitist, or held to ransom by extremism as the national government. Local elections typically have low voter turnout.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Alienation is asserted as the mechanism and participation as the result, with neither measured. The counter supplies the relevant evidence and it runs the other way: turnout at local and regional elections is consistently lower than at national ones across most democracies, federal ones included, and public knowledge of local politics is typically lower too. [Rejecting P2] More elected bodies is not the same as more participation. It can equally mean more contests that attract little attention, in which small, organised or well-funded interests carry disproportionate weight, and the premise assumes that proximity produces responsiveness when local government can be captured as readily as central government and usually faces less scrutiny from press and opposition. A stronger version of this position would argue for federalism from the fit between policy and local preference, or from the value of allowing jurisdictions to experiment, rather than from a participation effect the evidence does not show.