Federalism is often described as a safeguard against concentrated power in the United States. A new analysis argues that its effect on democracy is more conditional: the same division of authority between national and state governments can either constrain democratic backsliding or help spread it.
The paper, published in the journal Publius, is titled “The State of American Federalism 2025–2026: Federalism’s Dual Role in Democratic Backsliding.” Its authors are Michael Dichio, an associate professor of political science at the University of Utah, and Rebecca Bromley-Trujillo of Christopher Newport University. Their central argument is that federalism is not inherently democratic or anti-democratic. Its role depends on where threats originate, who controls state institutions and whether alternative centers of institutional power remain independent.
The analysis arrives as the United States approaches the 2026 midterm elections. In discussing the contemporary landscape, the University of Utah article points to disputes over state voter-roll data, mail-in voting, pressure on Georgia officials after the 2020 election, and partisan congressional redistricting as examples of the stresses surrounding democratic institutions.
How a federal system can provide resistance
Federalism distributes governmental authority. States retain substantial responsibilities, including important roles in election administration, courts and public policy, while the national government has its own distinct powers. That structure can make it harder for a national political leader or coalition to impose a single approach everywhere at once.
Dichio and Bromley-Trujillo identify a set of conditions under which federalism can protect democracy. First, the threat to democratic institutions must originate from national leaders. Second, opposition parties or independent factions must control enough subnational jurisdictions to act as meaningful counterweights. Third, those states or jurisdictions must retain robust authority over elections, courts and coercive capacity.
In that configuration, state-level institutions can become sites of resistance. They can preserve independent procedures, enforce existing rules or offer alternative venues for political opposition. The key is not merely that states exist, but that enough of them are governed independently of the national coalition and still possess the authority to act.
This is a more demanding claim than the simple proposition that decentralization is always good for democracy. Decentralization can create multiple power centers, but multiple power centers only serve as checks if they are genuinely capable of disagreeing and operating independently.
When the same structure can accelerate backsliding
The authors also describe the conditions under which federalism can facilitate democratic erosion. This can happen when national party coalitions with anti-democratic incentives capture state governments, when nationalized party networks coordinate such policies across states, and when alternative institutional venues within those states are absent, weakened or also captured.
Under those circumstances, state autonomy does not necessarily offer a brake on national political pressure. It can instead supply many venues for similar policies to be adopted and reinforced. Coordination across state governments can amplify rather than dilute a national political strategy.
The paper’s framework places special weight on institutions that may provide internal checks within a state. Elected judges, direct-democracy mechanisms and other independent venues can matter because they may disrupt a unified political coalition. If those institutions are absent or weakened, a state government controlled by a single coalition may face fewer constraints.
This dual role explains why arguments about federalism can sometimes sound contradictory while both containing an element of truth. One observer may see state authority as a shield against national overreach. Another may see it as a route for democratic norms to be weakened in multiple jurisdictions. The authors’ answer is that neither outcome is guaranteed; institutional independence and political alignment determine which effect dominates.
Why the analysis matters beyond elections
Election administration is the clearest area in which federalism’s consequences are visible, because states play a direct role in setting and carrying out many election rules. But the study’s logic extends beyond voting. Courts, law enforcement, public administration and other institutions can all become sites where national and state power interact.
For citizens, the framework offers a way to move beyond abstract labels. The important questions are practical. Are state-level institutions controlled by actors who can act independently? Do they retain the legal and administrative capacity to do so? Are there credible alternative venues when a governing coalition seeks to change rules in its favor? And are political networks coordinating policy across jurisdictional boundaries?
Those questions also make clear that democratic resilience cannot be measured solely by the formal text of a constitution. Formal authority matters, but so do the party structures, institutional practices and political incentives that determine how authority is used. A federal system may have strong legal protections on paper while becoming less protective if its component governments and oversight bodies move in lockstep.
A conditional safeguard
The study does not portray federalism as a simple cure for democratic backsliding. Rather, it treats the system as a set of institutional opportunities that can be used in different ways. Where national threats meet durable state-level opposition and independent institutions, federalism can provide friction against democratic decline. Where the same coalition captures governments at several levels and weakens internal checks, federalism can help normalize and distribute anti-democratic policies.
That conclusion is particularly relevant as political conflict increasingly crosses state boundaries through national parties, shared legal strategies and coordinated campaigns. State governments remain powerful, but they do not operate in isolation. Their value as democratic counterweights depends on whether they preserve meaningful institutional and political independence.
For the 2026 election cycle, the authors’ framework points toward a basic lesson: federalism’s democratic role should be assessed by its real distribution of power, not by its design alone. The system can be a two-way street—one that either blocks pressure on democratic institutions or helps carry it further.
This article is based on reporting by Phys.org. Read the original article.
Originally published on phys.org
