Madison on Federalism as Responsive Regulation

By Arthur Stinchcombe, Sociology, Northwestern University

In his famous Number 10 paper in the [American] Federalist Papers, Madison explicitly argues that local governments of provinces (“States”in the US) are supposed to be responsive to, and to balance, local interests and local belief systems, while the central (“Federal” in the US) government is to regulate them in military, foreign policy, and commercial matters, and some matters having to do with “sovereignty.”

This presentation draws from Madison (and some from Hamilton) their suggested features of such regulation and responsiveness, and suggests a translation of these to a form fitting the problems the Braithwaites and their colleagues are trying to improve, and many more as we see in the materials of this conference. It suggests further exploration of: (1) Representation in the regulator; of the various interests and civil society organizations  from the sites regulated; (2) Public debate within the sites as well as in the regulator  resulting in a balance of interests and ideologies; (3) Circulation of authoritative information from varieties of sources, constituting publicly debatable right to petition their government for the redress of grievances; (4)Effective formalization in a system so that everybody knows what everybody is finally responsible for doing, without destroying the integrity of the regulation discourse, which in turn means the ability to formalize changes in the regulation. He would also urge, though will not defend it here, that “Federalism” itself should usually be studied as a system of regulation of activities, rather than as an arrangement of Court decisions and opinions on constitutional jurisdiction.