At the center of federalism is Martha Derthick's question, ‘How many communities are we to be—one or many?' (Derthick 1999; Livingston 1952).
Federal systems obviously answer ‘many'; yet they have often adopted, or tacitly accepted, philosophies from the modern, positivistic state that favour ‘one'. This creates difficult incongruencies and paradoxes for federalism that lead some scholars and policy makers to oppose federalism or to see federalism as a waystation towards a more enlightened national union.
New scientific findings, however, challenge the assumptions and philosophies of the modern, positivistic state to such an extent that, as one researcher put it, ‘we have to completely rethink and rebuild the social sciences' (Cochran 2018; Pinker 2002). This suggests the possibility of rethinking the state in ways that place less emphasis on sovereignty and top-down control, and favour a socially embedded version of self-government and freedom more consistent with federalism.[2]
The difference between these two different understandings can be appreciated by examining federalism using William Riker's (1964) classic book, Federalism: Origin, Operation, Significance, which exemplifies the standard, scientific model and positivistic state, against the new theories of human nature, and a bottom-up, complex adaptive-systems model.
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