In both the United States and Germany constitutional lawyers, politicians, and the attentive public speak of “dual federalism.” In the United States this means that the federal government and the states have separate political and administrative responsibilities and their own sources of revenues. In Germany, in contrast, dual federalism means that the federal government, i.e., the executive and legislative branches, are responsible for most legislation, and that the Länder (states; singular, Land) generally administer the laws (in large part through their local governments) on their own responsibility. In both federal systems “dual federalism” has been undermined if not replaced by “cooperative federalism,” generally associated with the New Deal era in the United States and the Finance Reform of 1969 in Germany. In the meantime “intergovernmental relations” has more or less replaced the concept of “cooperative federalism” in the United States, while Politikverflechtung (political/policy interconnection and coordination) is perhaps the more commonly used term in Germany today. In both cases the new terms reflect an interrelationship among federal, regional, and local levels that goes beyond mere cooperation.
Federal Dynamics in Canada, the United States, and Switzerland: How Substates' Internal Organization Affects Intergovernmental Relations
