Epilogue

When it comes to the who-decides questions at the local level, the states have been versatile over time, developing more and more democratic answers. At the national level, the country remains largely fixed in an eighteenth-century republican form of government, one that remains non-democratic in many ways. Are there ways in which these two different approaches to government can complement each other? The conviction of this book is that American constitutional structure cannot be understood without appreciating how the national and state governments handle it. The hope is that a greater appreciation of American federalism offers ways to improve the functioning of each side. The epilogue addresses the gap between the increasingly democratic state governments and non-democratic federal government, the role of the state and federal courts in addressing change, and the structural values of federalism and localism in creating stable and lasting change.

“We the People of Israel”: Covenant, Constitution, and the Supposed Biblical Origins of Modern Democratic Political Thought

As an originally political term, study of the concept of “covenant” has long demonstrated the intersection of biblical studies and political theory. In recent decades, the association between covenant and constitution has come to the forefront of modern political thought in attempts to find the origins of certain democratic ideals in the descriptions of biblical Israel, in order to garner either religious or cultural authority. This is exemplified in the claims of Daniel J. Elazar that the first conceptual seeds of American federalism are found in the covenants of the Hebrew Bible. Taking Elazar’s work as a starting and end point, this paper applies contemporary biblical scholarship to his definition of biblical covenant in order to reveal the influences of his own American political environment and that of the interpreters he is dependent upon. The notion that biblical covenant or its interpretation remains a monolithic or static concept is overturned by a survey of the diverse receptions of covenant in the history of biblical scholarship from the late 19th to the late 20th centuries, contrasting American and German interpretive trends. As such, I aim to highlight the reciprocal relationship between religion and politics, and the academic study of both, in order to challenge the claim that modern political thought can be traced back to biblical conceptions.

Democracy in America?

It is officially known that democracy in the United States of America became the main idea more than two hundred years old. For a long time, it was considered the most progressive and standard for the whole world. But now people are increasingly asking questions about whether there really is a democracy in America. Is United States is really a democratic state? This article examines various aspects of the democratic structure of the state, including theoretical, historical and legal, as well as the current political situation in the United States. Based on the analysis of the US electoral legislation and the work of the American electoral system, it is concluded that, on the one hand, the citizens of the country are not guaranteed the exercise of their active and passive electoral rights. And on the other hand, key laws and political decisions are made without relying on the opinion of the citizens of the country, which does not allow us to classify such a way of governing the country as unambiguously democratic. The presidential election-2020, with its numerous violations and mass riots, was particularly criticized. To a large extent, this situation in the American electoral system is explained by fact, that the orientation of The Founding Fathers of the United States was not to ensure democratic governance of the country. They argued for strengthen American federalism, which reflected the complexity and archaic nature of the electoral system. Its allows us to conclude that neither formallyconstitutionally, nor in fact, the United States is not a democracy. The system of power that has historically developed in the United States is most accurately described by the term “oligarchy”, which generates a number of both political and constitutional-legal consequences.

Political and administrative decentralization and responses to COVID-19: comparison of the United States and South Korea

PurposeThis study explains the variation of government responses to the pandemic by focusing on how centralization/decentralization in politics and administration creates conflicts and coordination problems. Specifically, the authors make comparisons between the U.S. and South Korea to reveal differences in macro-level structures and associated responses. One of the key points of comparison is the centralized, hierarchical governance system, which may thwart or facilitate a coordinated response.Design/methodology/approachThis is an in-depth comparative case study of the two countries that showed different trajectories during the initial response to COVID-19. The comparison allows us to highlight the long-standing debate about centralization/decentralization and offers implications for government responses to crises shaped by political systems and administrative structures.FindingsWhile there are inherent pros and cons to decentralization, the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the institutional limitations in American federalism and the advantages that centralized administrative coordination creates during times of crisis. American federalism has unveiled systematic problems in coordination, along with the leadership crisis in polarized politics. The response from South Korea also reveals several issues in the administratively centralized and politically polarized environment.Research limitations/implicationsWhile the authors risk comparing apples and oranges, the variation unveils systematic contradictions in polarized politics and offers important implications for government responses in times of crisis. However, this article did not fully account for individual leadership as an independent factor that interacts with existing political/administrative institutions.Practical implicationsThere is certainly no one best way or one-size-fits-all solution to mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic in countries under different circumstances. This article demonstrates that one of the essential determining factors in national responses to the pandemic is how the political and administrative dimensions of centralization/decentralization are balanced against each other.Originality/valueUnlike previous studies explaining the country-level responses to COVID-19, this study focuses on the variance of political and administrative decentralization within each country from the political-administrative perspective and reveals the systematic contradictions in coordination and the leadership crisis in polarized politics.