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What do you think are the top two advantages and the top two disadvantages of federalism?

Advantage 1: Federalism allows countries to stay together if they have regions that are very different from one another.  If a country has very different regions and does not have federalism, all of the regions have to obey the same laws and many regions will be unhappy.  With federalism, the people of different regions can have much more autonomy and will be more likely to coexist peacefully.


Advantage 2: Federalism allows states or provinces to be “laboratories of democracy.”  What this means is that the various states can experiment with different approaches to problems.  Let us say that various states of the US want to try to improve education in different ways.  It would be possible to take many different approaches and see which ones work and which do not.  If there is no federalism, the whole country will have to try the same approach to education and we can only test out one approach at a time.


Disadvantage 1: With federalism, not all people have the same rights.  In the United States, women have more of a right to an abortion in some states than in others.  We can argue that this is wrong.  Either abortion is a right that all American women should have or it is an evil thing that should not be legal anywhere.  With federalism, we let some states have laws that, at least arguably, infringe on the rights of their citizens.  This leaves us with a situation where not all of the people in the same country have the same rights.


Disadvantage 2: With different states having so much power, businesses can play states off against one another.  They can tell State A that they will go to State B unless State A gives them subsidies.  This forces states to engage in bidding wars, giving away taxpayer money to try to lure businesses.  This is, arguably, wasteful and wrong.

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