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The EU has a parliament, a Council/Senate (representing the states), a President, and a Supreme Court (the ECJ). The EU, like the US, is a union of states. I contend that in most issues the US is too consolidated. But the EU might be too dissipated. Each risks a different danger. To be sure, if the tendency of a federal union of republics is toward consolidation, as evinced in the US, the EU ought to be applauded for leaving large chunks of powers at the state level. However, the risk of dissolution may also be realizable in the case of the EU precisely because it has probably not yet crossed the threshold in the balance of power wherein a sufficient proportion is at the federal level–such that consolidation would be the most pressing danger. In other words, the EU might have a different risk management scenerio than the US had as it consolidated from roughly 1860 through the mid twentieth century. The danger of dissolution in the EU could be related to the proclivity of state leaders there to keep a domain “in house” simply for the sake of doing so. The root cause could be the residue from twentieth century European nationalisms, which spawned two world wars and thwarted the development of a union of the states until the last decade of that century. In other words, an ideology of “country” is still extant for most Europeans. That word, I submit, is overused.

As the volcanic ash-cloud from Iceland was bringing flights in the EU to a virtual halt, airline officials were having a hard time hiding their frustration with the situation. On a conference call on April 18, 2010 with airlines hosted by Eurocontrol, the Brussels-based agency that coordinates air traffic management in the EU, one airline representative sharply chastised civil aviation authorities from the states for being inconsistent in applying flight restrictions and stressed that the flight bans were creating “a serious economic issue for us.” Having Eurocontrol responsible for coordinating air traffic in the EU while permitting the states to control their own air space is tantamount to tying the hands of the people at Eurocontrol while expecting them to use their hands to direct air traffic. In other words, the structure is that of a double-bind. While there is some benefit to differential policies across the EU in matters such as an ash-cloud that affects different regions of the EU differently, it makes little sense to open or close airspaces the size of Montana (Germany), Arizona (Spain), and Texas (France). That is, it would be like having each state in the US differentially open and close its airspace. Idaho might be open while Wyoming is closed. Imagine the logistical nightmare for the FAA, particularly should that agency be responsible nonetheless for coordinating the airspace in the US. While it might give the residents of a state of the EU a sense of pride in hearing that “German airspace is closed,” I submit that it is actually quite silly to carve up commercial airspace in such small units (with respect to the airspaces of the EU and US). Transportation technology has relativized state airspaces on both sides of the Atlantic. Whereas it once took days to cross Germany or Montana, today most flights count either state as one of several to be flown over. Of course, states like Texas and California are large enough to support a sufficient number of air-routes to be considered “air-markets” in themselves. However, such a status ought not be overdone, particularly when the FAA has the responsibility of coordinating air traffic across the US region.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/world/europe/19ash.html?ref=world

In the fall of 2008, European politicians were pointing to the bad finance in America as putting the entire world at risk financially.  In May, 2010,  however, the E.U. had its own financial crisis and bailout. The added problem in arriving at a coordinated response given the relative power held by the state governments meant that the debt crisis in the E.U. could have been the contagion more likely to spread.  Whereas in the U.S., the U.S. Government’s treasury secretary and the Federal Reserve Chairman orchastrated the bailout at a dizzying pace, the more balanced federalism of the E.U. meant that the leaders of the state governments were the active players. In other words, even though the E.U. evinces a more balanced division of power between the union and state governments than is is the case in the decentralized-consolidated modern incarnation of American "federalism," the ability of the Europeans to tackle the problem of several of its states hemmoraging in public debt attests to the messiness that is inherent in a well-balanced federal system.  Even so, the consolidated condition of American government meant that states in trouble such as Florida, Illinois and California had to fend for themselves because neither the U.S. Government nor the Federal Reserve was under pressure to come to their aid. The Federal Reserve, for example, had printing hundreds of billions of dollars to assuage the U.S. Government's growing appetite for debt. However, when U.S. Senators asked Chairman Bernanke about doing likewise for the trouble state governments, he replied that the Fed was not autorized to do it. This asymmetry itself pushes the system even closer to the consolidated end of the political spectrum. As some of the U.S. Constitutional Convention delegates warned in 1787 even when the U.S. consisted of just thirteen republics, it is difficult for a central government to have sufficient energy throughout an empire-scale "extended republic."  The E.U. following its first fifty years was better able to cover the inherent diversity there, yet not yet sufficient to support its unified aims (such as a common currency backed up by coordinated fiscal policy).

In short, the financial problems that occasioned the huge financial bailouts is hardly an American quagmire.  Just as the E.U. and U.S. have different divisions of power in their applications of modern federalism, the processes and solutions themselves must undoubtedly differ as well. In the end, hard choices irrespective of the federal systems involved will need to be made at the expense of instant gratification in order for a sustainable (i.e., real) fiscal trajectory in the West to be realized.  The struggle is perhaps against expediency in a time of apparent plenty.

I once asked an official from a consulate office of the EU state of Britain about Turkey's possible accession into the EU as another state. He replied that it would be very disruptive—as much as if Mexico were to join the US as a state. The impact of another large state in union would be very significant, he observed. I was stunned that an official from a characteristically Euroskeptic state would make a reference that implies that the US and EU are on the same level. If his comparison is correct, then likening a Mexican state to a state in the US would evince a category mistake. That is to say, it would mean that a federal state could indeed apply to different scales of political organization, as Althusius had theorized in 1603.

Historically, Mexico was part of one colony of Spain called New Spain. For short-hand purposes, we could say that Mexico was a colony. So too was Virginia. While the latter joined a federative union with other colonies, and then sovereign (and then semi-sovereign) republics, Mexico remained as an independent state. At least by the beginning of the twenty-first century, a LAU (Latin American Union) had not formed. This does not mean, however, that Mexico is thereby a union in itself. Like many of the EU’s states, Mexico has provinces or regions, which in the American states would be intrastate regions or even counties. Some of the American states are sufficiently diverse that they would be good candidates for a federal system like that of Germany or Switzerland. Unfortunately, some of the intra-state officials in Europe and Latin America have been able to vaunt their status by calling themselves governors, as though their region were commensurate with France or Texas.

So in 2010 when all six Mexican border “governors” (six meaning that each is akin to a region say of Texas or Arizona and thus not equivalent with an American governor or a European head of state) wrote Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona to inform her that they were boycotting the 28th annual conference between “governors” of the border “states” because of Arizona’s new law to beef up enforcement of US immigration law, she could well have replied, “Well, I should really be meeting with your head of state anyway.” Just because the semi-sovereign American states do much in common through their federation does not mean that the states have somehow shrunk, such that France, a state in the EU, is now somehow equivalent to the US. That would be like saying that Virginia and the EU are equivalent. Europeans would be very offended. Yet Americans turn a blind eye to the convenient category mistakes that are made by others—and even ourselves—at our own expense.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/07/us/07governors.html?_r=1

CNNMoney.com ran an article in July of 2010 on Illinois’ debt problem by likening Illinois to Greece. Rarely are states of the US compared to states of the EU. I suspect that comparisons between the American republics and European countries were more common during the first fifty years of the US, when—as in the EU in its first fifty years—most people living in the American states identified themselves principally with their country rather than as Americans. Aspiring politicans typically had their eyes on their respective state legislatures rather than on the Congress of the union because the states that formed the union held most of the domains of power and held the attachment of their respective citizens.  So it is in the early twenty-first century in the EU. Hence, I contend that the EU today is best compared with the US during its first fifty years rather than with its condition in the twenty-first century as a consolidated empire. 

Lest Europeans be too confident that the EU could never consolidate too, they might read Madison’s Notes on the Constitutional Convention, which report the certainty of the delegates that the peoples’ identification with their respective republics could be counted upon to restrain encroachments from the US level of governance. Of course, the state identification in the US has fellen away—though it is still more evident in Texas than say in Illinois. As strong as “nationalism” is now in Europe, Europeans would be wise not to rely on it in structuring their Union for future generations. It is indeed amazing how something so salient today can be so enervated tomorrow. We tend to project our day forward, when the sad fact is that three or four generations from now almost all of us will have been forgotten.

In terms of Illinois, in the middle of 2010 when Moody’s and Fitch downgraded its debt, the republic was on the way to assuming nearly $10 billion in sovereign debt for the year (yet, like Greece, without its own monetary policy). Unlike Greece, Illinois could not count on its Union for help—as the US itself was $13 tillion in debt and the stimulus money was ending at the end of 2010 (just after the midterm Congressional elections). The EU’s help itself reflects the federal balance in that union, as the state officials played an active role with EU officials in putting together the rescue package. The lack of such a balance in the US has contributed to Illinois’ financial condition.

After years of overspending, Illinois had as much as $6 billion in unpaid bills that left schools, social service agencies, and venders waiting months to be paid, according to the comptroller Daniel Hynes. “We’re leveraging our future and that’s not the correct approach, but it was what was chosen out of a lot of bad options,” Hynes told CNNMoney.com. Perhaps not many Illinoisians were aware of the structural imbalance, given their primary attention on matters of the US.  Because the debt problem has compromised Illinois (as the same problem has enervated Greece), the failure of Illinoisians to pay sufficient attention to their immediate republic can be linked to a further “downgrade” of it. Unlike Europeans, Americans cannot count on “nationalism” at the state level as a check in keeping their state officials “honest.” (Corruption in Illinois is indeed a problem)  Lest we take this difference to be enduring, we might remember that even seemingly-solid political attachments can shift radically even as the institutions remain.

In short, Illinois and Greece can be compared and contrasted on the particularities of their debt problems, and so can the EU and US as federal systems of public governance.  Avoiding category mistakes, like comparing Illinois to the EU, is a first step (which CNN has begun to avoid, albeit in small steps) to being able to compare and contrast in ways that do not result in faulty conclusions wherein apples are compared with oranges.  Yet from the vantage-point of the early twenty-first century, both in Europe and America, the category mistake still rules like a huge societal blind-spot. To compare the EU to the US (and any of their respective states with one of the other), it is most accurate to compare the EU now to the US during its first fifty years.  In a looser sense, a state of the EU is on the same level as one of the US, and the EU itself is on the same level as the US—the American colonies having been so in the Greek rather than the Roman sense (i.e., as replicating the home kingdom, rather than as a province thereof).

Source: http://money.cnn.com/2010/07/13/news/economy/illinois_debt/index.htm

In October, 2009, it was widely publicized in the press that a justice of the peace in Lousiana had been refusing to marry interracial couples (what if both people are multiracial?). He was subsequently fired. Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, said it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long. "I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house," Bardwell said. "My main concern is for the children." As astounding as this sounds in the twenty-first century in a modern society, the case demonstrates the thesis that an empire, or Union of many States, is inherently diverse--incredibly diverse in fact. Europeans tend to view the United States as though it were itself akin to a state (i.e., homogenious). In truth, the United States are indeed as diverse as is the European Union (language is not the only basis of diversity).  A person in Boston reading a newspaper about the justice in the peace in Lousiana could be excused for thinking for a moment that Lousiana is another country. To be sure, the large states in the U.S. are equivalent in size to the large member-states in the E.U. Territory does matter in terms of cultural diversity.

While the diversity befitting an empire-scale political union must be given breathing room, it is also not the case that a Union can or should tolerate absolutely everything in an “anything goes” relativism if a practice violates the fundamental ideational or volitional tenets of the Union. For otherwise there would be no foundation to the union; the parchment would be a farce.  Yet at the same time, stifling the inherent diversity is a recipe to disunion.  There is a balance to be struck, and ironically even in calling for limits to the diversity, I am pointing to the need for diversity legislatively precisely because the U.S. is on the empire-scale.

Both  the U.S. and E.U., being on the scale of empire (e.g., containing republics), must allow for a certain degree of tolerance because one size can’t fit all where diversity is natural.   The difficult question is of course where to draw the line, and this is why I have raised the case of interracial marriage.  If we draw the line too close to our own values at the expense of those of others in another region of the continent, we risk the Union exploding from the pressure of “one size fits all.”    That is, if we require every official to marry interracial couples, the Union will feel oppressive to those who oppose the practice. An ongoing habit of imposing a “progressive” agenda on the entire Union is apt to push the more conservative regions out and therefore compromise the Union.  However, some may argue that there really is too much difference between Maine and Arkansas for them to be in the same political Union. One could argue that there should be a lowest common denominator that must be met in any given State for it to be in the Union.  To take two hyperbolic examples, a lot of people would object today to being in a Union that includes a State where slavery based on race is legal.  Yet for a long time, the practice was not a motive sufficient to kick out the slave States—actually it was some of them that decided to leave the Union.  In a way, we can be too accommodating.

In short, there is a balance involved in a federal empire remaining viable owing to the nature of the thing.  In my view, prohibiting interracial marriage is extrinsic to what our Union stands for. At the same time, I see the slippery slope because everyone has his or her own insufferable that could be added to the list—and pretty soon we are left with one size fits all and the natural diversity stifled and pressurized for future expressions.  Overall, I believe far too much “one size fits all” exists through the agency of the U.S. Government.  Congress, one might say, is acting like a State legislature.  Sandra Day O’Conner, who served on the US Supreme Court, made that remark several years ago to a small group where I was present.  I think it would behoove us to look at the EU in terms of the governance system enabling both uniformity and cultural diversity via a balanced approach to multi-level governance. The trick for us will be devising institutional or governmental safeguards that would keep one level—that of the Union—from dominating the levels that are more protective of the innate diversity.  That is to say, the State governments can play a greater role in domestic (and foreign!) policy such that they could be a check on a runaway US Government—while the latter should not be eviscerated so it can provide a check on the excessive democracy, or diversity, at the State level.  So this is not “States’ Rights”; rather, I am pointing to the need to balance institutionally and governmentally the common principles and natural diversity that form any empire.

See: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33332436/ns/us_news-race_and_ethnicity/

One might argue that federalism gets in the way of solving problems that are simply too important to go unsolved.  In short, the argument is that federalism impedes progress on important issues. State to state differences should not be tolerated, he argues, where important needs are involved. “Resources and die-hard beliefs in the role of local government vary too much from state to state” for us to trust State government to deal satisfactorally with grave problems.   I suspect this view is widely held today.

In response, I would argue that the choice of a governance system should only partly be determined by the ease by which particular problems are solved.  In designing the U.S. Government to include a separation of power between the three branches, the delegates in the constitutional convention of 1787 were looking to thwart the solution of problems by the Union’s general government.  In addition to fearing tyranny from a consolidation of power into a few hands, they believed that the functions of that government should be limited because the state legislators are closer to the people, and thus better as republics.  Rather than being problematic,  differences between the States (generically), or republics (more specifically), are natural.  Given the scale involved in many of the States alone, how could a Union of many such republics be anything but inherently diverse?  To ignore the differences and impose one solution on all is artificial and likely to build up pressure for eventual dissolution.  Such pressure can unwittedly be built out of ignorance.   So “ease in solving problems” may actually be antithetical to the criteria we want for designing our system of governance spanning a continent. I would argue, moreover, that it is short-sighted to re-orient a system of governnance to the whims of what is best for handling particular problems of the day.  To subject long-term viability to the vissitudes of the day is to subject one’s posterity to ruin.

One could also point out that federalism is a historical means to forming the Union and is therefore antiquated (as the Union is now formed).  Some of the delegates to the constitutional convention would argue that they had to put up with the continued existence of the States simply due to the politics (i.e., the intractability of the delegates defending their respective States).   Certainly Hamilton would have preferred to do away with the States—replacing them with administrative districts of the federal government.  I believe that a significant number of Americans today share Hamilton’s view.  If this sentiment is dominant among the citizens, we should give serious thought to a constitutional convention for the purpose of replacing federalism with consolidation, officially through an amendment.  Even though I believe that this option is not compatible with having a republic at the Union level, if a super-majority wants to change our system of governance, it should be changed (assuming a “constitutional moment” of reflection and debate on the proposal).

I do not believe that federalism was merely used as a political means of achieving agreement on the creation of a general government.  As I have written in another post, the diversity spanning an empire-scale polity can be accommodated by federalism.  Some large States are sufficiently large in themselves that they have diversity that could justify a federal system.  Consider, for example, California and Illinois.  Each of these republics is sufficiently diverse in its provinces that federalism could accommodate the different cultures and bring legislation that is more fitting and less compromised for all concerned.   That new States have been added to the Union since its founding—some of the last of which being quite different culturally from the others (e.g., HI and AK)—means that there could be even more diversity within the Union today than when it was founded (assuming that transportation and communications technology has not totally overridden the diversity inherent in the territorial scale of empire).  Paradoxically, the need for federalism could be more pressing today.  I have already argued that republic principles may be stretched too thin at the empire scale.  This, plus the matter of accommodating diversity within the empire, strongly points to the utility of restoring federalism. 

Finally, someone could say something like,  ”I believe in the power of each State, but I have NO confidence in the people” running the State governments.”  This point may resonate with the extant condition of state government today in the United States. That is, the eclipse of the State governments has almost certainly had an impact on the quality of the representatives the State level.  Do the best and brightest really want to work in a legislature that has been reduced to considering by and large local government issues?  What sort of person would agree to campaign for a rather impotent position?   The situation now is markedly different than in the revolutionary period, when the preference of the best and brightest of the politicians was to serve their respective countries.   Even as late as 1860, General Lee felt obliged to fight for his native Virginia—turning down Lincoln’s request that he fight for the U.S. Government.   So presumably were a balance of power restored such that State governments would have real power over the issues that really concern us, we might find the quality of our State reps improve.  We might have better candidates to choose from, and we might take more interest in their campaigns.  So I would argue that the enervated conditon of State government today should not be taken as indicative of how such government would look were it restored to a balance of power with the U.S. Government. For example, were the National Governor's Association given a formal role in determining American foreign policy, we might see better candidates running for governor.

In closing, I want to note that being in a large Union that is inherently diverse does require a certain amount of tolerance for regional differences.  “Not trusting” a State’s people who have a different understanding of government or who feel a different way on a problem is not consistent with having a Union.  That is to say, we won’t last as a Union if a dominant faction in one region imposes its ideology on States in other regions spanning the continent.  A certain humility is necessary.  Of course,  a Union has certain bed-rock common principles (in our case, representative democracy, for example) that delimit certain behavior and laws (e.g., holding other races in slavery).   The problem is the slippery slope wherein one uses “common principles” to impose one’s own ideology and the natural diversity spanning a continental Union is not accommodated.   The people of a republic will naturally want out if their way of life is imposed upon without justification.   In short, being in a Union requires having a sufficient tolerance that can admit that not every State is going to solve your important problems in the way you want.   I suspect that this Union has lost too much of this tolerance (contributing to divisive partisanship at the federal level).   One size fits all over a polity spanning across a continent (and beyond!) is likely to involve bitter partisanship because people view the approach as all or none.   To be sure, there may not be sufficient tolerance anymore among Americans to allow for a viable system of federalism.  Moreover, federalism itself is not perfect, so debate on it could lead to a decision by the popular sovereign to make the United States officially consolidated.  In my view, however, such a debate is urgently needed, for otherwise the American people will continue to live a consolidated lie under the rubric of federalism on parchment.

Rick Perry, when he was the Republican governor of Texas running for re-election, said his primary opponent, Senator Kay Hutchison,  was spending tax dollars too freely in Washington.  That is to say, she is too Washington. He claimed that she didn't get what he called, “Texas values.”   Then, he added something really telling—something that went beyond his contest. “Washington’s one-size-fits-all approaches simply don’t work. They want more control of your dollars and your life, and they want it now. We surrender that to them with peril.”  His statement is worthy of our reflection even long after Perry's re-election.

Why doesn’t a one-size-fits-all approach not work in the United States?  Perry was essentially pointing to the empire-level nature of the U.S. general (or federal-level) government, which is to say that there are republics within the Union.  Hence the Texas governor used the word “surrender.”  Ordinarily, one-size-fits-all is the nature of a government’s legislation; a law is not meant to differentiate between individuals.  On the empire level, imperial legislation should take into account the different political entities that constitute or are members of the empire, even if the legislation applies directly to people.  In short, the governor was subtly pointing to how the US Government differs from that of Texas. President Obama's health-insurance law was vulnerable to being declared unconstitutional precisely because in urging that the U.S. Congress expand its authority to include a mandate to purchase health insurance, the President neglected the empire-level situs of the U.S. Goverment--a level that is not the first "go to." 

In other words, the Democrats forgot or minimized the enumerated powers aspect of the limited imperial-level government (the British imperial crown had similarly been limited in its imperial powers--essentially regulating interstate commerce and defending the empire). In Sandra Day O'Conner's words, "Congress has been acting like a state legislature."  Had the President urged Congress to make money available to states in which all of their citizens are covered, I suspect his objective would have been sufficiently satisfied in a way that would be consistent with what the U.S. is/are. I say sufficiently satisfied because in a Union of republics or countries, the innate diversity of states means that just as one size doesn't fit all, not all of the republics would decide to cover everyone. Hence, tolerance among the others is part and parcel of being in an empire-level political union. Where such tolerance is in short supply, one risks having one's prize Congressional legislation declared unconstitutional.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34402323/ns/politics-washington_post/