Meh. Names are mutable and arbitrary, especially in politics, especially names of *political parties*. You wouldn't try to defend the claim that the Republican Party and Democratic Party are actually defined by two clearly delineated concepts of "republicanism" vs. "democracy", would you?
Small-f "federalism" doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the capital-F Federalist Party any more than being a small-d "democrat" or small-r "republican" has anything at all to do with either major party.
Even then, if we take "federalist" to mean "like the Federalist Party", then a reading of conservatism as "federalist" isn't necessarily wrong, because words don't necessarily mean one or the other pole of an axis.
In America, we think of the word "liberal" as meaning "left-wing", plain and simple. In other countries, the word "liberal" very specifically means a kind of center-right moderation focused on hewing conservatively to a bare-bones structure of law protecting the individual. This is not really a contradiction because America is itself far more right-wing than other countries; American "liberals" aren't that different from German "liberals", it's just that in Germany "liberals" are on the center-right relative to "socialists" while in America our "liberals" are firmly on the left relative to our centrists (who would be flat-out "conservatives" anywhere else) and our conservatives (who would be flat-out "reactionary nationalists" anywhere else).
Similarly, "federalism" tends to, in political science, be a term for a middle-way between states interacting in a loose coalition (like the EU or, even more loosely, the UN) and states being forcibly unified into one nation-state (a la Germany and Italy). States being seen as autonomous and sovereign and only engaging in collective action voluntarily is described as a "confederation"; when states dissolve into one nation-state this is known as "nationalism". We don't encounter the concept much, but if someone were to start forcibly stamping out, say, signs of specifically Georgian or Alabaman culture on the grounds that it was unpatriotic to identify as anything other than simply an American, this would be "nationalism" in the sense of nationalism-vs-federalism -- something that was a big factor in German unification, for instance.
So yes, insofar as federalism represents a middle way, you can be a "federalist" and for states' rights if you think that the country is rapidly shifting toward becoming a centralized nation-state with no regional authority at all -- *and* you can be a "federalist" and be *against* states' rights if you think the states are becoming so powerful that they're going to become sovereign and destroy the central authority completely. The point of being a "federalist" is that you support the existence of two levels of power, state and national, that each have the strength to strongly compete with the other.
This is how the term "federalism" is used around the world, basically consistently -- so in Quebec a "federalist" is someone who doesn't want Quebec to declare independence, but in the EU a "federalist" is someone who does want Brussels to have the power to pass laws that count instead of non-binding resolutions. Etc.
Because, after all, the Federalist Party was the anti-states'-rights party *of the time*, but states' rights have been ridiculously reduced since then, and arguably any actual Federalist magically transported to our era would, if not stunned and confused by the electric lights and bare midriffs, find our federal government to be *vastly* more powerful and to have far more decisions to make and resources to throw around than he could've imagined back home. The Federalists, in fact, defended their policies by deriding as silly reductio ad absurdums things that we now take for granted (like the proposition that their proposed federal government might form a vast and unstoppable professional military). We are all "Federalists" if not hyper-"Federalists" by the standards of the time, just like just about every politician in the USA is a feminist by the standards of the Middle Ages, since just about no politician in the USA publicly defends honorable practices like smacking your wife when she talks back.
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chiming
no subject
Date: 2009-01-12 08:36 am (UTC)From:Small-f "federalism" doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the capital-F Federalist Party any more than being a small-d "democrat" or small-r "republican" has anything at all to do with either major party.
Even then, if we take "federalist" to mean "like the Federalist Party", then a reading of conservatism as "federalist" isn't necessarily wrong, because words don't necessarily mean one or the other pole of an axis.
In America, we think of the word "liberal" as meaning "left-wing", plain and simple. In other countries, the word "liberal" very specifically means a kind of center-right moderation focused on hewing conservatively to a bare-bones structure of law protecting the individual. This is not really a contradiction because America is itself far more right-wing than other countries; American "liberals" aren't that different from German "liberals", it's just that in Germany "liberals" are on the center-right relative to "socialists" while in America our "liberals" are firmly on the left relative to our centrists (who would be flat-out "conservatives" anywhere else) and our conservatives (who would be flat-out "reactionary nationalists" anywhere else).
Similarly, "federalism" tends to, in political science, be a term for a middle-way between states interacting in a loose coalition (like the EU or, even more loosely, the UN) and states being forcibly unified into one nation-state (a la Germany and Italy). States being seen as autonomous and sovereign and only engaging in collective action voluntarily is described as a "confederation"; when states dissolve into one nation-state this is known as "nationalism". We don't encounter the concept much, but if someone were to start forcibly stamping out, say, signs of specifically Georgian or Alabaman culture on the grounds that it was unpatriotic to identify as anything other than simply an American, this would be "nationalism" in the sense of nationalism-vs-federalism -- something that was a big factor in German unification, for instance.
So yes, insofar as federalism represents a middle way, you can be a "federalist" and for states' rights if you think that the country is rapidly shifting toward becoming a centralized nation-state with no regional authority at all -- *and* you can be a "federalist" and be *against* states' rights if you think the states are becoming so powerful that they're going to become sovereign and destroy the central authority completely. The point of being a "federalist" is that you support the existence of two levels of power, state and national, that each have the strength to strongly compete with the other.
This is how the term "federalism" is used around the world, basically consistently -- so in Quebec a "federalist" is someone who doesn't want Quebec to declare independence, but in the EU a "federalist" is someone who does want Brussels to have the power to pass laws that count instead of non-binding resolutions. Etc.
Because, after all, the Federalist Party was the anti-states'-rights party *of the time*, but states' rights have been ridiculously reduced since then, and arguably any actual Federalist magically transported to our era would, if not stunned and confused by the electric lights and bare midriffs, find our federal government to be *vastly* more powerful and to have far more decisions to make and resources to throw around than he could've imagined back home. The Federalists, in fact, defended their policies by deriding as silly reductio ad absurdums things that we now take for granted (like the proposition that their proposed federal government might form a vast and unstoppable professional military). We are all "Federalists" if not hyper-"Federalists" by the standards of the time, just like just about every politician in the USA is a feminist by the standards of the Middle Ages, since just about no politician in the USA publicly defends honorable practices like smacking your wife when she talks back.