@article{877db3d538074f259f29e216e510b27a,
title = "National conflict in a federal system",
abstract = "To explore the effect of federal institutions on national political conflict, we develop a model of two-level governance with interstate preference heterogeneity and cross-state externalities. Our analysis calls into question the conventional interpretation of federalism as a conflict-minimizing institution. We show that polarization over national policy may be higher in federal than unitary systems, even holding policy demand constant. We also show that the incentives for low and high demanders to engage in costly conflict are contingent on the status quo national policy, and we identify conditions under which those incentives and the deadweight cost of political conflict are higher under federalism than unitary governance. The model helps account for a number of empirical regularities in US politics and policy making.",
author = "Gordon, {Sanford C.} and Dimitri Landa",
note = "Funding Information: An earlier version of this article was presented at the political economy workshop of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the NYU-DC Conference on Federalism and Contemporary Political Problems, the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, the Political Economy workshop at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Toulouse School of Economics, and the Political Institutions and Economic Policy Conference at Harvard, where the authors received valuable feedback. We are especially grateful to Scott Ash-worth, Jenna Bednar, Pablo Beramendi, Chris Berry, Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, Alessandra Casella, Catherine Hafer, Michel Le Breton, Nolan McCarty, Ken Shotts, Matthew Stephenson, and David Wildasin for detailed comments and discussions. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 by the Southern Political Science Association. All rights reserved.",
year = "2021",
month = jul,
doi = "10.1086/710782",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "83",
pages = "961--973",
journal = "Journal of Politics",
issn = "0022-3816",
publisher = "Cambridge University Press",
number = "3",
}