Federalist No. 44: What Is the Role of Intergovernmental Relations in Federalism?

• Author: Robert Agranoff
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2011.02464.x
• Published date: 01 December 2011
• Date: 01 December 2011

Robert Agranoff is professor emeritus

in the School of Public and Environmenta l

Affairs at Indiana University Bloomington.

Since 1990, he also has been a senior

professor in the Government and Public Ad-

ministration Program, Instituto Universitario

Ortega y Gasset, Madrid, Spain. He contin-

ues to do research in public management,

networks, and intergovernmental relations.

His latest book is Local Governments

and Their Intergovernmental Net-

works in Federalizing Spain (2010).

E-mail: shipleyk@indiana.edu

S68 Public Administration Review • December 2011 • Special Issue

Robert Agranoff

Indiana University Bloomington

Federalist No. 44 examines the connective mechanisms

underlying a federal system of government. Traditionally

called “intergovernmental relations,” these systems

were intended to facilitate the pursuit of ef‌f ective

implementation of national policies.  is essay suggests

that the national government’s of‌f‌i cers should not be

impressed by collaboration unless it produces better

performance or lower costs. Collaboration is a means to

an end, not an absolute requirement.

Connections between governments in a polity are as

old as the age of empires.  ey were of particular con-

cern in historical confederations, as the essays in the

Federalist Papers reveal. Indeed,

it was partially “f‌l aws” in the

connective setup among histori-

cal confederate systems, along

with those of the American

Articles of Confederation, that

led Publius to justify an entirely

new form, that of the modern

federation.  is hybrid allowed,

as Federalist No. 44 makes clear,

for a national government to

have its own revenue sources, a

set of general powers, and the

ability to act directly on the

people, along with the ability to

act on and through its con-

stituent units. While Alexander

Hamilton and James Madison

subsequently dif‌f ered over the

extent of this national power,

during the preratif‌i cation peri-

od, they agreed that dependence

on the 13 states to raise revenue,

retire war debts, and take action for the whole was not

working.  ey stood together for a draft constitution

that would right these formidable governing obstacles

(Salof‌f 2005, 70).

In the interest of allaying extant fears that the states

would be consolidated into a single unit, Madison’s

public statements spoke of a “residual sovereignty”

that would remain with the states and Hamilton of

a “concurring” of power between national and state

governments. In Federalist No. 9, Hamilton used the

solar orbit analogy of the states revolving around the

general government while retaining their separate sta-

tus (Wills 1982, xiii).  e Federalist Papers, of course,

primarily justif‌i ed the structure and powers of the

new government but, in so doing, also indicated that

there would be connections between the general and

its component units. In Federalist No. 44, Madison

concluded that the “members and of‌f‌i cers of the state

governments … will have an essential agency in giving

ef‌f ect to the federal Constitu-

tion,” and in No. 45, he stated

that “[t]he State governments

may be regarded as constituent

and essential parts of the federal

government” (Rossiter 1999,

284, 287).

Implicit in such connections

was the role of Congress in

making the laws that would

ef‌f ectuate the new federal

system and the executive in

approving and carrying out

those laws. In regard to admin-

istration, as is well known in

Federalist No. 70, Hamilton led

with the idea that “[e]nergy in

the executive is a leading char-

acter in the def‌i nition of good

government” (Rossiter 1999,

421) and that “[a] feeble execu-

tive implies a feeble execution

of government” (422). In Nos. 71–77, Hamilton con-

structed how a chief executive—and, by implication,

his appointees—needed to operate within a good re-

publican government, including going “beyond mere

responsiveness and be able to serve the people’s true

interests or their reasonable will, even if this course

was not immediately popular” (Kessler 1999, xxii).

Federalist No. 44: What Is the Role of Intergovernmental

Relations in Federalism?

[I]t was partially “f‌l aws”

in the connective setup

among historical confederate

systems, along with those

of the American Articles

of Confederation, that led

Publius to justify an entirely

new form, that of the modern

federation.  is hybrid allowed,

as Federalist No. 44 makes clear,

for a national government to

have its own revenue sources,

a set of general powers, and

the ability to act directly on

the people, along with the

ability to act on and through its

constituent units.