Coronavirus Is Straining the Concept of Federalism
Dealing with Covid-19 is inflaming already fierce tensions between central governments and states globally.
Italy won’t forget the lack of help from Europe.
Photographer: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images
Crises tend to widen fault lines that already exist. The Covid-19 pandemic has been no exception. Before the virus hit, the unbalanced nature of recent economic growth was already straining federal structures around the world, from the U.S. to India to Europe. The current crisis threatens to open new disagreements and deepen old ones — and transform some political entities beyond recognition.
This isn’t just a question of how central governments should distribute revenues and aid, although in most cases that’s the matter at hand. When Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell suggested that he’d rather see “blue states” go bankrupt than have the federal government bail them out, he wasn’t making only a crass political calculation. He legitimately didn’t want states to receive aid if he felt they had overspent on, say, pensions.