POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS

American Political Institutions

American Political Institutions

Federalism

Federalism is the sharing of power between national and local levels of government such as states, provinces, territories, counties, and cities and is thus a system characteristic that creates considerable opportunities for experimentation in environmental politics. The United States has a federal political system. Federalism is a system in which political power is shared by national and sub national governments. A national government is the central governing authority in a country. Political scientists tend to distinguish federal systems from the two other major categories: co-federal and unitary systems. A co-federal system is one in which sub national units have nearly all the political power. A unitary system is one in which the national government has nearly all the political power (Riker, 2007).

American federalism has its origins in the method by which the British settled what the Atlantic coast of the United States is now. The settlement of the American Atlantic coast took place by means of colonies. The manner of settlement and political organization of each colony was different. The pace of settlement was uneven. The colonies were formed at different times, under different conditions, and under different monarchs—from 1606 to 1732—under the reigns of King James I, King Charles I, King Charles II, Queen Anne, and King George II. Among democratic nations, the American system is the oldest continuous federal political structure in the world. American federalism divides power between the national government, headquartered in Washington, D.C., and the governments of the 50 states. Additional power is distributed between the national government and federally administered territories, in addition to hundreds of federally, recognized Native American tribes (Greene, 2010).

Civil Rights

The topic under study is related to the civil rights in USA. It addresses a question related to the advances of civil rights through the federal court rather than the local organizations or an individual. Furthermore, it includes the opinion of the white opposition about the civil rights movement. Civil rights are the people right, provided by the government, to protect people's freedom and unnecessary violations and enables the participation in the civil life of the state. These rights include safety of people, equality on all grounds such as gender, religion, race, nationalism, age and cultural identity. Moreover, it provides freedom of thoughts and speech (Finkelman, 2001).

Advances of Civil Rights through Federal Courts

This has been a debate by many, that these rights should be determined by the individuals instead of the federal court. These are the opponents of civil rights advances; but this opposition is due the fact that civil rights are advances through federal courts and, they identify it as the State Rights. In their opinion, civil rights should be determined by local organizations. However, in the United States, federal courts have the responsibility for advancing people rights. This is in accordance to the US law that the federal court promotes equality, which is part of civil right. The existence of the federal court is to promote law and ensure ...