Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2013
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1086/670149
Abstract
This article examines the merits of the one-voice presumption of the political question doctrine. It has two goals. First, it aims to unpack the underlying assumptions supporting a presumption in favor of one voice in foreign affairs to determine the conditions under which the presumption holds. The traditional account about speaking with one voice focuses on the benefits of centralizing decision making in foreign affairs. The creation of foreign policy and the provision of national security, among other things, are public goods best provided by the national government, rather than the states. Relative to the national government, the states are not as well placed to coordinate national policy and maximize social welfare for all Americans; in fact, they are more likely to pursue narrow, parochial policies that might be welfare enhancing for the state, but not for the nation as a whole. Beyond that, the benefits of centralization in foreign affairs decision making are plainly obvious in the context of the national government and the fifty states; the possibility of dozens of inconsistent pronouncements from various sovereigns justifies, to some degree, limits on foreign affairs federalism. In fact, exactly this lack of centralization in foreign affairs substantially contributed to the collapse of the Articles of Confederation.
Disciplines
Comparative and Foreign Law | International Law | Law | Supreme Court of the United States
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Recommended Citation
Daniel Abebe,
One Voice or Many: The Political Question Doctrine and Acoustic Dissonance in Foreign Affairs,
2012
Sup. Ct. Rev.
233
(2013).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/4531
Included in
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