National and Local Forces in State Politics: The Implications of Multi-Level Policy Analysis

Studies of American states and their policies are severely handicapped by the use of a single level of analysis. The operations of American politics and the assumptions of correlation methodology imply that only a multi-level approach can adequately comprehend state politics. All major aspects of politics, but particularly policies, are distorted by the single level approach. The extent of distortion suggests that relations among states and between states and the national government are the prime determinants of state politics and that the study of states ought to be organized around these relations. This approach accounts for the salient characteristics of state politics, indicating that states are not political systems but collections of tangentially related components of a national system. States which appear systematic derive their coherence from interactions with the national pattern, a process with important residual effects on the legitimacy of state governments.