The United States of America is a country of many governments. The federal government is of course the largest, but the governments of the 50 states and thousands of smaller units -- counties, cities, towns and villages -- are no less important. The drafters of the Constitution created this multilayered system of government. They made the national structure supreme and assigned it certain specific functions, such as defense, currency regulation and foreign relations; yet they wisely recognized the need for levels of government more directly in contact with the people, and so they left many other responsibilities in the hands of state and local jurisdictions.

Over the past 200 years, American federalism has undergone constant evolution. In this issue, we examine today's new alignments and balances between the federal, state and local governments from a variety of perspectives.

As President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore point out in the lead article of this journal, the necessity for reinvention of government is dictated by scarcer funding resources and a greater need for people to solve their own problems. Clinton and Gore explain how the old top-down governmental relationships are being replaced by partnerships that have produced greater efficiency and better results at the local level. Professor Ellis Katz of the Center for the Study of Federalism at Temple University explains the origins and development of American federalism and analyzes the forces that appear to be moving it in new directions. Governor Michael Leavitt of the state of Utah urges a rebalancing of the American Republic, asking his fellow governors to make more effective use of the powers and tools the Founding Fathers had assigned to the states within the federal system. In an interview, Alice Rivlin, the vice chair of the Board of Governors of the U.S. Federal Reserve System, advocates returning many federal responsibilities to state and local jurisdictions. Finally, reinvention experts David Osborne and Peter Plastrik report on how management based on partnerships has brought the town of Hampton, Virginia, back to life.