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Federalist Nos. 6 and 7 address the problems of disunion that led the founders to imagine a stronger national government, arguing that the states were and would continue to be a source of unyielding conflict without national supremacy. This essay asks how the states have adjusted to the Constitution under the Tenth Amendment and posits that the states are a hidden source of energy toward good government in their own right.

`Let evil be rewarded with like evil. But he that forgives and seeks reconciliation shall be rewarded by Allah. He does not love those that do wrong...'Sura 42:40`... come to terms with your opponent in good time while you are still on the way to the court...'Matthew 5:25In the analysis of warfare and conflict, Peace Studies rarely directs attention to unique cultural symbolism and motifs that are critical elements of the popular support and perception of warfare. Conflicts are represented and perpetuated in the minds of participants according to the symbols and motifs of their culture and history. Meaningful traditions of strength and power, drawn from the cultural background of those involved, must be countered with positive symbols of reconciliation and coexistence that are not imposed by outside `mediators' or analysts, but drawn from the cultural identity of the people themselves. In this study, such symbols are located within the Jewish and Palestinian traditions. Detailed attention is given to the Palestinian ceremony of reconciliation known as the `Sulha', as an illustration of the kind of cultural analysis that Peace Studies must include within its areas of concern.

AbstractThis study tests the effects of balanced budget requirements on three measures of state expenditure using data on 48 states for the years 1950–2004. We find that the following rules are effective in constraining expenditures: (1) requiring that the governor submits a balanced budget; (2) placing controls on supplemental appropriations; and (3) prohibiting the carry‐over of a deficit from one fiscal year or biennium into the next. The latter two rules exert larger individual effects than the first. All else equal, states can best improve their prospects of reigning in spending by instituting technical rules that govern budgetary outcomes, as opposed to political rules that dictate how the budget is assembled and approved.

Economic theory suggests that it is optimal for governments to use precautionary saving as a countercyclical tool. However, the availability of surplus funds often triggers political pressure for tax cuts and spending increases. Mechanisms for alleviating that pressure include limiting the transparency of slack resources and limiting politicians' discretion to use slack resources for purposes other than stabilization. This article investigates the extent to which these two mechanisms are substitutes. In particular, the authors examine whether the widespread adoption of budget stabilization funds (BSFs) in the U.S. states over the past several decades has been accompanied by a decline in conservative revenue forecast bias. Using panel data from 47 states over a 22‐year period, they find that the adoption of a BSF reduces revenue underestimation by approximately two‐thirds; however, the size of the effect depends in part on how much a state saves in the BSF and the rules governing BSF deposits and withdrawals. The results suggest that BSFs have the unintended effect of increasing fiscal transparency.

Both formal rules and informal norms guide government operations; formal rules often function through informal norms. Balanced budget requirements (BBRs) are formal rules, but they are implemented via the intermediary of informal norms interpretation of BBRs by state officials. This article examines the fiscal implications of informal norms that govern budgetary balance. We propose that informal norms have substantive implications in policy making and implementation. To test the proposition, we obtain state self-reported, time-varying data on balanced budget provisions as observations of informal norms, compare them against formal, codified balanced budget requirements from recent research to identify gaps between rules and norms, and decompose the gaps using two categories "interpretations" and "reverse interpretations" of formal balanced budget requirements. We then conduct probit estimation to obtain the effects of informal norms as well as the interpretations and reverse interpretations on two measures of budgetary balance. Results show that informal norms do affect outcomes of government financial operations; the two-step decomposition of the gaps between formal rules and informal norms provides further information on the locus of these effects. The article identifies the interpretation of formal rules as a new research area, thus contributing to the budgetary institutions and policy implementation literatures. Adapted from the source document.