What are the advantages and disadvantages of federalism in the United States? Federalism is a political system in which regional governments share power with a central or national government, but each level of government has legal powers independent of the others. Federalism is what keeps our so-called balanced government. I'll start with the pros. We can say that federalism mobilizes political activity, that different levels of government give citizens different levels to be heard, that it gives them higher levels of command through which to get to where they want to be. Federalism affects interest groups more than anyone else, because they cannot simply take control of national governments, but must first go through state and local governments. This is where we get the dispersion of power, "a key goal for the founders was to disperse power and a two-tiered system that divided power not only between branches of government but also between levels of government has contributed to achieving this objective” (Bond, p. 80). For example, the legislative branch makes laws, the executive branch executes them and the judiciary...