States are centers of policy innovation---specifically in international cooperation

Particularly striking is the extent to which states can be centers of policy innovation. They have distinct economies, and although they vary greatly in size, even the largest and most diverse states have populations whose interests and attitudes are more cohesive than those of the country at large. States also tend to be better at assembling big coalitions to support major policy action, and they do not have the kinds of procedural hindrances--the filibuster and the line-item veto--that often hamper the federal system. As a result, states have long been drivers of progress and change. As early as the nineteenth century, for example, Iowa, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania lifted bans on interracial marriage, even as other states imposed them. Over time, however, states with bans repealed them as public support for interracial marriage grew; the Supreme Court's landmark 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision extended the repeal to the federal level.Indeed, many of the most important federal policy changes--including ending slavery; expanding marriage rights, voting rights, and civil rights; changing health-care access, reproductive rights, and welfare coverage; reforming public education; and protecting the environment--were first tried at the state level, making states what U.S. Justice Louis Brandeis called "laboratories of democracy." But states do more than test new policy; they also fill in existing policy gaps when the federal government stalls. Consider the issue of immigration. Despite an economy that relies heavily on an immigrant workforce, the United States often leaves those seeking permanent status in legal limbo for years. As a result, states have filled the policy gap, with blue states such as California and New York offering access to health care and education for the undocumented, and red states such as Arizona and Texas using their own resources to increase border enforcement and internal patrols. Similarly, when the federal government failed to impose a strict national standard on auto emissions, California created its own and, because of the size of its market, was able to force automakers to manufacture cars nationwide that meet California's standards. And in the absence of federal policy to address social media companies' banning users because of their political viewpoints, Texas legislators enacted a law in 2021 limiting content moderation. (The law has been temporarily blocked, pending a lawsuit now making its way through the courts.) Over the past two decades, states have also gained leverage to experiment in areas such as legalizing marijuana, despite conflicting federal law. The states are taking advantage of a federal government that has pulled back on marijuana-related enforcement unrelated to organized crime but has failed to repeal federal criminal penalties on marijuana possession and sale. And with federal action on climate change increasingly impeded--including, paradoxically, by state-led challenges, such as West Virginia v. EPA--states have new opportunities to fill the breach. Already, many states are decarbonizing their energy sources, and 21 states have set 100 percent clean energy goals. Some are enacting zoning rules that ban gas hookups in new buildings and are prohibiting new industry on the basis of greenhouse gas emissions; New York State denied construction permits to a crypto currency mining operation on the grounds that it was at odds with the state's sustainability goals. In this dance of adaptation and response between Washington and the states, the federal system builds in enough flexibility for U.S. policymakers to innovate and take on major issues facing the country, even when the federal government is hobbled by polarization, legislative gridlock, and court-imposed limits. NETWORKS, NOT NATIONS Despite their growing role in domestic policy, states may appear to have little sway in foreign affairs, where nation-to-nation diplomacy and hard power reign supreme. But in many regions of the world and on a host of issues such as aviation, ocean management, climate change, and refugee resettlement, those traditional tools now compete with other forms of influence. As the scholar Anne-Marie Slaughterhas argued, networks of institutions and individuals--scholars and scientists, government officials, business executives, and the leaders of social movements--have long been sharing ideas and coordinating strategies across borders. In areas of technology policy, these networks have allowed smaller countries to have global influence that far exceeds their relative size and hard power: Estonia, for example, has played a leading part in counter-disinformation strategy, and South Korea has been a pioneering force in public-private partnerships for online authentication. In the United States, international networks have become a critical way for the country to assert its leadership on many issues. When bolstered by state governments' power to develop policy experiments and set international standards, such cross-border exchanges can drive policy innovations--including in such areas as artificial intelligence (AI), biomedicine, block chain, and renewable energy--that are becoming more difficult to achieve at the federal level. It was in part to buttress such networks in the face of rising geopolitical competition that the U.S. government was spurred in May 2022 to create the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework--a loose arrangement to promote standard-setting, sustainable growth and broader economic connections between the United States and its allies in the region. States with outsize stakes in energy, trade, and technology have special incentives to engage in foreign policy. In economic sectors that are underfunded or left unaddressed by Washington, larger states are seeking their own international partnerships or agreements to compensate. In 2014, California began a cap-and-trade agreement with Quebec, allowing the two regions jointly to create the largest carbon market in North America; in 2022, the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council launched a partnership with a European Union health industry trade body to promote cross-border biotechnology research. Although the U.S. Constitution prevents states from entering into formal treaty arrangements, the State Department has interpreted these constraints to apply only to agreements that are "legally binding," leaving plenty of room for states to make international arrangements by other means. Even in hard-power conflicts such as Russia's invasion of Ukraine, subnational networks can play an important role. Notably, since the war began, Western corporations, responding to pressure from shareholders and the public, have left the Russian market en masse. Civil society institutions are working with Ukrainian officials and technology companies to thwart Russian disinformation efforts. And local communities are signaling their openness to receiving refugees. Of course, different U.S. states have different geopolitical interests: a more open trade policy tends to benefit oil-producing Louisiana and Texas far more than it does Michigan or North Carolina, whose populations may fear losing more jobs overseas under such a policy. Rather than leading to greater centralization of power, then, the current age of growing geopolitical conflict and accelerating technological change seems likely to push more states to become involved in national and international affairs.