Revisiting the “Laboratories of Democracy” Movement: Are the States More Democratic Today Than in the Past?

Abstract

Nearly sixty years after Justice Louis Brandeis suggested that the states are “laboratories” for public policy experimentation, journalist David Osborne (1988) also described the states as laboratories. His vision suggests that the states are “laboratories of democracy” in which governments should work with the private sector to promote economic growth and “an attractive quality of life” In addition to promoting growth, they need to guide growth so that the poor are brought into the political process. This commentary explores important points in Osborne’s argument and weighs their validity by discussing several measures of state-level democratization, particularly the notion that political participation is an issue of ethical importance. It also explores the repercussions of state involvement in social and economic programs and concludes with a frank discussion of the current role of the states in the federal system. A critical look at the states as “laboratories” suggests that innovations in the states have occurred to the detriment of the principles that lay at the heart of democratic ideals and citizen choice—fairness, justice, and equality—contrary to the notion suggested by Brandeis.