Constitutional sharing of power between a central government and state governments.

• A. Federalism
• B. Enumerated Powers
• C. Elastic Clause
• D. Hyperpluralism

Answer: (A)

Federalism is the system that divides power between a central government and state governments, allowing both to govern within their own spheres. The Constitution assigns national powers to the federal level—things like defense, money, and regulating interstate commerce—while the Tenth Amendment reserves all other powers to the states or the people. The Supremacy Clause says national law prevails when there’s a conflict, but that doesn’t erase state authority; it just clarifies which laws take precedence. In practice, some powers are shared (concurrent powers) like taxation, while states often serve as laboratories of democracy, trying different approaches at the local level.

This concept best matches the description of how power is distributed across levels of government. The other terms refer to specific aspects of federal power rather than the overall sharing arrangement: enumerated powers describe what the national government can do, not how power is shared; the Elastic Clause enables Congress to stretch its powers to carry out those enumerated duties, which expands federal authority rather than define the general structure; and Hyperpluralism is a theory about how many groups influence policy, not the constitutional division of power between national and state governments.