by Sébastien Gauderie
In 2021, Brandon L. Christensen published an article entitled “Reviving the Libertarian Interstate Federalist Tradition: The American Proposal” (Christensen 2021). In this piece, Christensen argues that the idea of interstate federalism in the form of a transatlantic federation can be traced back to Adam Smith, the founding figure of classical liberalism in political economy. Yet whereas the founding architects of the American Proposal—Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, writing chiefly in the Federalist Papers between 1787 and 1788—sought to lay the foundations of a post-Westphalian order, subsequent designs for governance architecture have gradually abandoned the core elements of this original inspiration.
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Sébastien Gauderie is a PhD candidate in public law at Paris Nanterre University and a 2024 Don Lavoie Fellow at the Mercatus Center. Email: sebastien.gauderie@parisnanterre.fr.
Isonomia Quarterly 