Political Science

Almost all states are either federal or regionalized in some sense. It is difficult to find a state that is entirely unitary and the Routledge Handbook of Regionalism and Federalism necessarily takes in almost the entire world. Both federalism and regionalism have been subjects of a vast academic literature mainly from political science but sometimes also from history, economics, and geography. This cutting edge examination seeks to evaluate the two types of state organization from the perspective of political science producing a work that is analytical rather than simply descriptive. The Handbook presents some of the latest theoretical reflections on regionalism and federalism and then moves on to discuss cases of both regionalism and federalism in key countries chosen from the world's macro-regions.

This book brings together leading experts in the field of comparative federalism to highlight how the interplay of continuity and change systematically generates and reinforces varieties of federalism and varieties of federal dynamics.

Available online and print. A new examination of contemporary federalism and federation, which delivers a detailed theoretical study underpinned by fresh case studies. It is grounded in a clear distinction between 'federations', particular kinds of states, and 'federalism', the thinking that drives and promotes them. It also details the origins, formation, evolution and operations of federal political interests, through an authoritative series of chapters that: analyze the conceptual bases of federalism and federation through the evolution of the intellectual debate on federalism; the American Federal experience; the origins of federal states; and the relationship between state-building and national integration explore comparative federalism and federation by looking at five main pathways into comparative analysis with empirical studies on the US, Canada, Australia, India, Malaysia, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the EU explore the pathology of federations, looking at failures and successes, the impact of globalization.

A comprehensive, analytic, genuinely comparative, and detailed introduction to the study of federalism in theory and practice. Thomas Hueglin and Alan Fenna draw from their diverse research on federal systems to argue that federalism is increasingly important for democratic governance and conflict management in a globalizing world. They discuss the meaning of federal principles and institutional compromise in the organization of federal systems and then introduce four main model federal systems: America, Canada, Germany, and the European Union.