Federalism has experienced a remarkable renaissance in recent decades – as an alternative way to accommodate ethnic differences; as a tool to combat remote, undemocratic and ineffective central governments; and lastly, as a means to promote economic performance in the developing world through decentralisation.

This book seeks to bring different aspects and perspectives of federalism studies closer together, by providing an analytical framework which transcends the sub-fields and encourages contributors to look beyond the comfort zones of their own disciplinary approaches to the topic. The authors seek to achieve this aim by structuring the contributions around four dimensions federalism studies: