Explaining Federalism (Routledge Studies in Federalism and Decentralization) - Softcover

Erk, Jan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0415599555 ISBN 13: 9780415599559

Publisher: Routledge, 2007

Synopsis

This book deals with the theoretical and empirical questions of federalism in the context of five case studies: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany and Switzerland.

The central argument is that in the long run the political institutions of federalism adapt to achieve congruence with the underlying social structure. This change could be in the centralist direction reflecting ethno-linguistic homogeneity, or in decentralist terms corresponding to ethno-linguistic heterogeneity. In this context, the volume:

• fills a gap in the comparative federalism literature by analyzing the patterns of change and continuity in five federal systems of the industrial west, this is done by an in-depth empirical examination of the case studies through a single framework of analysis
• illustrates the shortcomings of new-institutionalist approaches in explaining change, highlighting the usefulness of society-based approaches in studying change and continuity in comparative politics.

Explaining Federalism will be of interest to students and scholars of federalism, comparative government, comparative institutional analysis and comparative public policy.

About this title

About the Author

Jan Erk is Assistant Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0415599555
• ISBN 13: 9780415599559
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 182