Policy Making in Multilevel Systems: Federalism, Decentralisation, and Performance in the Oecd Countries

Does the territorial state organisation matter for effective policy making, and if so, in what way? So far, we know relatively little about its effects on policy making and policy outputs. Starting from the hypothesis that decentralised policy making has positive effects whereas federalism has a slightly negative impact on policy performance, this book systematically tests the independent and interdependent effects of different combinations of federal/unitary and decentralised/centralised structures of decision making and implementation. Based on a mixed methods design it first quantitatively tests the relationships for the OECD countries in cross-sectional as well as panel designs. In a second step, qualitative case studies are conducted for four countries: federal-centralised Austria, federal-decentralised Switzerland, unitary-decentralised Denmark, and unitary-centralised Ireland. The authors study two space-related policy areas, both with regard to the decision making and the implementation stage of the policy-making process: regional policy and transport policy.

About André Kaiser
André Kaiser is Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Cologne and member of the Faculty of the International Max Planck Research School, the Cologne Graduate School in Management, Economics and Social Sciences and the Cologne Research Training Group. Professor Kaiser's international experience includes visiting professorships in Poland, Austria, New Zealand, Australia and Great Britain.

Professor Kaiser's research interest is informed by the actor-centred institutionalist approach to the study of politics. Current research projects include party strategies on electoral markets, macro and micro effects of electoral systems and federalism and decentralisation effects in OECD countries, among others. He has published numerous books and articles in international journals.



About Jan Biela
Jan Biela is a Doctoral Student and Researcher in the Department of Political Science at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. He participated in the research project 'Federalism and Decentralization as Dimensions of State Activity' at the University of Cologne and currently works on the democratic legitimacy and accountability of regulatory agencies. His research interests include issues of delegation, regulatory governance, participatory democracy, and comparative federalism. He recently published in Lateinamerika Analysen and Comparative Political Studies.



About Annika Hennl
Dr Annika Hennl is a Researcher in Political Science, Department of Political Science at the Goethe University Frankfurt and she has participated in the research project &ldquoFederalism and Decentralisation as Dimensions of State Activity&rdquo at the University of Cologne. Next to comparative federalism, her research interests include political representation, electoral systems, and political parties. She has recently published in Comparative Political Studies, Electoral Studies, Politische Vierteljahresschrift and Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft.