Elgar Research Agendas outline the future of research in a given area. Leading scholars are given the space to explore their subject in provocative ways, and map out the potential directions of travel. They are relevant but also visionary. This Research Agenda provides a broad and comprehensive overview of the field of multilevel governance. Illustrating theoretical and normative approaches and identifying prevailing gaps in research, it offers a cutting-edge agenda for future investigations. Leading experts from a range of disciplines explore key questions of multilevel governance pertaining to institutions and institutional dynamics, power relationships and the division of power, as well as policymaking and policy change. Chapters engage with a broad range of policy areas, including digitization, security, climate change and redistributive policies, addressing key multilevel governance issues and dilemmas in coordination, intergovernmental relations, democracy and the transformation of political authority. In an era demarcated by major transformative challenges, this Research Agenda represents an essential reading for students, academics and policy practitioners interested in public policy, comparative politics and intergovernmental or international relations. Offering a state-of-the-art agenda for future research, this book is crucial reading for researchers and graduate students in political science, public administration and federal studies. Its practical insights into contemporary policymaking will also benefit practitioners interested in multilevel governance policy.

Federal systems are praised for creating political stability, but they are also blamed for causing rigidity. They are said to balance powers, but apparently they are also threatened by instability due to drifts in power. Federalism should support democratization, but it can also constrain the power of the demos and strengthen the executive. In short, there is widespread agreement that federal systems are dynamic. The forces, mechanisms and consequences of federal dynamics, however, are not sufficiently understood so far.
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. Federal Dynamics: Continuity, Change and Varieties of Federalism investigates mechanisms and resulting patterns of federal development. It offers new analytical concepts and discusses different theoretical propositions to systematically compare convergent and divergent trends in federal systems. Acknowledging the theoretical pluralism that dominates the field, the book is organized around four sections: Models, Varieties and Dimensions of Federalism; Timing, Sequencing and Historical Evolution; Social Change and Political Structuring; and Actors, Institutions and Internal Dynamics.
The contributions to this volume are variously concerned with three guiding questions: What changes within federal systems, how and why? The focus provided by these three guiding questions allows for a dialogue between strands of the literature that have not talked to each other in a sufficient manner. In this way, the book makes a significant contribution to the growing literature on continuity and change in federal systems. Ultimately, it represents a substantive effort in advancing research on comparative federalism.

This edited volume provides a comprehensive overview of the diverse and multi-faceted research on governance in multilevel systems. The book features a collection of cutting-edge trans-Atlantic contributions, covering topics such as federalism, decentralization as well as various forms and processes of regionalization and Europeanization. While the field of multilevel governance is comparatively young, research in the subject has also come of age as considerable theoretical, conceptual and empirical advances have been achieved since the first influential works were published in the early noughties. The present volume aims to gauge the state-of-the-art in the different research areas as it brings together a selection of original contributions that are united by a variety of configurations, dynamics and mechanisms related to governing in multilevel systems.

Das akademische und soziale Umfeld kann bekanntlich entscheidend zur erfo- reichen Durchfuhrung eines Dissertationsprojektes beitragen. Zum akademischen Umfeld, in dem die vorliegende Arbeit entstanden und niedergeschrieben worden ist, zahlt zunachst das Institut fur Kanada-Studien der Universitat Augsburg. Meinem langjahrigen akademischen Lehrer, Herrn Prof. Dr. Rainer-Olaf Schultze, sei deshalb an aller erster Stelle herzlich gedankt fur die hervorragende Betreuung meiner Arbeit. Rainer-Olaf Schultze hat mich nicht nur immer wieder daran erinnert, die wichtigen Fragestellungen in den Mitt- punkt zu rucken, sondern auch mein Verstandnis einer historisch fundierten Politikwissenschaft ganz generell gepragt. Selbst wahrend seiner stressigen Amtszeit als Dekan fand er stets Zeit fur unzahlige anregende Gesprache - n- falls auch zwischen Gremiensitzungen und Lehrveranstaltungen. Keineswegs selbstverstandlich war die sofortige Bereitschaft von Herrn Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Hofmann, das Zweitgutachten zu ubernehmen sowie von Herrn Prof. Dr. Andreas Wirsching, als fachfremder Prufer der Disputation b- zuwohnen. Beiden sei deshalb ebenfalls herzlich gedankt. Eine grossartige Unt- stutzung habe ich zudem von meinen ehemaligen Kollegen und Freunden am Institut erfahren. Nina Gerstenkorn, Claudia Glockner, Jan Grasnick sowie B- tina Helbig haben mit inhaltlichen Anregungen und konstruktiver Kritik, Korr- turlesen und technischer Hilfe wahrend der Endphase die Arbeit entscheidend erleichtert. Finanziell unterstutzt wurde die Arbeit wahrend der Anfangsphase zudem durch ein Doktorandenstipendium der Landesgraduiertenforderung B- ern."