Bringing together experts on regionalism and federalism this collection explores the impact of legislative regions on parties and voters. It reflects on the 1980 publication of Small Worlds by David Elkins and Richard Simeon, which outlined how and why voters and policies differ across Canadian provinces. Using recent data, the essays in this collection provide a comparative re-examination of the impact of regions. The book explores attitude divergence in Canada and in the US, the role and impact of regional parties in Quebec, Scotland and Bavaria, the impact of multi-level governance on how citizens understand and discharge their duties and the capacity of sub-state political systems to influence general political attitudes. The result is an empirical and analytical contribution to regionalism and federalism studies that demonstrates how and why regions matter. This book was published as a special issue of Regional and Federal Studies.

The Global Promise of Federalism honours the life and work of Richard Simeon, one of Canada’s foremost experts on federalism. It features a group of distinguished scholars of federalism from Canada and abroad who take up some of the fundamental questions at the heart of both Simeon’s work and contemporary debates. Does federalism foster democracy? Can it help bring together divided societies? How do federations evolve and adapt to changing circumstances? In the course of answering these questions, the chapters in this collection offer a comparative perspective on the challenges and opportunities facing well-established federations such as Canada and Australia, as well as new federal and quasi-federal systems in Europe, Africa, and Asia. They examine the interplay between federal values, such as trust and mutual recognition, and institutional design; the challenges facing post-conflict federations; and the adaptability of federal systems in the face of changing social, economic, and cultural contexts.

Britain's relationship with the European Union (EU) is frequently viewed as simple by the media and politicians. In ways - never really explained - the EU has managed to 'take away' Britain's sovereign powers and has the ability to determine much of its legislation. The history of how this has occurred is never discussed, unlike other countries in Europe.How Europe shapes British public policy examines the development of the EU as a sectarian issue in the UK. It discusses the effects of disengagement through the political practices of policy making and the implications that this has had for depoliticisation in government and the civil service. It considers the effects of EU membership in shaping key policy areas - trade and privatisation, the single market and the environment, and subsidiarity in the development and implementation of devolved and decentralised governance.This book gives new and essential insights for students and practitioners of politics, governance and international relations.

This book develops an exploratory theory of immigration in multilevel states addressing two themes: governance and political parties. It examines not only how, and by whom, immigration policy is decided and implemented at different levels, but also how it has become a key-issue of party competition across multilevel states.

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. Assembling this wide range of case studies allows the book to present a general picture of current trends in territorial governance. The final chapters then examine failed federations such as Czechoslovakia and examples of transnational regionalism - the EU, NAFTA and the African Union. Covering evolving forms of federalism and regionalism in all parts of the world and featuring a comprehensive range of case studies by leading international scholars this work will be an essential reference source for all students and scholars of international politics, comparative politics and international relations.