ABSTRACT
Federalism – the vertical division of political authority among orders of government – has experienced a remarkable renaissance in the recent decades, leading some observers to label comparative federalism a growth industry (Kaiser 2004; Erk 2007a). The boom is reflected in the growing prominence of specialist scholarly journals such as Publius: The Journal of Federalism and Regional and Federal Studies. Federalism is also granted individual chapters in no fewer than four volumes of the new Oxford Handbooks of Political Science. Federalism chapters appear in the handbook of political economy (Rodden 2006: 357–372), the handbook of political institutions (Galligan 2006: 261–280), the handbook of comparative politics (Beramendi 2007: 752–781) and the handbook of law and politics (Halberstam 2008: 142–164). Articles dealing with various aspects of federalism also increasingly feature on the pages of generalist comparative politics journals.
