ABSTRACT
This chapter first explores whether existing commentary on federalism has exhausted what can be said on the topic, and analyses the decline of the use of ‘nation-state’ as a concept in the academic discourse on federalism. To respond to this, the chapter takes two approaches first looking at federalism through the lens of democracy, and second combining traditional and new approaches to federalism. The chapter suggests separating federalism from the concept of the ‘nation-state’ to allow room for new objects of analysis, such as international non-governmental organisations and transnational companies. On the issue of combining approaches, the chapter suggests for example, that established theories of federalism, such as Ronald Watts’s classification approach, can be combined with the postmodern approach and other new approaches. Such combination can be especially useful, for comparative analysis. The chapter finds that by combining traditional federalist analysis and theory with new approaches and case studies, federalism remains rich ground for further analysis.
