Many governments as well as terrorist experts see the use of military and police forces as the only way to effectively counter terrorism. The most effective negative sanctions are considered to be military strikes, aggressive actions (including kidnapping and killing) against individuals known...

In many countries occur problems from unfunded mandates related to a shift of a function by an upper tier of government to lower rank governments without providing the lower one with financial means to perform these functions. The authors define the unfunded mandates and clarify how they relate...

The contribution describes the distribution of taxing powers between the different tiers of government in Italy. It focuses, in particular, on the evolution of this distribution and on the recent Act on Fiscal Federalism

This article revives an unresolved political debate now masquerading as an empirical puzzle: how can we characterize the nature of Argentine federalism when recent presidential administrations support conflicting conclusions about it? Carlos Saúl Menem (1989–1999) easily pushed through policy...

Whether states keep welfare benefits low in order to prevent in-migration of benefit-seeking individuals is one of the great questions in the study of federalism. Assessing this question is challenging, however, because it is difficult to specify exactly what constitutes evidence that states...

The reform of fiscal federalism in Germany enacted in 2006 has focussed on separating the joint legislation process between the federal government and the States (Laender). The German commission on the reform of federalism is now disputing about further reforms in order to establish a more...

This is the introductory essay for the Economics of Federalism, a book edited by the authors and forthcoming in Edward Elgar Publishing's ECONOMIC APPROACHES TO LAW series. This essay discusses the major issues and theories concerning federal political systems, which we define as systems that...

Courts are key players in the dynamics of federal countries since their rulings have a direct impact on the ability of governments to centralize and decentralize power. Courts in Federal Countries examines the role high courts play in thirteen countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada,...

This book offers an exposition of the idea, proclaimed in the Preamble to the Australian Constitution, that Australia is a federal commonwealth. Original sources are analyzed, neglected writers are brought to light, and conceptual frameworks are evaluated. The book takes careful account of the...