The relevance of federalism research

Federalism research has sometimes/often been characterized as boring and out of touch. Who cares about how governments are set up and how they work with each other, or don’t? COVID-19 should have put an end to this delegation of federalism to the political and academic backwaters. Federalism played a major role in how governments met the needs of their citizens. This chapter highlights the relevance of federalism and federalism scholarship building on the worldwide pandemic. It provides basics that set up the remainder of the book including the definitions, strengths and weaknesses of federalism and federalism scholarship, how federalism serves as a safeguard for governance, intergovernmental conflict and blame-casting and the trends of federalism that affect policy responses including centralization, lack of public trust, and extreme polarization. The chapter concludes with an overview of the organization of the remainder of the book.