Pick 528 Off.
Some examples are the United States, Russia, India, Canada, Brazil, Nigeria and Germany.
The territorial organization of states was for many years largely ignored in political science. Federalism is at the center of many of these debates, since it is often seen as an appropriate organizational mechanism to govern plural societies and accommodate diverse cultural and economic interests. This course focuses on the federal form of state organization, looking at both the essential characteristics of federalism and the considerable variation between existing federal states. We first address what it means for a state to be federal, and discuss some theoretical approaches to the understanding of federalism and its political and economic functions and consequences. Then, we focus on a number of cases to apply these insights and to illustrate the differences between federal states, which are a result of the historical context, population characteristics and functional requirements of each case.