The Rise of Regional Authority

Liesbet Hooghe is Zachary Taylor Smith Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Chair in Multilevel Governance at the Free University of Amsterdam. She was a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute, Humboldt Visiting Fellow at the Wissenschaftszentrum für Sozialforschung in Berlin, and Fellow at the Hanse Wissenschaftskolleg in Delmenhorst, and held visiting professorships at Sciences Po, Konstanz, and Pompeu Fabra. She is the former chair of the European Politics and Society Organized Section of the American Political Science Association, and current president (2007-2009) of the European Union Studies Association.

Most countries around the globe have one or two levels of regional or intermediate government, yet we have little systematic idea of how much authority they wield, or how this has changed over time. This book measures and explains the formal authority of intermediate or regional government in 42 advanced democracies, including the 27 EU member states. It tracks regional authority on an annual basis from 1950 to 2006. The measure reveals wide variation both cross-sectionally and over time. The authors examine four influences functional pressures, democratization, European integration, and identity to explain regionalization over the past half-century.This unique and comprehensive volume will be a vital resource for students and scholars of comparative politics, public administration and public management, federalism, democratization, nationalism, and multilevel governance.

1. Measuring Regional Authority 2. Operationalizing Regional Authority 3. Validation of the Regional Authority Index 4. An Era of Regionalization Appendix A: Profiles of Regional Reform in 42 Countries (1950-2006) Appendix B: Country and Regional Scores