Measures and explains the formal authority of intermediate or regional general-purpose government in 42 countries from 1950 to 2006. Yielding a complex mosaic of scores across countries and time, the authors identify some simple and fundamental patterns.[...]

European politics has been reshaped in recent decades by a dual process of centralization and decentralization. At the same time that authority in many policy areas has shifted to the suprantional level of the European Union, so national governments have given subnational regions within countries mo[...]

In the early 1980s, many observers, argued that powerful organized economic interests and social democratic parties created successful mixed economies promoting economic growth, full employment, and a modicum of social equality. The present book assembles scholars with formidable expertise in the st[...]