This insightful Research Agenda takes a thematic approach to analysing reform in regional and local government, exploring central concepts such as devolution, Europeanisation and globalisation. Expert contributors address key trends in structural change and reorganisation, subnational autonomy and decentralisation, metropolitan governance, and multi-level governance.

The book provides a the state-of-the-art of local government studies, with an emphasis on contributions by political science. Particular attention is paid to the development of the research agenda in the field, of which a potential future development is outlined.

The book explores and discusses some of the changes, challenges and opportunities confronting local governance in the context of the new urban paradigm associated with the HABITAT III New Urban Agenda, a 20-year strategy for sustainable urbanization, adopted in October 2016 in Quito, Ecuador. The chapters included in the book address public policy issues from different theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches, written by authors from different academic disciplines within the broad area of social sciences (Geography, Political Science, Public Administration, Spatial Planning, Law, Regional Science, among other fields), and offer an inter-disciplinary vision of these issues. The chapters are written by members of the International Geographical Union (IGU) Commission on Geography of Governance.

The large number of municipal governments in Allegheny County is a derivative of Pennsylvania's governance structure and history. This structure provides for strong representation at the local government level. The anticipated benefit of this structure is a greater sense of local "ownership," encouraging local government to be responsive to constituent demands. However, local representation also includes government fragmentation, with potential costs in the form of inefficiency and conflicting intercommunity goals. The RAND Corporation was asked to begin to explore and create a framework for studying the effects of Pennsylvania's locally dominated governance structure on regional performance and to identify potential lessons for Allegheny County from the experiences of other regions. Drawing from the literature, case studies, and local economic data sets, the authors investigated the empirical validity of two questions to understand whether they are worth pursuing in greater depth: Does multiplicity of local governance create inefficiencies in the cost, coverage, and quality of delivered services? Does this multiplicity inhibit timely and comprehensive decisionmaking for regional economic development? The authors conclude that the challenge facing the region is to assess whether a new vision for local governance can define a structure that provides efficient services, balances resources equitably, and positions the region to compete in the global market.

Holistic in approach, this Handbook’s international range of leading scholars present complementary perspectives, both theoretical and empirically pertinent, to explore recent developments in the field of local and regional governance.

In this forward-thinking book, fifteen leading scholars set forth cutting-edge agendas for research on significant facets of federalism, including basic theory, comparative studies, national and subnational constitutionalism, courts, self-rule and shared rule, centralization and decentralization, nationalism and diversity, conflict resolution, gender equity, and federalism challenges in Africa, Asia, and the European Union. More than 40 percent of the world’s population lives under federal arrangements, making federalism not only a major research subject but also a vital political issue worldwide.