Teaching Federalism: Multidimensional Approaches, by John Kincaid and J. Wesley Leckrone

Abstract

At a time of big geopolitical changes to the world order, it is imperative that federalism is studied and taught in a way that prepares students for an unknown future. This means that one needs to move beyond the safety of exclusive specialisms, disciplinary blinkers, methodological narrowness, and definitional strictness. Teaching Federalism: Multidimensional Approaches takes us past the comfort zone of traditional teaching on federalism in the West by laying out its analyses in a truly global and inclusive manner. The textbook contains twenty chapters covering almost every substantive facet of federalism, ranging from fiscal federalism to intergovernmental relations, from social policymaking to political culture. Most contributions are written by political scientists—some with a pronounced philosophical bent, but a few chapters are penned by law scholars, and one was written by an economist. John Kincaid and J. Wesley Leckrone’s volume is not only multidimensional in terms of the disciplinary affiliation of its contributors but most chapters are also relevant to federations beyond the West. As an indication of this global inclusiveness, Teaching Federalism also contains in-depth case studies of India and Nigeria, in addition to other cases. All chapters are written with undergraduate and graduate teaching in mind, and thus have discussions points, essay questions, and teaching simulations. What is more, the publisher and the editors have graciously made the entire textbook Open Access—an immense gift to teachers and students in places where hardcopies of books are unavailable and institutional and personal subscription to online sources are prohibitively expensive.