Editors Palermo and Alber present students, academics, researchers, and professionals working in a variety of political contexts with a collection of academic essays and scholarly articles investigating federalism as a pragmatic governance tool. The editors have organized the twenty-four contributions that make up the main body of the text in five sections devoted to federalism, democracy, and governance, participation mechanisms and procedures, intergovernmental relations, a comparison of policy areas, institutional innovation and participatory democracy, and bringing federalism from theory to governance. Francesco Palermo is a faculty member of the University of Verona, Spain, and the European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen. Elisabeth Alber is a Senior Research and Program Officer at the European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen. Annotation ©2015 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)