Theorising Decentralisation Comparative Evidence from Sub-National Switzerland [Paperback]

This book seeks to explain centralisation and decentralisation across the 26 Swiss cantons using sociocultural, political-ideological, and macro-structural approaches.This book seeks to explain centralisation and decentralisation across the 26 Swiss cantons using sociocultural, political-ideological, and macro-structural approaches. Centralisation and decentralisation are conceptionalised as having institutional (polity), functional (policy) and actor- and process-oriented dimensions. When decentralisation is first predicted cross-sectionally using linear regression models, three significant independent variables emerge: political culture, area, and the strength of leftwing parties. Then, using process tracing, Mueller studies four cantons over time to move from identifying correlation to establishing causation. Finally, the author draws causal inferences for (de)centralisation, urging future federal and territorial politics studies to reconceptualise decentralisation into three distinct but related dimensions and to bridge the theoretical gap between socio-cultural, structural and party-political approaches to achieve more valid and reliable explanations of territorial governance.ContentsList of Figures and Tables viiAbbreviations xiThe 26 Swiss Cantons xiPreface xiiiIntroduction xixChapter One: Existing Insights 1Chapter Two: Concept and Theory 33Chapter Three: Case Study Design 53Chapter Four: Measuring Cantonal Decentralisation 63Chapter Five: Predicting Cantonal Decentralisation 101Chapter Six: Tracing Cantonal Decentralisation 129Chapter Seven: Decentralisation  So What? 165Chapter Eight: Comparative Perspectives 185Conclusions 209Appendices 213Data Appendix 219Bibliography 225Index 267Sean Mueller is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the University of Berne, Switzerland, and editorial assistant of the?Swiss Political Science Review. He obtained his PhD from the University of Kent in 2013. Before that, he was Research Fellow at the Institute of FederalH