 Jan Erk, Does Federalism Really Matter? In 1969, in ¡°Six Books in Search of a Subject or Does Federalism Exist and Does It Matter,¡± William Riker reached rather bleak conclusions concerning scholarship about federalism. This review looks at recent books on federalism to see if Riker¡¯s verdict still applies. These books show that federalism indeed exists, so the aim is to evaluate current scholarship to see if federalism matters through four dimensions: democratic participation, representation, and accountability; the representation and accommodation of territorially based ethnic, cultural, and linguistic differences; public policy and governmental effectiveness; and the design of federal institutions. |