Russell L. Hanson is professor of political science at Indiana University.
Recently, budgetary restraints and institutional gridlock have limited the role of the national government in domestic policymaking. Subnational governments have responded by assuming primary responsibility for a number of key problems, including economic development, educational improvement, environmental regulation, and health and welfare innovat
1 The Interaction of State and Local Governments, 2 The Intergovernmental Setting of State-Local Relations, 3 State-Local Relations: Union and Home Rule, 4 Emerging Trends in State-Local Relations, 5 The Politics of State-Local Fiscal Relations, 6 Partners for Growth: State and Local Relations in Economic Development, 7 The State-Local Partnership in Education, 8 Environmental Regulation and State-Local Relations, 9 Untidy Business: Disaggregating State-Local Relations, 10 The Politics of State Health and Welfare Reforms
The USA has some 80,000 sub-national governments, ranging from nation-sized states to mosquito-abatement districts. This introduction to state-local relations includes an overview of the structure of state-local arrangements, important policy issues, and the likely future of state-local relations.
