Thirty years of Regional and Federal Studies

Abstract

Regional and Federal Studies’30th anniversary offers an opportunity to takestock of the state of the discipline and of the journal. We make four claims.First, the multi-level nature of the political world has intensified in the last 30years. Second, the approaches to studying this changing world have evolvedthrough a quantitative and comparative turn.Regional and Federal Studieshas embraced these developments whilst remaining faithful to its tradition ofrich conceptual and case-study work. Third, the journal has contributed tothe‘territorialization’of mainstream political science as manyfields of studyhave gradually recognized the limitations of national- or single-level analyses.Finally, the journal itself has diversified in terms of approaches, methods,geographical coverage, and gender balance of author profiles, although werecognize there is more to do. We view further comparative research on theGlobal South as a particularly important research avenue.