Overview and Introduction

Abstract

“There is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong,” H.L. Mencken, an American journalist, once observed.¹ The authors of the following chapters on the federalism policy framework do not make that mistake. They all make quite clear that formulating, funding, and implementing public services within a federal system is anything but neat and plausible. Rather than make even more complex these matters within what Susan Clarke has characterized in Chapter 3 in this book as “many federalisms,” my purpose is to present a broad framework encompassing all three chapters, and, in so doing, to show how each represents a valuable and distinctive perspective on the policy framework.