At the end of the twentieth century, academics and policymakers welcomed a trend toward fiscal and political decentralization as part of a potential solution for slow economic growth and poor performance by insulated, unaccountable governments. For the past two decades, researchers have been trying to answer a series of vexing questions about the political economy of multilayered governance.

Disarray in Washington has a silver lining: state and local governments reclaiming their essential role in American democracy. 

History shows that special counsels almost inevitably overstep their mandates.

America’s founders accepted the perennial clash of “interests and passions”—in fact, they welcomed it. What they feared was unity: the unity of a people under a demagogue or a domineering government.