Public service delivery in the contemporary American state is becoming increasingly challenging. As the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) shows, new social policies combine high technological and cognitive demands on citizens and government with budget austerity, decentralization...

American federalism is often described as a system that contains "political safety valves," or institutional mechanisms that ensure that major policy reforms can be created, even during periods of intense political conflict. By granting discretion to the states, for example, scholars claim that...

The promotion of transparency has long been identified with the goal of holding democratic governments (and sometimes the private sector) responsible. In recent years, advocates of “open government” have argued that, beyond mere accountability, transparency can be a positive instrument of...

Federalism plays a foundational role in structuring public expectations about how the United States will respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, as both an unprecedented public-health crisis and an economic recession. As in prior crises, state governments are expected to be primary sites of governing...