The changing faces of federalism is an extraordinary book that provides a rigorous and original view of what will be the future of the European Union. It describes and discusses the tradition and the institutions of federalism in the Eastern, Central and Western European countries and deals thoroughly with many innovative issues about federalism such as multi-level-governance, network government, devolution, subsidiarity, asymmetry and functionalism.
A fundamental assumption of the book is that the European enlargement and the new European constitution could result in two major evolutions in the future: one is a full federal state in the traditional hierarchical sense, the other is an institutional response to the effects of the technological innovations of our epoch, which would be established through the insertion of the European Union within the emerging broad network of local, national, continental and intercontinental bodies at world level.

Contents:
Introduction - Sergio Ortino, Vojtech Mastny, and Mitja Zagar
1. The future of Europe in an era of federalism - Peter H. Russell
2. The historical experience of federalism in eastern and central Europe - Vojtech Mastny
3. The Russian Federation and 'functional federalism': lessons from Tatarstan and Chechnya - David O'Brian
4. The role of the Baltic states, Poland and Hungary in the new Europe - Kristian Gerner
5. The image of Europe: the European integration and the new Central Europe - András Bozóki
6. The collapse of the Yugoslav Federation and the viability of asymmetrical federalism - Mitja Zagar
7. National federalism within the EU: the Austrian experience - Peter Pernthaler and Anna Gamper
8. Farewell to the 'unitary federal state'? Transformation and tendencies of the German federal system - Jens Woelk
9. Italy's long devolutionary path towards federalism - Francesco Palermo
10. Regional autonomy, cultural diversity and European integration.The experience of Spain 11. United Kingdom and France: a stronger decentralization or just an institutional 'maquillage'? - Giovanni Poggeschi
12. Some first reflections on the 'treaty establishing a constitution for Europe' - Orsolya Farkas and Gabriel N. Toggenburg
13. Functional federalism between geopolitics and geoeconomics - Sergio Ortino

Sergio Ortino is Professor of Economic Law at the University of Florence and at the European Academy in Bolzano/Bozen, Italy. Mitja Zagar is Senior Reseach Fellow and Director of the Institute for Ethnic Studies and Associate Professor of Comparative Government and Ethnic Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ljubliana, Slovenia. Vojtech Mastny is a member of the Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities in Essen, Germany, and Research Associate of the Woodrow Wilson International School for Scholars in Washington DC, USA