Holistic in approach, this Handbook’s international range of leading scholars present complementary perspectives, both theoretical and empirically pertinent, to explore recent developments in the field of local and regional governance.

With a fresh outlook on the field, this Handbook builds significantly upon the existing literature to clarify the scope of the discipline, as well as providing tools, information, and research questions to better understand and further explore the field. Chapters provide theoretical and empirical context to current debates on local and regional governance and offer competing analytical lenses for studying the field. Topics explored include the intersecting roles, limits, opportunities, and influence of actors, democracy, place, scale, and networks, with examinations of social cohesion, intermunicipal decentralization, and emerging technologies. Particularly close attention is paid to relationships, as the Handbook introduces to the analysis the ways that actors, tiers of government, institutions and multiple jurisdictions exchange resources, coordinate action and produce decisions with collective impact in local and regional governance.



Interdisciplinary and international in scope, this Handbook will be an invigorating read for students and scholars looking to better understand contemporary policy, politics and subnational governance at local and regional levels.