Measuring Regional Authority: A Postfunctionalist Theory of Governance

This book sets out principles of measurement in political and social science and proposes a measure of regional authority. The most distinctive feature of the measure is that it takes the individual region as a unit of analysis. The regional authority index estimates self-rule and shared rule exercised by regional governments on an annual basis from 1950–2010 in eighty-one countries. These include all eu member states, member states of the organization for economic cooperation and development, and latin american countries, plus ten countries in europe beyond the european union and eleven in asia pacific. On the premise that transparency is a fundamental virtue in measurement, the authors chart a new path in laying out their theoretical, conceptual, and scoring decisions before the reader. The book also provides summaries of regional governance in eighty-one countries for the expert and general reader alike.