The world is increasingly inter-connected. As a result, most of the challenges facing our country–whether they relate to ensuring emergency preparedness, promoting economic growth, providing access to education and health services, fixing infrastructure or ensuring a clean environment—cannot be dealt with efficiently by any individual local government or state, or even by the federal government working by itself. America’s grand challenges require intergovernmental solutions. Effective intergovernmental policy solutions require citizens, researchers and policy makers at all government levels to work together and to be informed by federal, state and local-level data and analysis.

Yet, despite an explosion in the availability of information and data in recent years, there is not a single platform or publication today that allows public officials, citizens, or scholars to easily find basic data on key aspects of public institutions, governance, public administration and public finance at the federal, state and local level in the United States.

Federalism.US fills this void by offering a convening place for policy makers, researchers and citizens interested in analyzing and better understanding issues related to federalism, intergovernmental relations and multilevel democracy.

The portal comprises three main sections: an online data book (Significant Features of American Federalism); news items and blogs on issues related to federalism and intergovernmental relations (Intergovernmental Matters); and resource materials on federalism and intergovernmental relations in the U.S. (American Federalism 101).