The Roundtable is co-organized and co-sponsored by two CES Networks: The Political Economy and the Welfare Research Network and the Territorial Politics Network. The roundtable brings together leading scholars from both territorial politics and welfare state research and aims at stimulating further cross-disciplinary discussion and exchange between both subfields. The theme of decentralization and the welfare state is all the more important and interesting today, as decentralization and succession, but also recentralization processes are important topics in many democracies around the globe. The panelists will cover questions such as

- Is there regional variation in welfare provision at all? Is it systematic?

- What are advantages and disadvantages of decentralized welfare provision?

- Are decentralized (or federal) states better or worse at delivering welfare?

- As many countries witnes increasing decentralization, how does this affect welfare provision?

- How do the politics of welfare de-/recentralization work?

- How do decentralization processes play out in different social policy fields and in different world regions?

In terms of country coverage, the roundtable covers democracies in Europe, North America, and Latin America. Speakers will include: Daniel Béland, Scott Greer, Mariely Lopez-Santana, Sara Niedzwiecki, and Jefferey Sellers. Julian L. Garritzmann and Sean Müller will co-chair the event.