Pehr, Andreas 2023 Federalism settles decision-making power to state levels close to the citizens. This political decentralization should enable political output being as responsive and corresponding as possible to the diverse demands and needs, thus, resulting in politically happy citizens. As such, federalism and decentralization may represent a polity of good governance. Based on the theoretical literature and previous empirical studies the paper undertakes a large N, cross-section analysis of the relationship between federalism and political satisfaction. The empirical result shows that federalism as well as decentralization appear not to have a statistically significant relationship with political satisfaction. Neither the pro- nor the contra-argument in federal theory survives empirical scrutiny. application/pdf https://folia.unifr.ch/global/documents/325389 https://folia.unifr.ch/documents/325389/files/35_Andreas Pehr.pdf eng IFF info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.51363/unifr.diff.2023.35 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/issn/2813-5261 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess CC BY Federalism Decentralization Happiness Political Satisfaction Good Governance Public Choice info:eu-repo/classification/udc/34 Federal and Happy? : Examining federalism, decentralization and citizens’ satisfaction http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_18ws