We are delighted that Edward Elgar Publishing invited us to develop this book on teaching federalism as part of its series on teaching subjects of contemporary importance. The prospect of assembling such a book was challenging because, while we, like other scholars, often write about federalism for academic and lay audiences, we do not, perhaps, give much systematic thought to how to teach federalism beyond what we do in our classrooms. Elgar's invitation also prompted us to wonder how our friends and colleagues around the world approach the subject.After all, approximately 28 countries in the world might be regarded as having a constitutional or operational form of federal governance (depending on one's definition of a federal system). As of 2022, these federal countries accounted for 44.4 percent of the world's landmass, 48.5 percent of the world's GDP, and 41.5 percent of the world's population. If one also counts the European Union (EU) as a supranational confederation or quasi-federation, then adding the people who live in the EU's non-federal countries brings the proportion of people living under a federal arrangement to 45.3 percent of the world's population. If one includes the United Nations as at least a loose confederal arrangement, then nearly every person on the planet resides under a federal arrangement. Federalism, therefore, is a principle of governance and of government organization with wide applications.Yet, most people know little, if anything, about federalism. When asked questions about federalism or their own federal system in surveys, most people express opinions but few can define federalism or describe its structures or operation. We also know very little about where, by whom, and how often federalism is taught in primary and secondary schools and in universities and colleges worldwide. Some survey information is available for North America (Kincaid and Cole 2014, 2016, 2018 but apparently not for elsewhere. Further, teachers, professors, and students in developing countries, as well as many students in developed countries, often lack funds and adequate libraries to acquire books and other resources for teaching federalism. Furthermore, many educators who teach about federalism do so from the perspective of

The American federal system is composed of one general and 50 state governments. Although not mentioned in the US Constitution, 90,075 local governments (51,533 general purpose and 38,542 special purpose) play roles in the federal partnership. The United States has had two constitutions. The Articles of Confederation (ratified in 1781) provided for a weak general government, which proved untenable. The US Constitution (ratified in 1788) sought to rectify the Articles' problems by creating an energetic general government with the power to unite the interests of the nation, while preserving the states' autonomy to act in their own spheres. This resulted in the world's first modern federal system.The US Constitution was designed to create a system of governments strong enough to respond to the needs of the people, while also preserving individual liberty. It incorporated several institutional characteristics to achieve this: separation of powers, checks and balances, representative democracy, an extended (i.e., geographically large) republic, and federalism (Lutz 1990). As James Madison argued in Federalist 51:The power surrendered by the people, is first divided between two distinct governments, and then the portion allotted to each, subdivided among distinct and separate departments. Hence a double security arises to the rights of people. The different governments will control each other; at the same time that each will be controlled by itself. (Madison 1990, 332) The American system is generally considered a model of dual federalism. The US Constitution delegates powers to the federal government, implicitly allows for some concurrent federal and state powers, and reserves all undelegated powers to the states under the Tenth Amendment of 1791. The powers delegated to the federal government are primarily enumerated in Article 1, Section 8. The rest are reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment, which