In this paper I argue that Intergovernmental Relations (IGR) differ among federations in their capacity as a federal safeguard to prevent opportunism. Thus, I add IGR as the intergovernmental safeguard to Bednar’s (2009) list of federal safeguards. In doing so I follow her definition of federal safeguards as incentive mechanisms that uphold compliance with the distribution of power by preventing opportunistic behavior. My core argument is that from a theoretical point of view IGR show a particularly high safeguarding capacity due to potentially high levels of intra-safeguard coverage, redundancy and complementarity (Bednar 2009). Empirically, however, IGR differ among federations in their safeguarding capacity not only because of different levels of intra-safeguard coverage, redundancy and complementarity but also because of differences in the commitment to intergovernmental coordination. In this paper I compare IGR's safeguarding capacity in nine democratic federations.
