Federalism and Disability: Notes Toward a Research Agenda

Although having long received rather short shrift, disability has gained increasing research attention in political science and other social sciences in recent years, including in connection with democracy, representation and participation (see exemplary Elizabeth Evans & Stefanie Reher, Disability and Political Representation (2024, OUP), as well as Ann Heffernan, Disability in Political Science (Ann. Rev. Pol. Sci. 2024)). Similar – though perhaps even more so – applies regarding research connected with the ambit of public policy and disability. On the other hand, federalism and linkages between disability and federal systems continues to be rather neglected by comparison so far. One finds a number of pertinent contributions such as on state-federal relations on disability policy in particular cases and selected contributions of more general character such as on federalism and implementation of disability rights (see e.g. Ferri, Palermo & Martinico, Symposium on Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 2023). Consequently, there remains much potential, and surely a great deal of unexplored territory, on federalism and disability. Accordingly, this paper takes on this explorative endeavour to sketch a potential framework of a more comprehensive research programme, highlighting avenues for more in-depth and comparative study. To this end, it builds on the research state of the art in relation to disability and federalism. Moreover, it draws on comparative federalism literature to conceptualize such a suitable framework. As the paper aims to illustrate, bringing federalism into political science research on disability not only addresses a research desideratum. The federal lens could also prove particularly fruitful not least on account of the external variance among but also the internal diversity within federal systems, which for instance can reveal different policy types or regimes as well as offer ‘laboratories of democracy’ with participatory experimentalism.