Jenna Bednar

Professor Bednar's research is on the analysis of institutions, focusing on the theoretical underpinnings of the stability of federal states.  Her most recent book,The Robust Federation demonstrates how complementary institutions maintain and adjust the distribution of authority between national and state governments. This book makes two theoretical contributions to the study of federalism's design.  First, it shows that distributions suggested by a constitution mean nothing if the governments have no incentive to abide by them, and intergovernmental retaliation tends to be inefficient.  The book's second contribution is that while no institutional safeguard is sufficient to improve the union's prosperity, institutions work together to improve compliance with the distribution of authority, thereby boosting the union's performance.

Generally, her work seeks to answer questions such as:

• Why does the federal government take advantage of state governments? 
• Why are some federations stable, despite frequent episodes of intergovernmental tension?
• Can the court effectively referee federalism disputes if it makes mistakes or is biased in favor of one government? 

Professor Bednar is also interested in constitutions: specifically, the potential that constitutional design has to affect the behavior of heterogeneous populations with decentralized governmental structures. 

Courses Taught

• American State Government
• Comparative Constitutional Design
• Foundations of Institutional Analysis
• The Politics of Federalism

Affiliation(s)

• Center for Political Studies, Institute for Social Research

Field(s) of Study

• Federalism
• Foundations of Institutional Analysis
• Formal Modeling
• Constitutional Theory and Design