Eva Maria Belser holds a Chair for Constitutional and Administrative Law at the University of Fribourg and a UNESCO Chair in Human Rights and Democracy. She is Co-Director of the Institute of Federalism and a Board Member of the Swiss Centre of Expertise in Human Rights. She teaches and publishes in the field of Swiss and comparative constitutional law, federalism, decentralisation and globalisation, human and minority rights and democracy as well as constitution making and conflict resolution. She regularly accepts mandates to serve as a Swiss expert in international consultancy projects. Her recent consultancy activities were related to Iraq, the Maldives, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Syria. She was awarded the Swiss federalism prize in 2019.
Thea Bächler is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Federalism of the University of Fribourg. In her research, she focuses on constitutional social rights and social welfare systems in federal contexts.
Sandra Egli works for the Chair for Constitutional and Administrative Law at the University of Fribourg. Her research interests are fundamental rights and interdisciplinary questions in law. She holds a Master in Law from the University of Bern and a Master in Political Science from the University of Zurich.
Lawrence Zünd holds a Master of Arts in Political Science from the University of Lausanne. He has studied in China and Lebanon, where he developed a deep understanding of local and regional issues. Proponent of interdisciplinarity, he focuses on the role of perceptions and emotions in socio-political turning points.

This book examines different approaches by which states characterised by federal or decentralized arrangements reconcile equality and autonomy. In case studies from four continents, leading experts analyse the challenges of ensuring institutional, social and economic equality whilst respecting the competences of regions and the rights of groups.