This edited book assembles chapters that deal with issues regarding the structure of local government and the role municipalities play in intergovernmental relations. Within these broad thematic areas, research within a Horizon 2020 project on “Local Government and the Changing Urban-Rural Interplay—LoGov,” which brought together the expertise of 18 partner institutions from six continents, has revealed several issues as particularly salient and under-researched from a global comparative perspective, namely decentralization within metropolitan areas, mergers and inter-municipal cooperation as tools to tackle structural challenges in rural areas, the role of local authorities in vertical intergovernmental conferences, and the representation of urban and rural interests through local government associations. This chapter provides short introductions to these four issues and presents the guiding questions for the case studies included in this volume.