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taking stock of multi-level governance networks

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Abstract

This article begins by describing the major characteristics and the origins of multi-level governance (MLG). It then discusses the alleged novelty of MLG practices, whether MLG achieves its goals in terms of policy efficiency and acceptance, and the possible consequences of governance networks for the democratic quality of political decisions. In relation to these matters, it concludes that there is a gap between the intensity of theoretical debate and a lack of systematic empirical research. It thus seeks to provide some indications about promising avenues for ‘second generation’ research that would allow us to give more substantial answers to controversial questions concerning MLG.

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Notes

  1. An example of MLG is the form of representation of regions at EU level: the German federal government often includes representatives of the Länder in its delegations to the Council, and it is constitutionally required to negotiate with the Bundesrat or with individual Länder on matters where the latter have exclusive competence or where competences are shared. Similarly, Spain has established a conference within which central government negotiates with the autonomous regions on European issues (Lord, 2004: 110–11).

  2. See the definition by Skelcher (2005: 90): ‘ Networks engage mainstream state, federal, regional, and local governments in interactions with arm's length public bodies including quasi-governmental agencies, single-purpose boards, public-private partnerships, and multi-organizational collaborations’.

  3. In the Upper Rhine valley for instance, Swiss, French, and German regions ‘have developed a wide range of transnational jurisdictions, involving meetings of regional government leaders, a regional council of parliamentary representatives, a conference of city mayors, boards of regional planners, associations of local authorities, agricultural associations, chambers of commerce, cooperation projects among universities, joint research projects on regional climate change and biotechnology, teacher exchange programs, and school partnerships’ (Hooghe and Marks, 2003: 238).

  4. Skelcher (2005: 97ff.) further distinguishes within type II between ‘club’, ‘agency’, and ‘polity forming’.

  5. Funded through the Swiss programme ‘Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century’, directed by H. Kriesi. See pp. 44 and 45 of the document submitted to the Swiss National Science Foundation.

  6. Several years before the ‘network’ terminology became fashionable in the international scientific community, Padioleau (1981) explained the decline of the French steel industry in terms of the erroneous choices of the community of interest representatives and politicians that was responsible for strategic adjustment, and which he attributed to the community's closure and lack of learning capacity.

  7. See also Eva Sørensen's contribution for a different treatment of this problem.

  8. Such problems are adequately treated by ‘principal-agent’ models. For a recent overview see Bendor et al. (2001).

  9. In the conclusions to a forthcoming book entitled Governance and Democracy, we propose the following decisional pattern of meta–governance (Jessop, 2004) to give concrete effect to democratic control (Benz and Papadopoulos, forthcoming). It is a pattern that can be applied regardless of the decisional level under consideration, and one that can also be used for the assessment of empirical cases.

    A decisional pattern characterised by a functional separation of power between policy formulation in networks, and veto power dedicated to institutions which are authorised and accountable to citizens. Formally authorised institutions should first have a constituent function by setting the procedural rules for fair participation and for accountability in governance. The same institutions should have the final say on outputs, by being an effective locus of final decisions (and this requires resources in terms of information, time, professionalism, organisation) on proposals formulated by governance networks, that have for their part the advantage of pooling expertise and of facilitating acceptance by ‘stakeholders’. In national, regional as well as in international governance, citizens (by referendum), national parliaments, or elected governments should fulfil the constituent and veto functions, even though delegation to governments would play a stronger role at the supra- and international-level. Actors in networks should then have to convince in communicative processes the legitimised veto-players about their policy proposals, while veto-players would be forced to effectively supervise participation and policy-making in governance.

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  1. Institut d'Etudes Politiques et Internationales, Université de Lausanne, BFSH2, Lausanne, CH-1015, Switzerland

    Yannis Papadopoulos

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Papadopoulos, Y. taking stock of multi-level governance networks. Eur Polit Sci 4, 316–327 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.eps.2210032

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