Multilevel Governance: A Faustian Bargain?

Abstract

The restructuring of political authority in the Western European political and institutional context propelled by the growing powers of the EU has been fertile soil for analyses of MLG. The search for alternative accounts of intergovernmental relations has also been fuelled by regional devolution in countries such as some of the Scandinavian and Southern European states (notably Spain) and the UK (Pierre and Stoker, 2000). Relationships among institutions at different tiers of government in this perspective are believed to be fluid, negotiated, and contextually defined. Previously hierarchical models of institutional “layering,” for example, formal treatments of federalism, are being replaced with a more complex image of intergovernmental relations in which subnational authorities engage in direct exchange with supranational or global institutions and vice versa.