1 / 10

Multilevel governance and the EU Paolo R. Graziano Political Science AY 2011-2012 Lecture 14

Multilevel governance and the EU Paolo R. Graziano Political Science AY 2011-2012 Lecture 14. Multilevel governance. Multilevel governance implies power sharing among different levels of government. It impacts on: sovereignity (power sharing) policy-making (policy coordination)

bayle
Download Presentation

Multilevel governance and the EU Paolo R. Graziano Political Science AY 2011-2012 Lecture 14

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Multilevel governance and the EUPaolo R. GrazianoPolitical Science AY 2011-2012Lecture 14

  2. Multilevel governance • Multilevel governance implies power sharing among different levels of government. It impacts on: • sovereignity (power sharing) • policy-making (policy coordination) • representation (overlapping vs. conflicting membership) • Federalism is the main and more consolidated form of multilevel governance • Confederations are characterized by looser links since the participating countries retain sovereignity

  3. Why federalism? • large countries… • …with significant territorial and historical differences and/or cleavages… • …which phase common external threats. • most common route to federalism: creating a new central authority during the nation-state building phase (ex. US, Switzerland, Canada, Australia) • less common (and more problematic) route to federalism: transferring sovereignity to lower levels of government (ex. Belgium)

  4. Federalism types • dual federalism: national/federal and state governments operate independently following the Constitution’s allocation of powers (ex. US). • cooperative federalism: national and state/regional governments work together by following the subsidiarity principle – decisions should be taken at the lowest possible level (es. Germany).

  5. Federalism: strenghts and weaknesses • Main strenghts: • provides vertical checks and balances • better allows for recognition of territorial differences • reduces overload to the centre • brings government closer to the people • Main weaknesses: • decision-making is slow and complicated (especially in the cooperative variant) • may enhance divisions between provinces • differential treatment of citizens • complicates accountability

  6. The European Union • multilevel political system (not a supranational state, not a fully-fledged federation – closer to a confederation) • Main legislature: EU Council of Ministers (but with expanding powers for the European Parliament) • Main executive: European Commission • Main judiciary: European Court of Justice • Created in order to: • reduce internal conflicts • set up a common market • enhance international power

  7. Evolving MLG and unitary states • Also centralized or federal functions have been increasingly shared with other actors: • deconcentration – central government functions are executed by delocalized staff (ex. US federal employees) • decentralization – central government functions are executed by subnational authorities (ex. local welfare programmes in Scandinavia) • devolution – central government grants some decision-making autonomy to lower levels (ex. regional governments in France and Spain, and more recently in the UK)

  8. Regional governance and local government • After WW2, increasing powers have been granted to subnational levels of government… • …but very cautiously. • Initially, formal and limited autonomy; then regions (and local political fora) have become autonomous spaces for politics • Local governments (status and structure) differ significantly in various democratic regimes

  9. Central-local relations in nondemocratic regimes • nondemocratic regimes often are NOT pure unitary states • main feature: substantial lack of autonomy… • …and very limited independent subnational spaces for politics. • Nevertheless, it is at the ‘lower’ level that innovative forms of governments – which may eventually lead to democratization processes – can occur.

  10. Conclusion • over the past years, multilevel governance systems have expanded both within nation-states and at the international level • also unitary states have increased the availability of news subnational spaces for politics • main reform driver in democratic regimes: diversity ‘management’ concerns

More Related