Unraveling the Central State, But How? Types of Multi-Level Governance. IHS Political Science Series: 2003, No. 87

The reallocation of authority upwards, downwards, and sideways from central states has drawn attention from a growing number of scholars in political science. Yet beyond agreement that governance has become (and should be) multi-level, there is no consensus about how it should be organized. This article draws on several literatures to distinguish two types of multi-level governance. One type conceives of dispersion of authority to general-purpose, non-intersecting, and durable jurisdictions. A second type of governance conceives of task-specific, intersecting, and flexible jurisdictions. We conclude by specifying the virtues of each type of governance

Types of Multi-Level Governance

The reallocation of authority upwards, downwards, and sideways from central states hasdrawn attention from a growing number of scholars in the social sciences. Yet beyondagreement that governance has become (and should be) multi-level, there is no consensusabout how it should be organized. This paper draws on several literatures to distinguish twotypes of multi-level governance. One type conceives of dispersion of authority to a limitednumber of levels. A second type of governance conceives of a large number of functionallyspecialized, intersecting, and flexible jurisdictions. We conclude by specifying the virtues ofeach type of governance.multilevel governance; multilevel governance

Shifting inequalities? Patterns of exclusion and inclusion in emerging forms of political participation

Previous research has found a steady increase in the number of people involved in emerging forms of civic engagements such as Internet campaigns, protests, political consumerism, and alternative lifestyle communities. Verba et al. (1995) have established that various forms of political participation in the United States follow a pattern of structural inequality, based on income, education, gender and civic skills. The growing popularity of emerging action repertoires forces us to re-evaluate the claims of this literature. Do these patterns of inequality persist for the emerging action repertoires across advanced industrialized democracies, or are they becoming even stronger, as Theda Skocpol (2003, 2004) argues? The results of this cross-national analysis with longitudinal comparisons suggest that gender inequalities in emerging political action repertoires have substantially declined since the 1970s, whereas other forms of inequality have persisted. However, contrary to the more pessimistic claims about a "participation paradox", there is no evidence that inequality based on socio-economic status has substantially increased since the 1970s. --

The Neofunctionalists Were (almost) Right: Politicization and European Integration

This paper examines the politicization of European integration. We begin by asking how neofunctionalism and its precursor, functionalism, conceive the politics of regional integration. Then we turn to the evidence of the past two decades and ask how politicization has, in fact, shaped the level, scope, and character of European integration.political science; integration theory; neo-functionalism; identity; multilevel governance

A spatial analysis of Belgian national crime records, 2001-2005.

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The People Against Europe: The Eurosceptic Challenge to the United Kingdom's Coalition Government

This article approaches Euroscepticism as central to a contemporary dynamic of government and opposition. Populist Eurosceptic mobilizations exemplify opposition to depoliticized forms of political rule and demonstrate the tight political coupling of the national and the European. In the case of the United Kingdom, a depoliticized post-imperial governing approach to European integration has proved highly contested. From this perspective, the article examines the recent politics of Europe under the coalition government (from 2010 to 2013) as a period of Eurosceptic mobilization that successfully challenges European policy. What on the surface appears to be a problem of party management for the Conservative leadership is more accurately understood as a broader conflict between government and a populist Eurosceptic opposition. The outcome of this conflict is to further embed hard Euroscepticism within British politics to the point where maintaining governing autonomy on Europe is severely constrained, if not unfeasible

European Integration and the State

European Commission; implementation; integration theory; multilevel governance; national interest; Nation-state; neo-functionalism; polity building; Single Market; Treaty on European Union

core beliefs on EU governance

1\. Introduction 5 2\. Commission Officials and EU Governance 5 2.1 Explaining Beliefs on EU Governance 9 2.2 Beliefs about the Future 12 3\. Commission Officials and Politics 14 3.1 Understanding Ideological Variation in the Commission 15 3.2 The Meaning of the “Political“ 18 4\. Commission Officials and Policy Scope 21 4.1 Centralization Across the Board? 22 4.2 Bureau- maximization? 24 5\. Conclusion 26 References 28 Appendix: Multivariate Analyses 31What lives in the European Commission at the beginning of the 21st Century? This paper charts Commission officials’ views on the governance, ideological direction, and policy scope of the European Union, employing data from a large survey conducted in Autumn 2008. First, the Commission is not a hothouse for supranationalism. True, supporters of a supranational Union with the College of Commissioners as the government of Europe and member states in the back seat are the largest minority, but they are outnumbered two-to-one by state- centric, pragmatist, and ambivalent officials. There are striking differences in distribution by nationality, gender, and department. Second, where do Commission officials stand on ideology? The answer is that the Commission is broadly representative of European societies, at least on traditional economic left/right issues, though decidedly more socio-liberal. Ideological views are not randomly distributed across services, with social DGs significantly more social-democratic than DGs handling market integration. Officials from new member states are more market-liberal than their ‘western’ colleagues. Finally, are Commission officials indeed bureau-maximizers? We find that, on the whole, Commission officials want more EU authority in the eleven policy areas that we asked them to evaluate, but their desire to centralize is selective and measured. It seems driven by functional imperatives – centralization where scale economies can be reaped – and by values and ideology rather than by a generalized preference for maximal Commission power. In short, the bureaucratic politics argument has been overstated

The European Commission in the 21st century: core beliefs on EU governance

What lives in the European Commission at the beginning of the 21st Century? This paper charts Commission officials’ views on the governance, ideological direction, and policy scope of the European Union, employing data from a large survey conducted in Autumn 2008. First, the Commission is not a hothouse for supranationalism. True, supporters of a supranational Union with the College of Commissioners as the government of Europe and member states in the back seat are the largest minority, but they are outnumbered two-to-one by state-centric, pragmatist, and ambivalent officials. There are striking differences in distribution by nationality, gender, and department. Second, where do Commission officials stand on ideology? The answer is that the Commission is broadly representative of European societies, at least on traditional economic left/right issues, though decidedly more socio-liberal. Ideological views are not randomly distributed across services, with social DGs significantly more social-democratic than DGs handling market integration. Officials from new member states are more market-liberal than their ‘western’ colleagues. Finally, are Commission officials indeed bureau-maximizers? We find that, on the whole, Commission officials want more EU authority in the eleven policy areas that we asked them to evaluate, but their desire to centralize is selective and measured. It seems driven by functional imperatives – centralization where scale economies can be reaped – and by values and ideology rather than by a generalized preference for maximal Commission power. In short, the bureaucratic politics argument has been overstated