What’s the problem? Multilevel governance and problem-solving

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via the DOI in this record.The study of multilevel governance (MLG) is fundamentally concerned with the capacity of multilevel governance to effectively deal with policy problems. However, the notion of problem-solving itself remains vague. Moreover, MLG research prioritizes questions of structure and agency, while neglecting the role and nature of policy problems themselves. This symposium defines problem-solving in both procedural and operational terms. The introduction reviews relevant attributes of policy problems and existing assumptions about their influence on problem-solving. By adding uncertainty, tractability, and three political attributes (power, conflict, salience), we propose an extended list of attributes of policy problems that matter for problem-solving, and link them to different notions of procedural and operational problemsolving in MLG. The contributions address the challenges facing problem-solving in the European Union, adopting a particular focus on the characteristics of policy problems. Empirical cases include the European Semester, Brexit, the governance of the swine flu pandemic, and climate change

Get Organised: The 'Do's' Preceding Successful Field Research

There is no shortage in the political science literature on field research regarding issues of research design, methodology, and data evaluation. Yet, the practical and organisational intricacies that precede successful fieldwork are frequently overlooked. This lack of methodical advice may be due to the impression that field research is highly contextual, and so case-specific that general guidelines, which apply to all field research endeavours alike, are inconceivable. While we acknowledge the organisational complexity of field research, we disagree with the notion that the preparatory dimension of fieldwork is by necessity unique for every undertaking. Rather, recommendations for common challenges that occur during the preparation and organisation phase of a field trip can be identified and formulated. Consequently, we present and discuss ten organisational ?do's? preceding successful field research. Current graduate students and future field researchers will regard these ten pointers as useful hints in the organisation of their own endeavour. While the list is by no means exhaustive, the ten recommendations will lower the organisational entry costs of aspiring field researchers, and enable them to hit the ground running when arriving in the field

On the Methodology of Studying Differentiated (Dis)integration : Or how the Potential Outcome Framework can contribute to evaluating the costs and benefits of opting in or out

The European Commission's 2017 White Paper on the Future of Europe maps out several scenarios related to differentiated (dis)integration. But although our understanding of the causes of differentiated (dis)integration has substantively improved over recent years, our knowledge about its consequences still remains limited. This shortcoming may entail difficulties when it comes to formulating policy recommendations. Accordingly, we propose a stronger attention to the effects‐of‐causes of differentiated (dis)integration, linked to a more careful implementation of insights on causal inference. After briefly reviewing the foci and methods of existing literature on differentiated (dis)integration, we introduce the potential outcome model of causal inference. We provide an exemplary application of the synthetic control method, as one method related to this framework. Our analysis highlights that the UK has economically benefitted from not joining the Eurozone, but our argument more generally is about the practical implications of methodological choices in the study of differentiated (dis)integration.publishe