Multilevel governance and problem‐solving: Towards a dynamic theory of multilevel policy‐making?

In this article, we suggest that the governance of problems shapes the institutional dynamics of multilevel governance (MLG) polities. MLG arrangements—processes and institutions that enable policy‐making across different jurisdictional levels wherein both public authorities and non‐state actors are involved—can or cannot succeed in solving policy problems and at the same time they could create new problems. We argue that the problem‐solving capacity and problem‐generating potential of multilevel arrangements can result in further, downwards, upwards or sideways delegation of political authority, which in turn reconfigure the multilevel architecture of the political system following either centripetal or centrifugal tendencies. We illustrate our point with a stylized account of the dynamics of MLG in the European Union (EU) since the early 1990s. We conclude with some remarks about developing a more general theory of multilevel policy‐making.     

Multilevel reinforcing dynamics: Global climate governance and European renewable energy policy

This article breaks new ground by revisiting the Multiple Streams Framework as central public policy theory and modifying it to take into account multilevel reinforcing dynamics. This is important as it allows policy change to be explained more accurately given the empirical interdependencies between policy‐making on the national, regional (e.g., European) and international levels, which so far have not been sufficiently taken into account by traditional public policy theories. It process‐traces how EU‐level policies motivated by energy security considerations and global climate leadership ambitions influenced international‐level agenda‐setting. Global climate change commitments in turn influenced European renewable energy and climate policy. Such multilevel reinforcing dynamics were central for the 2009 European Renewable Energy Directive, the 2030 Climate and Energy Framework and the 2050 European Green Deal proposal to emerge and subsequently facilitated the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change, which in turn motivated developed and developing countries to legislate and implement climate and renewable energy policies.     

Integration,functional differentiation and problem‐solving in multilevel governance

The European Union (EU) is currently facing unprecedented challenges to its problem‐solving capacity, such as those represented by pressing transnational crises and by bottom‐up criticisms towards the European integration process. Moreover, the EU is said to compensate its weak input legitimacy with an enhanced problem‐solving capacity. However, the notion of problem‐solving itself has remained remarkably vague in the multilevel governance (MLG) literature. This symposium analyses problem‐solving in different MLG settings. In this introduction, we identify procedural and operational notions of problem‐solving in MLG, and present a structural framework to guide the comparative analyses of multilevel systems along the dimensions of political integration, functional differentiation and decentralization. The contributions to the symposium illustrate how structural elements of different multilevel systems shape both the policy‐making process and the politics of problem‐solving within these systems. In doing so, they pave the way for further comparative research.     

ORGANIZING THE CORE EXECUTIVE FOR EUROPEAN UNION AFFAIRS: COMPARING FINLAND AND SWEDEN

Examining core executive organization for EU affairs in Finland and Sweden, this article uncovers how change agents used European integration deliberately to strengthen their role in the domestic settings through taking control of EU policy co‐ordination. In both countries, EU membership was an exogenous factor that enabled the offices of the PM to secure a more powerful position and advance their own institutional agendas. This strengthened their leadership role and weakened the respective foreign ministries, whose legitimacy in EU co‐ordination was undermined by the discourse that matters pertaining to this co‐ordination should be treated as domestic policy instead of foreign policy. This discourse proved instrumental in the organizational reforms and core executive restructuring. Both countries also provide evidence of intra‐Nordic organizational learning since the Finnish co‐ordination system was based on lessons drawn from Denmark whereas the subsequent Swedish reform was inspired and legitimized by changes in Finland.     

The EU ‘partnership principle’: still a sustainable governance device across multiple administrative arenas?

This article analyses the 'partnership principle'– which is of particular importance for multilevel governance interpretations of European integration – as it evolved in EU regional policy–making. After sketching in the crucial analytical lines of the current debate on 'partnership' on the example of the implementation of the EU structural policy in Germany, I examine how it functions. A closer look at two important sub–fields of 'partnership'–'societal participation' and 'policy evaluation'– reveals that theoretical expectations regarding its transforming potential, in terms of pitting supranational and subnational actors against central state authority and thereby circumventing the latter, have not materialized. On the contrary, recently rising resentment and out–and–out conflict between the European Commission and regional authorities so far point to theoretically unexpected limitations of 'partnership', calling into question whether it is an appropriate and sustainable inter–administrative co–ordination device – at least when viewed from the perspective of the EU multilevel governance thesis. In the light of the reported insights into the practice of 'partnership', this 'new mode of EU governance' thus needs to be reassessed.     

POWER LEARNING OR PATH DEPENDENCY? INVESTIGATING THE ROOTS OF THE EUROPEAN FOOD SAFETY AUTHORITY

A key motive for establishing the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) was restoring public confidence in the wake of multiplying food scares and the BSE crisis. Scholars, however, have paid little attention to the actual political and institutional logics that shaped this new organization. This article explores the dynamics underpinning the making of EFSA. We examine the way in which learning and power shaped its organizational architecture. It is demonstrated that the lessons drawn from the past and other models converged on the need to delegate authority to an external agency, but diverged on its mandate, concretely whether or not EFSA should assume risk management responsibilities. In this situation of competitive learning, power and procedural politics conditioned the mandate granted to EFSA. The European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Council shared a common interest in preventing the delegation of regulatory powers to an independent EU agency in food safety policy.     

EU agencies' involvement in transboundary crisis response: Supporting efforts or leading coordination?

EU agencies have emerged as entities offering technical coordination to member states and support to the European Commission in different policy areas. Their expertise may play a role in responding to unexpected crises. Against this backdrop, we examine under which circumstances EU agencies, through their specialized expertise, are involved in transboundary crisis responses, and when they acquire a leading position in coordinating those responses. To do so, we study four agencies which faced crises: the EBA and the 2012 banking crisis; the ECDC and the 2014 Ebola outbreak; EFSA and the 2011 E. coli outbreak; and Frontex and the 2015 refugee crisis. Our findings discuss to what extent agencies' involvement in transboundary crises is related to functional (sector characteristics) and institutional (delegation of authority) variables. We also identify that under certain political conditions EU agencies' coordination capacity is activated, allowing them to emerge as leading institutions in transboundary crisis resolution.     

WHY STRONG COORDINATION AT ONE LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH STRONG COORDINATION ACROSS LEVELS (AND HOW TO LIVE WITH IT): THE CASE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

The European Union (EU) inherited ‘indirect administration’ from classical international organizations: policies adopted by the international organization are subsequently to be implemented nationally by member states themselves, and not by bodies owned by the international organization. This arrangement has often led to legislation being incorporated and applied rather differently across countries. In order to harmonize implementation practices within the EU, we have witnessed a development from ‘indirect administration’ to more ‘direct administration’ in the sense that national agencies work closely with the European Commission, EU agencies and sister agencies in other member states, partly bypassing national ministries. Thus, stronger coordination across levels may counteract strong coordination at the national level. This ‘coordination dilemma’ seems to have been largely ignored in the literatures on EU network governance and national ‘joined‐up government’, respectively. The ambition of this article is twofold: first, the coordination dilemma is theoretically and empirically illustrated by the seeming incompatibility between a more direct implementation structure in the multilevel EU administrative system and trends towards strengthening coordination and control within nation states. Second, the article discusses organizational arrangements that may enable systems to live with the coordination dilemma in practice.     

The dynamics of de‐delegation: A principal–agent explanation of the reversal of private authority in international sport governance

What explains the reversal of transnational private rule‐making authority? Embedding constructivist insights within a rational principal–agent model, this article advances a five‐step sequential process that nuances the traditional explanation of delegitimation. It argues that entrepreneurs must first successfully promote the belief that the high costs of ineffective private policies follow from the private rule‐setter's flawed institutional attributes. Subsequently, a de‐delegation solution that minimizes transaction and uncertainty costs must be proposed. The examination of two cases in the field of international sport governance, namely the deliberate reversal of private authority in anti‐doping governance and the lack thereof in anti‐match‐fixing governance, lends support to these propositions. It sheds new light on the creation of the World Anti‐Doping Agency (WADA) and explains why there will probably be no counterpart to fight match‐fixing.     

POST‐ACCESSION POLITICIZATION OF NATIONAL EU POLICY COORDINATION: THE CASE OF SLOVENIA

This article focuses on how domestic and EU‐level political factors affect the functional aspect of the national coordination of EU affairs. Due to the idiosyncrasies of the post‐communist countries which have joined the EU since 2004, an analysis of dynamic changes in the national systems of coordination needs to focus on three factors: (a) functional pressures from the EU; (b) the consolidation of the national party system; and (c) existing traditions of politico‐administrative relations. The international economic and financial crisis is considered as a fourth factor that has affected the first three factors through the increase in the EU's 'informal intergovernmentalism', which adds to the politicization of EU matters. The Slovenian case points to an increased, though selective, politicization of EU business due to both national‐ and EU‐level factors.     

NEGLECTED FACES OF EUROPEANIZATION: THE DIFFERENTIAL IMPACT OF THE EU ON THE DISMANTLING AND EXPANSION OF DOMESTIC POLICIES

The objective of this article is to clarify the extent and the conditions under which the European Union (EU) induces changes in the policy arrangements of its member states. For an accurate measurement of our dependent variable, we distinguish between EU-induced policy expansion and EU-induced policy dismantling. We argue that the extent to which European requirements lead to an expansion or dismantling of national policy arrangements is crucially affected by the respective governance logic underlying the regulatory activities at the European level, that is: (1) compliance with EU rules; (2) competition between national administrative systems to achieve EU requirements; and (3) communication between regulatory agents across national levels arranged in an EU legal or institutional framework. To illustrate our theoretical argument, we develop hypotheses on the likelihood and direction of national policy change under these three modes of governance, in addition, providing empirical examples from different policy areas.     

Eu Programme Management 1977‐96: A Performance Indicators Analysis

Measuring the performance of public services and programmes is now a generally accepted part of the scenery of public management. In practice, it is often honoured more in the breach than the observance owing to well‐known technical and epistemological problems. In the absence of reliable performance data, normative assumptions may prevail on policy makers and managers alike which are at variance with objective reality. The critique and attempted reform of EU programme management is often based on such assumptions. This paper attempts to provide an empirical and epistemological basis to the judgment of EU programme management by identifying appropriate performance indicators, collecting data on them from audit reports over a 20‐year period and constructing a methodology for analysis. Criteria for reliable sources and the effect of intervening variables on the results are discussed. The paper reviews the evidence of the aggregate data collected for the five major EU spending areas, and suggests some conclusions questioning both commonly held assumptions about, and models for, the reform of EU programme management.     

Europol and EU Counterterrorism: International Security Actorness in the External Dimension

This article offers an analysis of Europol's security actorness in the external dimension of EU counterterrorism. While Europol has attracted some scholarly attention, not so much work has focused on the meaning of its international agreements in counterterrorism. This article aims to investigate the international actorness of Europol at the international level in relation to the fight against international terrorism. It offers original conceptual insights based on empirical case studies of international agreements: Europol agreements with U.S. law enforcement, as well as Europol agreements with countries in the European Neighbourhood policy.     

BUREAUCRATIC RESPONSIVENESS: EFFECTS OF ELECTED GOVERNMENT,PUBLIC AGENDAS AND EUROPEAN ATTENTION ON THE UK BUREAUCRACY

What determines the bureaucratic agenda? This article combines insights from models of bureaucratic behaviour with agenda‐setting models of government attention to test the effects of elected government, public, and EU agendas on the bureaucratic agenda. Using time series cross‐sectional analyses of subject and ministry coded data on UK statutory instruments from 1987 to 2008, I find strong effects for both the elected government and EU legislative agendas on UK statutory instruments. Furthermore, by breaking the data into different sets based on their relationship with the EU, several logical differences in these effects are found. These results include the EU agenda having exclusive influence on instruments implementing EU directives, and the UK agenda being the sole driver of bureaucratic attention on those instruments that mention the EU but do not implement EU legislation. This article opens a new avenue for research on bureaucracy by approaching it as a unique policy‐making institution.     

Reproductive health policy‐makers: Comparing the influences of international and domestic institutions on abortion policy

Do policies protecting women's rights correspond with norm change at the state level or the level of international institutions? We examine this question, comparing domestic and international institutional activity in correlation with reproductive health policy change, specifically, abortion access policy. At the domestic level, we examine female legislators and policies set to encourage gender equality, namely, electoral gender quotas. In the international arena, our theory distinguishes regional from international inter‐governmental bodies. Original data with measurement innovations introduced here—including the Comparative Abortion Policy Index (CAPI1 and CAPI2)—are analysed for over 150 countries for close to two decades. We find a heretofore‐overlooked relationship between international entities and reproductive health. Gender quotas, however, do not correspond with the general association between female representation and pro‐women policy. When researchers and policy‐makers consider gender quotas to promote women's rights, they may be advised to encourage female political participation through more organic means.     

Weberian Public Administration Versus New Public Management in Eastern Europe: The Case of Romania

As a recent member of the European Union (EU), Romania aligned its public policies to Westernized models of civil service reform. This article critically analyzes the impact of Human Resource Management (HRM) models as compared to a Weberian Easternized public administration culture, which continues to display strong hierarchical relationships, rather than the “networked” governance favored by some Western European countries.

The focus will be on the development of HRM policies and practices, taking as a set of case studies Romanian central government organizations. The key problem to be addressed is to understand why such organizations remain locked in ineffective systems of personnel administration. Yet, Romania, along with other Eastern European states, has been exposed to international reform movements in public management through policy transfer. The article will look for evidence of New Public Management (NPM)-type practices, in addition to HRM.

Moreover, the countries of Eastern Europe are far from homogeneous, and so an understanding of both the institutional and cultural context is crucial to ascertain the acceptability of NPM. In the case of Romania, this article considers HRM developments in a multi-culturally influenced state, which has also experienced Socialist regimes. However, policy innovations have started to appear, not only as a consequence of the international diffusion of “good practice” and “policy learning, ” but also stemming from the demands of European directives. Thus, the aim of this article will be to assess the role of policy learning in relation to HR reform in the public service.     

THE LISBON AGENDA AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP POLICY: GOVERNANCE IMPLICATIONS FROM A GERMAN PERSPECTIVE

With the Lisbon Strategy and mandate, the European Commission committed itself to promoting entrepreneurship as a major driver of innovation, competitiveness, and growth. This paper demonstrates that the renaissance of entrepreneurship policy along with the implementation of the Lisbon Agenda resulted in the localization of policy‐making, and re‐strengthened policy‐makers on the ground to successfully mobilize directly at the supranational level. Furthermore, it shows that EU entrepreneurship policy‐making has contributed to a shift from hierarchical government to a more horizontal and interactive form of governance in the new German Laender which were highly exposed to Structural Funds and the Lisbon Agenda. The focus of analysis on the sub‐national level helps to fill an academic void in Europeanization and governance literature. By integrating a region‐ and policy‐specific perspective, this contribution goes beyond theorizing the regional dimension of Europeanization in a multi‐level governance scheme.     

How limited representativeness weakens throughput legitimacy in the EU: The example of interest groups

Are the interest groups (IGs) that constitute European umbrella organizations capable of cooperating in a way that contributes to the throughput legitimacy of the EU? To answer this question, the representativeness of supranational actors is developed as the central criteria of throughput legitimacy, thereby reconfiguring throughput legitimacy as a two‐level concept. Representativeness is operationalized as consisting of regular contacts between the constituent and the umbrella organization as well as the satisfaction of the former with the representation by the latter. The article looks empirically at agricultural, environmental and anti‐poverty groups. Whereas there are different degrees of contact depending on the policy area, the satisfaction with the representation by the umbrella is compromised for all three IGs. This is closely linked to lowest common denominator policies which reduce the representativeness of the umbrellas and therefore the throughput legitimacy of the EU, a problem that also exists for other actors of supranational governance.     

The Micro-Determinants of Public Policy: A Case of Thailand’s Trade Policy

As international trade is vital to Thailand’s economy, the implementation of trade policy has always been at the center of the country’s public administration. Apart from the analysis of the macro-determinants of trade policy formulation, the factors affecting trade policy at a micro level is also equally important. This paper looks at factors influencing individuals’ perception of international trade policy. It uses questionnaire data, collected from Bangkok residents in 2017. The binary, logit and probit, models with marginal effects are employed for the estimation. The results indicate the significance of variables representing individuals’ knowledge and understanding of international trade policy as well as variables relating to individuals’ exposure to the new environment. The government, therefore, should make sure that accurate information is widely disseminated and reaches all stakeholders. People’s better understanding of trade policy should allow policy administration to be more efficient, producing maximum benefits for the country and its people.     

The professional politics of the austerity debate: A comparative field analysis of the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund

How do different professional structures shape the economic ideas that international economic organizations use to prescribe policy recommendations or derive legitimacy and authority for them? The comparative professional field analysis proposed herein deploys a novel combination of content, network and regression analysis to uncover the precise role of different qualifications, experiences and hierarchies in shaping the economic expertise invoked by the European Central Bank's and the International Monetary Fund's main policy documents, with a specific focus on debates over fiscal consolidation in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008. The findings challenge much of the scholarship about how economic ideas diffuse across professional domains and where change on macroeconomic policy in international economic organizations is likely to come from. As such, the article should be of interest to scholarship on international bureaucracies, the politics of professional knowledge and the international political economy of fiscal consolidation.