Multi-level governance

The study of the European Union has been characterized by two different theoretical phases. The first phase was dominated by studies from the field of international relations; in the second phase these studies were revised and insights from among others, public policy were added. The most straightforward way of understanding this theoretical shift is to see it as a move away from treating the EU as an international organisation similar to others (e.g. NATO) to seeing it as something unique among international organisations. The uniqueness of the EU relates both to the nature and to the extent of its development. This means that in some areas of activity the EU displays more properties related to national political systems than to those of international organisations.

The theory of multi-level governance belongs to the second phase. Multi-level governance characterizes the changing relationships between actors situated at different territorial levels, both from the public and the private sectors. The multi-level governance theory crosses the traditionally separate domains of domestic and international politics and highlights the increasingly fading distinction between these domains in the context of European integration. Multi-level governance was first developed from a study of EU policy and then applied to EU decision-making more generally. An early explanation referred to multi-level governance as a system of continuous negotiation among nested governments at several territorial tiers[5] and described how supranational, national, regional, and local governments are enmeshed in territorially overarching policy networks.[6] The theory emphasized both the increasingly frequent and complex interactions between governmental actors and the increasingly important dimension of non-state actors that are mobilized in cohesion policy-making and in the EU policy more generally. As such, multi-level governance raised new and important questions about the role, power and authority of states.

No other international form of cooperation is characterized by such far-reaching integration as the European Union. This becomes evident by the number and scope of policy areas covered by the European Union and the way policy is developed. The European Union can be characterised by a mix of classic intergovernmental cooperation between sovereign states and far-reaching supranational integration.

Multi-level governance within the EU is understood as respecting competences, sharing responsibilities and cooperating between the various levels of governance: the EU, the Member States and the regional and local authorities. In this context, it refers to the principle of subsidiarity, which places decisions as close as possible to the citizens and ensures that that action at Union level is justified in light of the possibilities available at national, regional or local level.[7] In practice Multilevel Governance within the EU is about participation and coordination between all levels of government both in the decision making process and in the implementation or evaluation of European policies.

The combination of communal decision-making with the wide area of policy areas results in a deep entanglement of the member states’ national policy levels with the European policy level. This entanglement is one of the basic principles of the multi-level governance theory. The multi-level governance theory describes the European Union as a political system with interconnected institutions that exist at multiple levels and that have unique policy features. The European Union is a political system with a European layer (European Commission, European Council and European Parliament), a national layer and a regional layer. These layers interact with each other in two ways: first, across different levels of government (vertical dimension) and second, with other relevant actors within the same level (horizontal dimension).

Concerning with the changes of the institutional design of the European Union, the current model governance has been shaped as a setup of constraints upon political margin of discretion, applying the central tenet of ordoliberalism with the aim to use strong rules in order to reduce the discretionary exercise of powers by institutions so as to avoid an arbitrary use of them. This principle has achieved an extreme effect at the European level, that one not to avoid arbitrary use of political powers but to keep political responsibility and participation out of the decision-making process. As Laruffa concludes: "It is quite clear that such a model of governance, which is made only by rules without any role for a democratic policy-making process, imposes a de facto limit to on the political rights of the European citizens. This means that there is a control exercised by rules over the European citizens rather than a control by the European citizens over rules and policies."[8]

The European Union: Multilevel Governance in Practice

Within the European Union nearly 95,000 local and regional authorities currently have significant powers in key sectors such as education, the environment, economic development, town and country planning, transport, public services and social policies. These local and regional authorities implement nearly 70% of EU legislation. They help ensure the exercise of European democracy and citizenship. Special rights and competences for regions, cities and communities are supposed to enable and preserve diversity of governance at local and regional level.[9] By thinking beyond traditional EU - Member States relations the EU multi-level governance concept further strengthens regional and transnational cooperation. In a broader sense, this concept also includes the participation of non-state players like economic and social partners and civil society in the decision making process of all levels of governance(thus taking up the vertical and horizontal dimensions of multilevel governance).

The Treaty of Lisbon as an important step towards Multilevel Governance

The Treaty of Lisbon represents an important step towards institutional recognition of multi-level governance in the way the European Union operates. It strengthens the competences and influence of local and regional authorities in the Community decision-making process giving roles to national (and regional) parliaments and the Committee of the Regions and enshrines the territorial dimension of the European Union, notably territorial cohesion as part of the process of European integration. The Committee of the Regions has established a system to monitor the compliance with the subsidiarity thorough the whole EU policy and law making process.[10]

Multilevel governance within the EU as an ongoing process

Nevertheless, multi-level governance within the EU is a dynamic and ongoing process. On 16 June 2009 the Committee of the Regions adopted a White Paper on multi-level governance which recommended specific mechanisms and instruments for stimulating all stages of the European decision-making process.[11] This document, together with the follow-up opinion "Building a European culture of Multilevel Governance"[12] affirmed the Committee's political commitment to Multi-level Governance, proposing a first political project for Building Europe in partnership. As a follow up to the 2009 White paper on Multi-level Governance, the Committee developed a "Scoreboard on Multi-level Governance" to monitor on a yearly basis the development of multi-level governance at European Union level.[13]

The Charter for Multi-level Governance in Europe

On 3 April 2014 the Committee of the Regions adopted a Charter for Multi-level Governance calling public authorities of all levels of governance to use and promote multi-level governance in their future undertakings.[14] The Charter is open for signature to:

• all European Union local and regional authorities;

• European and national associations of local and regional authorities, as well as local and regional authorities' network are invited to officially commit to multilevel governance principles, giving the Charter their formal support;

• National and European political figures wishing to back up the Charter are also invited to declare their support[15]

The point of departure for multi-level governance was Europe, but recent books and articles have dealt with the dispersion of authority away from central states in Latin America, Asia, and North America. Decentralization has been at least as marked in Latin America as in Europe over the past two decades, and several Asian countries have decentralized in the past decade.[16] Dispersion of authority above the national state is most evident in the EU, but it is not sui generis. A recent survey counts 32 regional IGOs pooling authority over quite wide areas of policy and which cover all but a handful of states in the world today.[17] The number of governmental and non-governmental international organizations has increased markedly over the past two decades, as has their scope, range and intrusiveness.[18] Crossborder interdependence – from migration to climate change to terrorism – has stimulated regional organization in many parts of the world.[19]

Global climate change is being contributed to by ever increasing levels of greenhouse gas emissions emanating from decisions and activities of individuals and organisations at local, regional, national and international levels.[28] Cities are suggested to contribute up to 75% of global carbon dioxide emissions, reflecting the increasing proportions of global populations living and working in cities.[29] As we know, tackling climate change is an extensive, time-consuming and costly task, a task that cannot be achieved solely through the policy implementation and regulation from central governments and bodies alone. It has become increasingly clear that nation-states will be unable to commit to and meet international targets and agreements for offsetting climate change without engaging with the activity of sub-national and local action.[30] Hereby, warranting the extreme importance of multi-level governance of climate change within cities.

Forms of governance at multi-levels have taken off increasingly at the local scale, building upon the notion of ‘think global, act local’, in cities in particular. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions stem from certain activities that originate from specific places, bringing about thought that the local scale is the most appropriate political scale to produce necessary offsets in emissions.[31] Cities are exemplary of such specific places in which local governance action can and will help reduce GHG emissions. The levels of governance authority handed down to local governments within cities has been perceived to out-do policy goals within the national and international arena,[32] with some local governments taking on their own initiatives for tackling urban climate change. This sets an important stance to which the local scale of multi-level governance is important for tackling global climate change within the urban arena.

Four distinct modes of governance exist within the dynamics of climate change in cities. Each stems from the local level with the ability of being implemented on multi-scales to mitigate and adapt to urban climate change. Self-governing is the capacity of local governments to govern its own activities[33] such as improving energy efficiency within a designated city, without the burdening pressure to meet targets of increased energy efficiencies set by national governments. A form of self-governing within multi-level systems is horizontal collaboration where cities may collaborate with regions demonstrating multi-levels of governance to tackle urban climate change,[34] imperative to the success of city climate change policy. Governing through enabling is the co-ordination and facilitation of partnerships with private organisations by the local government.[35] National governments also implement this mode of governance to implement policy and action within cities. Governing through provision, a form of vertical collaboration along with governing through enabling, applies itself to the multi-levels of governance. Climate change in cities is tackled here through the shaping of and delivery of services and resources, with additional support aided to local governments from regional and national authorities.[36] Lastly, another form of vertical collaboration, is governing through regulation. Such regulation characterises traditional forms of authoritative governance, exemplifying local to nation-state relations,[37] almost nearly covering the entirety of the multi-level governance scale.

Within the various initiatives of the Low Emission Development Strategies Global Partnership (LEDS GP), the thematic working group on Subnational Integration (SNI-WG) was created in 2013 to support learning and facilitate collaboration between national and subnational governments for accelerated effective climate actions. The SNI-WG realizes several activities at global and regional levels including organizing panels at multiple regional and global forums, hosting peer-learning discussions, publishing reports and case studies, along with facilitating technical workshops, webinars and providing advisory Remote Expert Assistance on LEDS (REAL) support upon request. This process has generated observations, feedback and insights on the potential of the vertical integration and coordination of subnational climate actions to accelerate and scale-up both local and global emission reductions. Improving coordination and integration between the different levels of authority in a country is critical in determining both national and global capacity to govern climate change. City and subnational governments require support from the national government, and vice versa, in order to design and implement intersectoral policies and actions for domestic decarbonization pathways.[38]

Multilevel governance theory and empirical evidence demonstrate that the coordination and vertical integration of climate actions can:[39]

• Help alleviate domestic political constraints.
• Raise national government ambitions for more aggressive Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) and GHG mitigation commitments.
• Scale up, as well as unlock, additional and new mitigation opportunities at the subnational level.
• Accelerate the effective implementation of national targets, strategies and development priorities by “localizing” them. This can also provide opportunities for “bundled approaches” and increasing “co-benefits” by linking local priorities with diverse development objectives Improve the consistency of sub-national and national climate data sets; strengthening MRV.
• Create a more bankable “low-risk” environment for infrastructure finance and private sector investments.
• Enable safe learning and strengthen domestic institutions.
• Address recognized challenges and limits to sub-national non-state actor (NSA) climate actions.
• Expand and accelerate the flow of international public and private climate finance to cities, urban infrastructure and local priorities.
• Help address some of the persistent collective action challenges to multilateral climate agreements.

The Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) program is one example of multi-level governance of climate change. Roles and responsibilities are shared within different levels of governance, from state actors to non-state actors (Betsill & Bulkeley, 2006). Membership consists of 40 large cities worldwide (Large Cities Climate Leadership Group), with local governments often working in close connection with national governments. However, the CCP can overlook the activity of nation-states giving local governments the opportunity to amend positions of policy implementation and regulation for offsetting urban climate change, which may be of a controversial nature to national governments.[40] Thus illustrating even though climate change in cities can be addressed and governed at local, regional, national and international levels, it does not always follow a hierarchical order.

The use of security as a means of instituting ideals of democracy. The shift to a multi-level governance perspective of enforcing the ideals prevents one nation from imposing its personal agenda or perception of what these ideals entail. Additionally, the use of supranational judgement creates a uniformity for the international portrayal and enforcement of democratic principles.[42] The utilization of multi-level security governance allows for a pooling of resources to manage this enforcement, while still allowing States to act autonomously. The supranational level merely acts as a medium for allowing the promotion of mutually beneficial security. With the rise of transnational threats, a method for ensuring international security without the reliance on a single policing nation is required. Multi-level governance provides functional means of dealing with the deficiencies of merely national actors dealing with transnational issues on the international stage.[43]

The preliminary notion of the European Union was the European Coal and Steel Community. The union was between the nations of France, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, Luxembourg, and West Germany. Striving for the concept of European peace the nations sought to bind the nations through economic interdependence. Coming about as a reaction to World War II, the ECSC created an economic tie for previously independent nations. It provided the European peace the nations sought, and would evolve into the European Union seen today. It was not a new concept as trade has historically been viewed as a catalyst for peace between nations.[44] Creating multi-level governance is shown to create the necessary ties for fostering economic interdependence to a greater degree than mere trade between nations. The linking of nations through a sharing of capital creates an adhesiveness that deters the escalation of political conflict from reaching a state of war. On the international stage, political conflict leads to war as a result of perception of potential gains being larger than the opportunity costs. Interdependence created by multi-level governance is shown to greatly reduce the probability of war by increasing the opportunity costs.[45] The increase in opportunity cost to war can be viewed from even the economic ties perspective. It is seen by noting that economic ties between participatory nations makes the cost of disruption to the system through the escalation of the political sphere towards war illogical.[46]

Multi-level government has shown to increase efficiency of governance by creating an agreed upon standard for the implementation and execution of policies. To elaborate, the establishment of a supranational institution can be used to set standards for the way cooperating nations run their environmental, industrial, and safety policies.[47] A key factor for multi-level governance is the terms the national actors agree to when forming the supranational institution as they will give certain decision making processes to the higher level, and agree to abide by the outcome. Nations consent to the terms as they face a common issue of international policy that has to deal with collective-action problems making it nonsensical to attend to by themselves. Agreements between nations to form a multi-level government creates an efficiency gain that allows them to all share in the positive benefit.[48]