CHAPTER 17: ‘Multilevel politics’
Multilevel governance: is a complex policy process in which
political authority is distributed at different levels of territorial
aggregation.
- Vertical: supranationalization and decentralisation
- Horizontal (division at the national level): privatization, public-private
partnerships
Governance: broader concept, rules that structure and regulate
interactions
VS
Government: geographically and political defined system with
the power to legislate and enforce
Two further developments consolidated the importance of territory:
1. nationalist doctrines spread, so did the idea that national communities
are, in part, forged by their sense of having a ‘homeland’
2. imperialism: national power with territorial expansion, political
power is always linked to the control of territory because it allows
rulers both to extract resources and to control geographically defined
populations
> Geopolitics: an approach to foreign analysis that understands the
actions, relationships and significance of states in terms of geographical
factors such as location, climate, natural resources, population. The
advance of globalization is sometimes seen to have made geopolitics
obsolete.
> Centralization: the concentration of political power or government
authority at the national level
, > Decentralization: the expansion of local autonomy through the transfer
of powers and responsibilities away from national bodies. Political
authority has been ‘pulled down’
SUBNATIONAL POLITICS:
The constitutional structure defines the location of sovereignty in a
political system and provides a frameworks for center-periphery relations.
Federal system: A system of government in which sovereignty is
shared between central and peripheral levels, neither level of
government can encroach on the power of the other.
o compromise between unity and regional diversity
o need for effective central power and checks and constraints on
that power, in diffusing government power helps to protect
individual liberty
o the relationship between national and regional government is
determined both by constitutional rules and social circumstances.
o ‘separation of powers’ between executive and legislative
branches vs ‘fused’ power in parliamentary systems (Canada,
Australia)
HOWEVER,
o the powers of central government have expanded, largely as a
result of the growth of economic and social intervention, and
central government’s own greater revenue-raising capacities.
Multilevel governance: is a complex policy process in which
political authority is distributed at different levels of territorial
aggregation.
- Vertical: supranationalization and decentralisation
- Horizontal (division at the national level): privatization, public-private
partnerships
Governance: broader concept, rules that structure and regulate
interactions
VS
Government: geographically and political defined system with
the power to legislate and enforce
Two further developments consolidated the importance of territory:
1. nationalist doctrines spread, so did the idea that national communities
are, in part, forged by their sense of having a ‘homeland’
2. imperialism: national power with territorial expansion, political
power is always linked to the control of territory because it allows
rulers both to extract resources and to control geographically defined
populations
> Geopolitics: an approach to foreign analysis that understands the
actions, relationships and significance of states in terms of geographical
factors such as location, climate, natural resources, population. The
advance of globalization is sometimes seen to have made geopolitics
obsolete.
> Centralization: the concentration of political power or government
authority at the national level
, > Decentralization: the expansion of local autonomy through the transfer
of powers and responsibilities away from national bodies. Political
authority has been ‘pulled down’
SUBNATIONAL POLITICS:
The constitutional structure defines the location of sovereignty in a
political system and provides a frameworks for center-periphery relations.
Federal system: A system of government in which sovereignty is
shared between central and peripheral levels, neither level of
government can encroach on the power of the other.
o compromise between unity and regional diversity
o need for effective central power and checks and constraints on
that power, in diffusing government power helps to protect
individual liberty
o the relationship between national and regional government is
determined both by constitutional rules and social circumstances.
o ‘separation of powers’ between executive and legislative
branches vs ‘fused’ power in parliamentary systems (Canada,
Australia)
HOWEVER,
o the powers of central government have expanded, largely as a
result of the growth of economic and social intervention, and
central government’s own greater revenue-raising capacities.
