Academic literature on the topic 'Multilevel governance systems'

This study of multilevel governance in contemporary Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in Vietnam used a qualitative methodology to identify the factors that cause fragmentation of governance structures, leading to ineffective management and governance of these MPAs. These factors relate to formal institutions, socio-economic conditions and social capital. The study reveals different barriers to effective governance at different levels. Socio-economic conditions affect the participation of local communities, whereas formal institutional arrangements are major barriers to the collaboration between state-actors across sectors. Mutual trust, communication and reciprocity may nurture and foster participation and collaboration by actors in the multilevel governance of MPAs. The article stresses the importance of social capital in multilevel governance of human-natural systems. It concludes that the existing institutional structure of MPAs may require reforms to achieve more effective governance and to meet the overall goals of the national MPA network.Keywords: environmental governance, institutions, natural resource management, Marine Protected Areas, human-environment systems, Vietnam

This commentary takes stock of how Multi-level Governance and European Integration has helped scholars frame empirical research agendas. It focuses on three specific research programmes emanating from the book: (1) the role of identity in multi-level governance, (2) political contestation in multi-level systems, and (3) the effect of multi-level governance on policy outcomes. It aims to highlight existing knowledge in these lines of research whilst offering several critical reflections and directions for future research. The commentary argues that the book’s observation that governance structures are ultimately shaped by identities rather than by efficiency considerations has proved almost prophetic given recent backlash against the EU. The book expertly shows that there is an inherent tension in sharing authority across multiple levels of government, and that multi-level systems require constant recalibration and renegotiation of how authority is shared.

Proxy advisors are information intermediaries that enable shareholders to exercise their voting rights. While proxy advisors’ influence is documented in market-based corporate governance systems, we know little about the corporate governance role of proxy advice in relationship-based governance systems. Drawing on agency theory and the comparative corporate governance literature, we theorize that shareholders are sensitive to the costs and benefits of monitoring by considering internal monitoring capabilities. We also theorize that relative to market-based corporate governance systems, proxy advice is both less influential and has lower predictive quality in relationship-based governance systems. We test our multilevel model using 13,497 voting results from 613 firms in 16 Western European countries and generally find support for our predictions.

Abstract Over the past few decades, cities have become increasingly active in global climate governance. Although most research on city agency has focused on democratic (often Western) cities, the climate-related activities of Chinese cities in global city networks have also expanded, raising the question of whether cities from nondemocratic political systems can be international actors or whether they are merely extensions of their national governments. This article examines how the Chinese Party-state’s institutions and governing instruments shape cities’ global agency and how these structures impact the work of various city networks operating in China. To this end, it analyzes policy reports, documents, and original interview data collected from city network representatives. The findings demonstrate that city networks in China walk a fine line between their door-opening function for cities to global climate governance and their role as transmitters of the central government’s gatekeeping function, thereby sustaining the hierarchical control structures of the Chinese Party-state.

This study explores crucial issues arising from the increasing establishment of supranational risk-governance systems that pursue a compromise between the need for effective governance and the necessity to avoid obstacles regarding trade. In these contexts, national public administrations become a peripheral module in a multilevel system where they see their organization altered and the legitimacy of their actions questioned. The analysis uses as a paradigm the systems on food safety controls and rapid alert in the EU and tries to answer the following questions: How do we give public administrations an effective role in the global scene? Are national administrations destined to become mere executors of supranational-set rules? Outcomes show that legal systems whose multilevel integration reached a high level suggest positive implications deriving from a new model of global governance not involving a reduction in state sovereignty, but leading it to a new role, guaranteeing the accomplishment of supranational-set goals and safeguarding the autonomy of national public administrations. Points for practitioners Practitioners, especially those who hold managerial positions, may often find themselves disoriented when acting in a multilevel context because of the shrinking of their autonomy as well as their submission to external rules and controls. Starting from the analysis of the elected paradigm, practitioners could find that in a well-functioning multilevel regulatory system, national public administrations are able to use their remaining range of discretion, even if minimal, in order to realize innovative organizational models, through which they may avoid direct intervention from upper levels and propose themselves as a model to be borrowed and applied in the whole system.

Abstract Multilevel governance describes a global system that enrolls some State functions to perform global solutions for global problems. Multilevel-governance and multilevel administration has legality and accountability concerns on their own, although, there are multilevel structures with non-State playground of trans-regulatory nature at the supranational level of cooperation which means additional shades to the colourful palette. The procedure and the structure concerning the creation and the evaluation of effective banking supervision standards in Europe is unique. Given the fact that the European administrative system is also unique, and as Basel rules are produced in a trans-regulatory network, the collaboration of the two sui generis systems requires the rethinking of the classical legal order features. Rule of law which is the basis of classical international relations in the view of public administration of States is challenged by the newly emerged solutions. Necessity and proportionality are put on a scale with classical values and requirements of public administration and efficiency and effectiveness seem to put it on the side of the new type of collaboration. The normative background of such structure is still immature. The multilevel administrative system of financial supervision including the European Union and the Basel Committee for Banking Supervision at supranational level or speaking in a wider context: the framework for multilevel governance with non-state actors at supranational level, is therefore an example for global administrative law of infant status.

This dissertation is a descriptive study of a policy network designed for U.S. government and global cooperation to promote Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). It is aimed at exploring the historical and structural features of the ITS policy network, and evaluating its roles in the policy process. Until now, the network literature has barely examined the full arrays of networks, catching just part of their full pictures. First, this study draws attention to transnational networks and their organic or systematic relationships with lower levels of networks. Second, it examines the individual properties and synergy of three core elements of the ITS policy network: public-private partnerships, professional networks, and intergovernmental networks. Third, it takes a close look at the pattern of stability change and power relations of the policy network from within the net. Finally, this study discusses what difference networks make, compared to hierarchies and markets. This dissertation employed multiple sources of evidence: unstandardized elite interviews, government documents, and archival records. Through a networking strategy to find the best experts, face-to-face, telephone, and e-mail interviews were conducted with twenty-two public officials and ITS professionals. It was found that the U.S. ITS policy network was a well-designed strategic governance structure at the planning level, but an experimental learning-focused one at the implementation level. It was initially designed by a new, timely, cross-sectional coalition, which brought together field leaders from both the public and the private sectors under the slogan of global competitiveness. Yet, day-to-day managers within the net often experience much more complex power relationships and internal dynamics as well as legal obstacles; also, they confront external uncertainty in political support and market. For better results, policy networks should be designed in flexible ways that will handle their disadvantages such as ambiguous roles, exclusiveness, and increased staff time. In this respect, it is inevitable for the networks to include some components of a wide range of conventional structures, ranging from highly bureaucratic to highly entrepreneurial, on the one hand, and ranging between issue networks (grounded in American pluralism) and policy communities (based on European corporatism), on the other hand.
Ph. D.

This is a comprehensive study of tobacco control policy and politics in the European Union, 1970-2000. I develop an instrumental theory of public policy which establishes an approach for connecting policy instruments to policy outcomes. I investigate ways in which political, bureaucratic and interest group (particularly the tobacco industry) factors influence the success of policy instruments aimed at reducing cigarette consumption. I also explore whether and how supranational mandates and directives influence the success of national-level efforts to control tobacco. I test hypotheses empirically using pooled time-series methodologies. The substantive conclusion is that non-price policies are only a qualified success when controlling for addiction, price policy and factors in the policy environment. Price policy is consistently effective, cross-nationally and the public health bureaucracy is a key player in curbing consumption of cigarettes. Major theoretical conclusions include affirmation that supranational policy actions can shape national policy outcomes, that interest group pluralism favors those with a comparative advantage in organizing (in this case, the tobacco industry), and that while policy instruments can be evaluated according to their behavioral attributes, caution should be exercised when simultaneous policy adoption is occurring.

In the last years, agricultural research and institutions operating in agriculture, at the international and national levels, extended their scope to include new goals of sustainable and inclusive development. In the fields of economics, agricultural research opened its confines and extended its priorities, from agricultural production to new economic, social, and environmental issues, affecting food and non-food agricultural systems. Within this framework, rural development acquired growing attention. The international scientific and institutional debate are increasingly valuing the adoption of a new territorial approach to the development of rural areas, where supply chain operators, public authorities, and local communities are supposed to recognize their specific identity, interconnect their knowledge and capabilities, and collectively decide and operate, for the activation and sustainable valorization of valuable local specific resources. Considering these issues, this thesis aims at enhancing the characterization and analysis of new territorial approaches to agricultural and rural development. To that end, specific research objectives are identified, highly interrelated, and building on each other. The latter include: a) improving the conceptualization of territorial approaches to rural development; b) exploring how and to what extent the enhancement of valuable systems of local specific resources can work as a lever of inclusive and sustainable rural territorial development; c) identifying adequate governance settings and management mechanisms for collaborative valorization strategies, combining public policies with private action; d) understanding the role of territorial actors’ empowerment, and the potential of capacity-building approaches, bridging scientific with territorial-specific knowledge. Accordingly, the Ph.D. Research process involved the analysis of different territorial contexts, as well as diverse valuable resource systems protection and valorization dynamics. Specifically, five publications were realized to fulfill the identified research objectives. Publication 1 provides a broader conceptualization of rural territorial development with (bio-)cultural identity and validates the potential of capacity-building approaches. To that end, a new conceptual model is identified and applied to the illustrative and representative case of the Garfagnana territory, a rural area of Tuscany (Italy). The study highlights the new model validity for the identification and construction of quality virtuous valorization circles of local biocultural resources. Likewise, it highlights the new model potential for detecting the critical aspects, needs, and gaps, affecting the realization of effective governance settings and management approaches. To that end, the fundamental role of innovative capacity-building approaches is evidenced, in expanding key human resources capabilities and sustaining the empowerment of local actors for territorial dynamization. Besides that, a new educational profile of “Territorial Enhancer” is also identified, to respond to different territorial context demands, towards the inclusive and sustainable mobilization of biocultural heritage. In Publications 2 and 3 a specific focus is made on the relevant case of agrobiodiversity valorization for rural territorial development and global sustainability. Publication 2 characterizes agrobiodiversity as a valuable system of local genetic and cultural resources, and analyses virtuous initiatives intended for their conservation and territorial valorization. The study focuses on the analysis of the illustrative and representative case of the Valtiberina Red Onion (Cipolla Rossa della Valtiberina), a threatened plant genetic resource of Tuscany (Italy). A participatory action research (PAR) approach is adopted. The publication outlines the distinctive qualities that characterize agrobiodiversity resources and the related multiple value potential for inclusive and sustainable agriculture and rural development. The opportunity of recognizing, conserving, and valorizing the local specific genetic and cultural diversity is seen as linked to the possible adaption, integration, and better coordination of both public policies and private strategies. To that end, new action directions are identified by the study. The latter supports the identification of adequate governance and management solutions, intended to the realization of multi-stakeholder strategies, aiming at the qualification and marketing of agrobiodiversity products, and territorial development. Building on the findings of Publication 2, Publication 3 aims at understanding how the restoring and valorization of agrobiodiversity resources, and particularly of underutilized or neglected landraces, can act as a trigger of sustainable territorial development. A new socio-ecological systems (SES) approach is adopted, to design a holistic model for the characterization and analysis of agrobiodiversity-oriented food systems. The model was tested on the Valtiberina Red Onion case. The paper proves the new model validity to classify the assets, drivers, human action processes, and generated benefits, concerning the realization of landrace-based quality virtuous valorization circles, and to evaluate their performance of sustainability and rural development. In addition, the model favors the identification and implementation of effective combinations of public and private action, fostering a balanced satisfaction of all the interests at stake. Besides that, Publication 4 and 5 intend to explore the role of new strategic industries - other than food -, that are acquiring a growing market consideration, social appreciation, and public recognition, for their specific sustainability potential, and possible contribution to higher human well-being. Specifically, the representative case of ornamental horticulture is analyzed. Hence, Publication 4 intends to fill the gap in the availability of integrated data sources and structured theoretically sound studies on new consumption trends, marketing strategies, and governance settings, characterizing the European ornamental market context. Accordingly, an integrative grey literature review is carried out, using a comprehensive approach. Relevant changes in socio-ecological determinants are highlighted, driving local resources valorization to become a key solution in combining new differential advantages, with wider social, and environmental goals. A new action-research agenda is identified, for the advancement of market research, and the improvement and coordination of public and private action. Accordingly, the evolution of policies, programmes, and legislation, and the enhancement of private actors’ collaboration, is considered to furtherly boost ornamentals market attractivity and social recognition, and to sustain a necessary reorganization of production and trade. Lastly, in Publication 5 a virtuous multi-stakeholder initiative is analyzed, intended to the requalification and territorial valorization of the localized floriculture system of Tuscany (Italy). Based on a PAR approach, the study evidences how the evolution of flower consumption trends and the emergence of new high-value market niches, demanding for origin and sustainability attributes, represent significant opportunities for differentiation and sustainability transformation for local high-cost supply systems. Therefore, the essential role of innovative win-win qualification strategies and luxury marketing approaches is considered, involving the collaboration of supply chains operators and other territorial actors, for the dynamization, and virtuous valorization, of local flower agrobiodiversity and related territorial capital (social, human, natural). Hence, relevant product innovation policies and place branding strategies are identified. The latter sustain the construction of high-value positionings and territorial valorization paths, based on a wider recognition, and fairer remuneration of local flowers’ biocultural and sustainability content. In that regard, the fundamental role of cooperation and networking is also outlined. An innovation multi-stakeholder platform (IP) is characterized as an effective governance model, enabling local actors’ collaboration, self-leading, and self-organization. Considering all the described contributions, this thesis is expected to provide researchers, businesses, and institutions with relevant insights, new concepts, and innovative analytical models, sustaining the validation of territorial approaches characteristics and potential. Consequently, the consolidation and implementation of new development paradigms will renovate the role of agriculture and rural areas for the benefit of present and future generations.

La tesi affronta l’argomento della pianificazione alimentare seguendo un approccio di pianificazione e progettazione bioregionalista del territorio, includendo tematiche fondative come la considerazione dei metabolismi ecologici (di cui il ciclo alimentare rappresenta un aspetto rilevante), la valorizzazione del patrimonio territoriale, del protagonismo delle società locali, incorporando nell’analisi e nelle proposte la dimensione spaziale e del paesaggio. La tesi delinea un framework di governo del territorio multisettoriale e multilivello, alternativo a quello basato sulla destrutturazione globalizzata delle reti del cibo messa in atto dagli accordi economici internazionali, finalizzato alla riattivazione delle reti locali e di conseguenza alla ri- territorializzazione sistemi agroalimentari locali e al sostegno dello sviluppo di forme di autogoverno locale. Nella prima parte viene trattato il contesto problematico relativo all’attuale food planning e dei suoi squilibri legati all'agroindustria e alla de-territorializzazione delle reti del cibo, nonché quelli connessi alla separazione tra pianificazione territoriale e programmazione rurale. La seconda parte è incentrata sull’analisi di molteplici pratiche di food movements, politiche, strumenti, progetti, esperienze di ricerca-azione che si configurano come buone pratiche in risposta alle gravi emergenze ambientali, economiche e sociali generate dal paradigma globalizzato dell’agroindustria. Nella terza parte sono trattati quattro casi studio fra il sud America (Brasile e Argentina) e l’Europa. La parte quarta è incentrata sulla sperimentazione originale di un bilancio alimentare sul territorio della Città Metropolitana di Firenze. Nella parte conclusiva vengono definiti indirizzi innovativi per la costruzione di un modello di governance alimentare declinato in ottica bioregionale con una riflessione sulle possibili ricadute della strategia proposta sui territori.

This chapter discusses governance dilemmas that are often overlooked in studies that do not encompass the ecology of organization in public governance. The chapter discusses how coordination structures may counteract each other in multilevel systems of government. The ambition of the chapter is twofold: Firstly, a coordination dilemma is theoretically and empirically illustrated by the seeming incompatibility between a more direct (interconnected) and sectorally specialized implementation structure in the multilevel EU administrative system and trends towards strengthening coordination and control within nation states. Secondly, the chapter discusses organizational arrangements that may enable governance systems to live with the coordination dilemma in practice. This coordination dilemma seems to have been largely ignored in the literature on EU network governance and national ‘joined-up government’ respectively.

This chapter evaluates the functioning of the decentralized public enforcement of EU competition law. The analysis focuses on the effectiveness of the decentralized enforcement, which relies on Rule of Law principles. It has been argued that Rule of Law principles are a prerequisite for effective competition law enforcement. Aside from that, assessing the effectiveness of the decentralized enforcement framework also takes account of the problems of multilevel governance which have emerged as a result of the decentralization of enforcement powers and the creation of parallel competences for the Commission and national actors which made it essential to guarantee uniform and consistent application of the EU competition rules. Centrifugal pulls from the Member States towards their national legal systems and centripetal pushes from the Commission create uniformity and consistency in this multilevel system. Analysing these bottom-up and top-down approaches allows us to analyse decentralized enforcement as a specific governance model.

Abstract Transforming World Trade and Investment Law for Sustainable Development explains why the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Agenda for ‘Transforming our World’—aimed at realizing ‘the human rights of all’ and seventeen agreed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—requires transforming the United Nations (UN) and World Trade Organization (WTO) legal systems, as well as international investment law and adjudication. UN and WTO law protect regulatory competition between diverse neo-liberal, state capitalist, European ordo-liberal, and third-world conceptions of multilevel trade and investment regulation. However, geopolitical rivalries and trade wars increasingly undermine transnational rule of law and effective regulation of market failures, governance failures, and constitutional failures. For example, the intergovernmental negotiations in the context of the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change have failed to prevent or considerably limit climate change. In order to prevent trade, investment, energy, and climate conflicts, sustainable development requires reforming trade, investment, and environmental rules and dispute settlement systems. The global health pandemics confirm the need for constitutional reforms of multilevel governance of global public goods. Investment law and adjudication must better reconcile governmental duties to protect human rights and decarbonize economies with the property rights of foreign investors. The constitutional, human rights, and environmental litigation in Europe enhances the legal accountability of democratic governments for protecting sustainable development, but European economic constitutionalism has been rejected by Anglo-Saxon neo-liberalism, China’s authoritarian state capitalism, and many third-world governments. The more that regional economic orders (like the China-led Belt and Road networks) reveal heterogeneity and power politics block UN and WTO reforms, the more the US-led neo-liberal world order risks disintegrating. UN and WTO law must promote private–public network governance, civil society participation, and stronger judicial accountability in order to stabilize and depoliticize multilevel governance of the SDGs.

The final chapter highlights the theoretical significance of the findings, reflects on their generalizability, and outlines supplementary explanations. By identifying systematic differences in the policy feedback processes triggered by market-enabling and market-restraining rules, the book bridges a gap between abstract theories of institutional change and more specific theories on the dynamics of capitalist development. Apart from self-reinforcing and self-undermining feedback effects, several other features of economic governance in advanced industrialized democracies also shape pathways to marketization. These features include eventfulness and periodicity, economic interdependence, multilevel governance, the influence of ideas on the content and intensity of public debates, and institutional structures that mediate interests and ideas, including electoral systems, legal systems, and the division of regulatory competences between levels of government as well as between elected and unelected rule-makers.

The global political economy is a multilevel system of economic activities and regulation in which the domestic level continues to predominate—in other words, it is a global system comprising national capitalist economies. Nations differ in terms of the regulations and institutions that govern economic activity, an observation that is embodied in the so-called “varieties of capitalism” (VoC) literature. Contemporary VoC approaches highlight the significance of social and political institutions in shaping national economies, in stark contrast to neoclassical economics which generally ignores institutions other than markets or sees them as hindrances to the functioning of free markets. Three analytical premises inform the diverse conceptual frameworks within the VoC literature: the firm-based approach, national business systems approach, and the governance or “social systems of production” approach. The VoC literature offers three important contributions to our understanding of the global political economy. The first is that different sources of competitive advantage for firms and nations are institutionally rooted and not easily changed. The second contribution is that these distinct national arrangements give rise to different interests/preferences in how the global economy is constructed and managed. Finally, the VoC approaches provide a framework for analyzing long-term institutional changes in capitalist systems and the persistence of diverse forms of capitalism, including the global financial crisis of 2008–2009 that may usher in yet another epochal change in the “battle of capitalisms.”

AbstractGlobally the prevalence of landslides has increased, impacting more than 4.8 million people between 1998 and 2017 and reported more than 18,000 casualties [UNDP]. The scenario has worsened dramatically, and it has become imperative to develop early warning systems to save human life. This demands the need for systems that could identify the potential of imminent landslides and disseminate the information related to landslide initiation in real-time. This would provide the opportunity to save lives. However, globally the research on reliable end-to-end systems for early warning of landslides is still in its nascent stage. Therefore, this paper explores in detail the requirements for developing systems for real-time monitoring, detection, and early warning of landslides. An integrated solution for building the real-time landslide monitoring and early warning system to provide community-scale disaster resilience is also proposed. This solution integrates multiple modules such as a heterogeneous sensor system, data storage and management, event detection framework, alert dissemination, and emergency communication system to address issues such as capturing dynamic variability, managing multi-scale voluminous datasets, extracting key triggering information regarding the onset of possible landslide, multilevel alert dissemination, and robust emergency communication among the stakeholders respectively. The paper also presents two case studies of real-time landslide early warning systems deployed in North-eastern Himalayas and Western Ghats of India. These case studies demonstrate the approaches utilized for risk assessment, risk analysis, risk evaluation, risk visualization, risk control, risk communication, and risk governance. The results from the deployed system in the case study areas demonstrate the capability of the IoT system to gather Spatio-temporal triggers for multiple types of landslides, detection and decision of specific scenarios, and the impact of real-time data on mitigating the imminent disaster.

AbstractClimate change impacts a natural and human system on the entire globe. Climate-related extreme weather such as drought, floods, and heat waves alters the ecosystems that society depends on. Climate, land, energy, and water systems (CLEWS) are a critical aspect of high importance on resource availability, distribution, and interconnection. The nexus provides a set of guidelines to South Africa that aims on creating a level playing field for all sectors while achieving the aims of the SDGs that are cross-sectoral and multilevel approaches to climate change. The nexus expressed three domains that included resources, governance, and security. It integrated a smart climate resilient with inclusion of the governance and involvement of the stakeholders. Recognition of spatial and sector interdependencies should inform policies, investment and institutional for enhancing nexus security and climate change towards making transition green carbon deals. The nexus offers an integrated approach that analyzes the trade-offs and synergies between the different sectors in order to maximize the efficiency of using the resources that adapt institutional and optimum policy arrangements. Economic transformation and creation of employment through green economy is one of the COP26 green deal agendas in curbing the carbon emissions (green house emission, industrial processes, fuel combustion, and fugitive emissions) as mitigation to climate change, which is cost-effective and economically efficient. The future climate change policy in the developing countries is likely to be both promoted by climate technology transfer and public-private cooperation (cross-sector partnership) through the technology mechanism of the nexus and inclusion of the gender.

Housing policy on municipal level is in the Czech realm neither thoroughly analysed, nor systematically performed. Policymakers lack basic data-base for taking competent decisions. This study shall establish a base for further discussion on factors, effects and importance of municipal housing policy for urban development. A comparative analysis of three Czech cities has been performed with the aim to answer the questions what explains a housing policy, whether and how housing policy may impact urban development (factors) and what the effects are. This study proved that housing policy does have an impact on urban development and that this fact is not clearly reflected in the Czech multilevel governance. The relevance of multiple socio-economic factors of housing policy for urban development has been examined. From the identified effects of these factors, a set of hypotheses for further research has been developed. The study consists of four parts. The first one frames housing policy in a context of place-based regional theories and explains the Czech system of multilevel governance in this field. The second section explains the use of comparative analysis and the selection of indicators as well as the collected data. The third part comments on obtained data and the final one draws suggestions for further research of academics and better decisions of policymakers.