Multilevel Governance: Policy and Interpretive Approaches in One European Region

Abstract

Academics have argued for more interpretive approaches to public policy development. This paper outlines how such interpretive approaches have been undertaken in one European region, Northern Ireland, during the period of civil unrest when the province was oft‐considered a European Commission social laboratory. The article explores one interpretive policy approach funded under European Structural Policy, and considers how such processes can validate ethnographic approaches to policy making. The policy study raises issues of the impact of globalization upon the local, the development of democracy, particularly in post‐conflict situations, as well as the shifting boundaries between the state and civil society. The article concludes with a discussion of the general merits of hermeneutical interpretive approaches and their associated theories to the maintenance of liberal democracy, strong civil society, and human flourishing.