Multi-level Arrangements Research Articles

Connecting place and multilevel governance for urban river restoration

ABSTRACT River restoration in urbanising contexts faces multiple pressures and increased governance complexities. The aspiration for basin-scale policy integration has been widely promoted but is not well tested in urbanising rivers and implementation success remains disjointed across jurisdictions. We link the multi-level governance lens with the notion of place to facilitate a deeper examination of the unique assemblages of socio-material configurations that embed restoration practices across locations. Employing an embedded qualitative case study of the Citarum revitalisation in Indonesia, where a territorialised military operation co-existed with multi-level arrangements, we show that variability, rather than consistency, of governance approaches persisted across geographies. The variabilities were shaped by different place-based conditions – critical in influencing restoration practices and governance processes – such as place leadership, attachment to river, neighbourhood stewardships, issue-based networks and a sense of legitimacy. Thus, our study challenges the normative primacy of the basin-scale integration in existing water governance research and policy, while offering a more robust and critical approach towards gathering place-based insights and in situ evidence of governance complementarity and inconsistency.

How different multilevel and multi-actor arrangements impact policy implementation: evidence from EU regional policy

ABSTRACT While implementation through multilevel governance (MLG) has often been found to have achieved limited success, the literature agrees that further studies are required to investigate if and how different MLG systems impact policy implementation. By collecting data from the implementation of four European Union (EU) regional development programmes, characterized by distinct organizational and institutional arrangements, this article adopts a performance-oriented approach to EU implementation in order to support or challenge the conventional assumptions about the expected benefits of MLG. The data suggest that effective MLG needs a central coordinating authority that has the power to enforce decentralized actors’ compliance, mobilize the implementation bodies, and provide actors with adequate organizational structures and the resources that they lack.

Teaching Practices in Multilevel Classrooms

This classroom action research examined multilevel students with a focus on student-centered teaching practices. The students were ESL immigrants from diverse cultural and educational backgrounds. Data were collected from classroom observations with a focus on one period of the ESL class and personal communications with two classroom teachers. In this ESL class, I implemented several teaching practices to overcome difficulties resulting from multilevel arrangements, which hinder student-centered teaching. Students spoke in some instances but remained silent in others. Focusing on one low-level student, sociocultural and individual factors related to his speaking practices were explored. This classroom-based research highlights the need for investigation that further systematically integrates teaching issues and research agendas.

Localizing the SDGs in England: Challenges and Value Propositions for Local Government

The United Nations' Development Goals (SDGs) have been criticized but are nonetheless seen by many as an important, if imperfect, international effort to address climate and environmental change, resource depletion and the unsustainability of contemporary life. Many of the Goals need to be implemented at the local level, yet sub-national governments have not been granted any enhanced status at the UN to facilitate this process. As a result, the role and effectiveness of local governments in localizing the SDGs is dependent on multi-level arrangements within respective national contexts. In this paper we present findings on the challenges facing local authorities in England, namely co-dependent ambivalence, partial holism and narrow practices of knowledge governance. We draw on work carried out collaboratively with local authorities and other stakeholders in Greater Manchester and Sheffield, and a UK-wide national workshop. These challenges explain the relatively low uptake and engagement with the SDGs in the context of wider political and economic concerns compared with international comparator cities. Against this background our research found that making the Goals real, relevant, relatable and relational offered a tactical route to localization for English local government.

Housing Vienna: The Socio-Spatial Effects of Inclusionary and Exclusionary Mechanisms of Housing Provision

The provision of housing plays a decisive role in segregation processes. In a European context increasingly influenced by variegated neo-liberal housing policies, Vienna’s approach is characterised by generous access to social housing. This inclusive strategy aims at actively preventing segregation and the isolation of certain groups. Over the last 30 years, however, reconfigured multi-level arrangements and wider contextual changes have transformed Vienna’s housing governance. This article explores how. In particular, it aims at disentangling the relationship between housing policy reforms at multiple policy levels and the changes of the mechanisms shaping the access to tenure segments and residential segregation in Vienna. Through the use of process tracing, we identify critical junctures of housing governance and relate them to housing segmentation and segregation measures over a period of approximately 30 years. Our findings show that reforms on multiple levels produce an increasingly deregulated private rental market and an increasingly fragmented access to a diversified provision of social housing. From a spatial point of view, persistent patterns of segregation blend with new ones, leading to decreasing segregation characterised by a more even spatial distribution of low and high-status groups. At the same time, both groups show very low, but slightly increased levels of isolation. Tenant profiles in social housing are, however, generally still very mixed. Balancing the trade-off between a social mix and social targeting without excluding residents in need will remain the main challenge for Vienna’s social housing model.

Comparing Ambiguities: Municipalities, Francophone Minority Communities and Immigration in Canada

AbstractThis article analyzes the implication of municipal governments and civil society actors in immigration through multilevel and collaborative governance arrangements. It argues that studying the roles of ambiguities is critical to understanding the activism of political entities with ill-defined status and mandates, such as municipalities and francophone minority communities (FMCs). This research adds to the literature on the “local turn” by highlighting that ambiguities are both a condition—that is, a driver that makes collaborative and multilevel arrangements work—and an outcome of collaboration practices, characterized by ambiguities regarding the balance of power, the aims of collaboration in a competitive sector and conflicting forms of accountabilities. The article identifies three approaches that actors use to deal with these ambiguities in a context where resources are not equitably distributed and where the role of the federal government is critical. In this configuration, municipalities and FMCs develop adaptive, rather than transformative, approaches to ambiguities.

Trust, Coordination and Multi-level Arrangements: Lessons for a European Health Union

In the wake of the outbreak of the COVID-19 crisis, the Swedish and Swiss governments adopted a similar policy approach. They enacted mostly non-binding measures to contain the epidemic, relying on the high level of interpersonal trust and trust in political institutions that exist in both of these (broadly comparable) countries to ensure compliance. However, unlike Sweden’s strategy, the Swiss policy response evolved during the early weeks of the “first wave”, achieving public health and socioeconomic results that have been considered as satisfactory, notwithstanding the complex institutional setting and policy process, the central location of Switzerland in continental Europe, its openness and its closeness with deeply affected regions in Italy and France. To shed light on this policy response and to draw lessons from it, this paper firstly discusses the role played by the new Swiss Epidemics Act. This law centralises decision-making capacity at the federal level and expands the competences of the central government, while leaving leeway to subnational units for implementation and recognising the need for increased international regulatory cooperation. Secondly, it shows how such a solution – a multi-level arrangement steered from the federal level with quite strong vertical and horizontal coordination mechanisms – could work as a blueprint for a European Health Union.

Multilevel governance of coastal flood risk reduction: A public finance perspective

Coastal flood risk reduction (CFRR) presents a significant public funding challenge, due to its high upfront costs and long-term benefits, and this challenge will increase with future sea-level rise. The funding challenge necessarily involves multiple levels of government, due to the regional nature of CFRR public goods involved. Yet there has been little research comparing such multilevel arrangements across countries, and in particular exploring the performance of public funding arrangements for providing coastal flood risk reduction. We address this gap, applying fiscal federalism to develop a multilevel governance analysis of public decision-making and fiscal authorities for CFRR in the Netherlands, Germany, the UK and Australia. For each country, we locate key decision-making and fiscal authorities in multilevel governance arrangements, and analyse their alignment with the benefits of CFRR measures (spillovers). We find diverse coastal flood risk governance arrangements ranging from highly centralised (NL), mixed arrangements, involving regional centralisation (Germany) or partial devolvement (UK), to full decentralisation (AUS). Further, we find that in accordance with fiscal federalism, multilevel coastal flood risk governance arrangements are generally reflective of the distribution of the benefits across different levels of government, with some exceptions (Germany and UK). Finally, exploring the outlook of current arrangements under sea-level rise, we find that major fiscal redistributions may be put under pressure by rising costs likely under SLR and future coastal development. This is particularly the case for those systems which operate under hazard-based, as opposed to risk-based, coastal protection policies. Further, we find that both fully and moderately decentralised arrangements may require greater central support for alternative measures, such as retreat, in light of growing financial burdens on local governments.

Multi-Level Design Influences on Robustness Evaluation of 7nm FinFET Technology

Transistor arrangement influences the performance of logic cells. Complex logic cells can be used to minimize area, delay, and power. However, with the increasing relevance of nanometer challenges such as process variability and radiation effects, it is also necessary to consider these factors at logic level design. The main contribution of this work is to evaluate the advantages of adopting a multi-level logic design instead of using complex gates to mitigate process variability and radiation effects. A justification for choosing the parameter that will characterize process variability is presented. Also, the analysis with different transistor arrangements and sizing is carried out to provide a basis for a better understanding of the obtained results. The experimental evaluation considers two topologies: complex gates and multi-level using basic gates, for a set of logic gates using the 7nm FinFET technology at the layout level. As expected, at nominal conditions, the best choice is to adopt complex gate topology to optimize area, power consumption, and performance. However, the logic multi-level arrangements became the functions up to 50% less sensitive to the transient faults and at least 30% more robust to the process variability effects. A trade-off needs to be done, considering the area and power constraints.

New Modes of Environmental Governance in Greater Sage-Grouse Conservation in Oregon

Natural resource challenges often span administrative jurisdictions and include actors and processes operating at different spatial and political scales. We applied concepts of new environmental governance to analyze Oregon’s approach to greater sage-grouse conservation. Through one in-depth case study in Lake County, we traced features of new environmental governance (cross-scale interactions, decentralization, and capacities of actors) through different governance levels. Interviews and qualitative analysis revealed that decentralization of administrative functions facilitated cross-scale interactions and relied on intermediaries, gap-filling, and perceptions of legitimacy at lower levels. State and agency guidelines steered the effort and were accompanied by financial and technical resources from multiple arenas, which increased local capacity. This study adds to the understandings of environmental governance for implementing multi-actor, multi-level conservation arrangements in resource-dependent communities. Further exploration of connections between higher levels and local contexts will reveal important, new ways to link policies with on-the-ground outcomes.

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.

Rural innovations in biosphere reserves – A social network approach

Today, peripheral rural areas are indispensable to achieve global and national conservation goals or a post-carbon transition while simultaneously struggling for quality of life and economic development. Biosphere Reserves have the ambition to overcome this dichotomy of environmental protection and regional development by fostering and upscaling (social) innovations within their World Network of Biosphere Reserves (WNBR). This study explores how these innovations resp. innovative firms and projects are stimulated and embedded in practice. A standardized survey and social network analysis (SNA) with these firms in two Biosphere Reserves reveals that innovations in the peripheral regions are multi-level arrangements where the Biosphere Reserves (1) provide platforms for new ideas and needs, (2) foster the development, funding and diffusion of products or services and (3) act as gatekeepers between actors of different areas and spatial scales. We therefore conclude that the role of the Biosphere Reserve in the two regions goes far beyond the protection of nature, providing the ‘institutional thickness’ for successful regional development. Additionally, they are social innovations themselves, which support the co-production of knowledge and learning. However, if UNESCO's Man and Biosphere program truly wants to have an impact on sustainability transitions, the integration of local actors and their projects into their WNBR has to be their top priority for the future.

Evolving polycentric governance of the Great Barrier Reef

A growing field of sustainability science examines how environments are transformed through polycentric governance. However, many studies are only snapshot analyses of the initial design or the emergent structure of polycentric regimes. There is less systematic analysis of the longitudinal robustness of polycentric regimes. The problem of robustness is approached by focusing not only on the structure of a regime but also on its context and effectiveness. These dimensions are examined through a longitudinal analysis of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) governance regime, drawing on in-depth interviews and demographic, economic, and employment data, as well as organizational records and participant observation. Between 1975 and 2011, the GBR regime evolved into a robust polycentric structure as evident in an established set of multiactor, multilevel arrangements addressing marine, terrestrial, and global threats. However, from 2005 onward, multiscale drivers precipitated at least 10 types of regime change, ranging from contextual change that encouraged regime drift to deliberate changes that threatened regime conversion. More recently, regime realignment also has occurred in response to steering by international organizations and shocks such as the 2016 mass coral-bleaching event. The results show that structural density and stability in a governance regime can coexist with major changes in that regime's context and effectiveness. Clear analysis of the vulnerability of polycentric governance to both diminishing effectiveness and the masking effects of increasing complexity provides sustainability science and governance actors with a stronger basis to understand and respond to regime change.

Governing Work and Employment Relations in an Internationalized Economy

Growing internationalization of economic activity has corroded the capacity of national institutions to regulate work and employment. In this changing context, established international institutions have generally not proved adequate to the resulting challenge. New initiatives have emerged to address the growing regulatory gap at the international level, variously aimed at cross-border flows of capital, labor, goods, and services. Most of these initiatives entail the addition of new institutional arrangements and regulation at the international level alongside, and not in place of, national frameworks. The resulting multilevel arrangements raise particular governance challenges. The solutions conventionally proposed neglect the role of power relations in shaping arrangements and hence their contested nature. This research and policy article examines the academic research on internationalization and work and employment regulation at the national level, the response of established international institutions, and the rise of new regulatory initiatives at the international level. It applies and modifies Streeck and Thelen’s framework for analyzing different types of gradual change and elaborates ways forward for new, multilevel arrangements that take account of power relations.

The Multi-Level Administration of the EU: Transnational Coordination Through National and Supranational Bureaucracies

The paper addresses the emergence of a multi-level administration in the European Union (EU) which consists of EU agencies, national agencies, and transnational agency networks. A key interest of the paper is to provide a descriptive overview of the phenomenon, to analyse why different types of multi-level administration emerge, and how they matter on three dimensions: First, we elucidate how different types of administrative multi-level arrangements matter for national agencies, for example their ability to deliver public services and their autonomy. Second, we explore how they impact on European agencies and transnational networks, for example their ability to influence European policy-making and implementation. Third, we focus on the interplay between national and supranational administrative actors. The rationale of the paper is essentially to review the existing literature, though it also aims at exploring several aspects that hitherto have not been at the core of research.

Capacity Building for the Integration of Climate Adaptation into Urban Planning Processes: The Dutch Experience

The institutions of the Dutch (urban) planning system face four challenging characteristics of climate adaptation measures. These measures are uncertain in their effects, in competition with other interests, multifaceted, and inherently complex. Capacity building is a key issue for the implementation of climate adaptation measures in urban planning processes, which aim to achieve Climate-Proof Cities (CPC). For successful capacity building, it is important to define the relevant stakeholders and tailor the adaptation strategies first to (the position of) these stakeholders and next to the specific urban conditions and issues. In addition, scientific insights and tools can be of assistance, and the use of climate maps can help to create a common language. Such common understanding of climate problems can lead to “goal entwinement” between actors, which can support the implementation of climate adaptation strategies in urban planning. Awareness, recognition and urgency are the most important components of this common understanding, which may differ for each stage in every urban planning process. In order to overcome the pragmatism that rules in day-to-day urban planning processes, multi-level arrangements between different tiers of government must be employed to improve the penetration of climate adaptation measures. After all, it still remains a soft interest in a hard process.

Polymer Synthesis in Coordination Nanospaces

Abstract In nature, biopolymers are efficiently synthesized by multilevel arrangements of monomers within constrained molecular-level spaces. These biological systems produce regio- and stereoregular polymers with uniform molecular weights, and can also arrange the higher order structures of the resulting polymers. Inspired by the elegant operations of polymerization in biological systems, polymer synthesis in artificial confined geometries is a promising strategy for the control of polymer primary structures and the design of well-defined nanostructures. Recently, we have established a new methodology for controlling polymer synthesis using microporous coordination compounds. In this account, recent progress and future perspectives of polymerizations in these coordination nanospaces are reviewed.

Governance for sustainable regions: can government meet the innovation policy challenge?

AbstractGovernments have long attempted to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship in many policy spheres, including economic development at national and regional levels. Neo‐liberal market‐based approaches to regional economic policy have been developed as an alternative to government subsidization and regulation. However the role of the state remains very significant in shaping regional strategies and in funding the physical and social infrastructure essential for economic growth. Neo‐liberal approaches have focused on economic development through entrepreneurship, but regional innovation policy has been broadened to include economic, social and environmental objectives, summed up as ‘innovation for sustainable regions’. Regional policy consists of a series of intersecting goals and programmes that are often in tension. Governments operate in complex institutional contexts and multi‐level arrangements which constrain their responsiveness and their capacity to innovate. In the face of complex or ‘wicked’ issues, there are serious challenges for the government sector to develop capabilities for promoting successful innovation at the regional level. It is argued that governments need to play a leadership role, and that they require new approaches based on partnerships and networks.Resumen.Los gobiernos han intentado por mucho tiempo fomentar la innovación y el espíritu emprendedor en muchas ámbitos políticos, incluyendo el desarrollo económico a escala nacional y regional. Los enfoques de mercado neoliberales para las políticas económicas regionales han sido desarrollados como una alternativa a los subsidios y la regulación. Sin embargo, el estado sigue teniendo un papel muy significativo a la hora de esbozar las estrategias regionales y financiar la infraestructura física y social esencial para el crecimiento económico. Los enfoques neoliberales se han centrado en el desarrollo económico con origen en un espíritu emprendedor, pero las políticas de innovación regional han crecido para poder abarcar objetivos económicos, sociales y medioambientales, resumidos en el término “innovación para regiones sostenibles”. Las políticas regionales consisten en una serie de metas que se entrecruzan y de programas a menudo en conflicto. Los gobiernos operan bajo contextos institucionales complejos y estructuras con niveles múltiples que restringen su capacidad de respuesta e innovación. Al enfrentarse a asuntos complejos o ‘espinosos’, existen retos serios para el sector gubernamental a la hora de desarrollar la capacidad de fomentar una innovación exitosa a escala regional. Se argumenta que es necesario que los gobiernos asuman un papel de liderazgo, y que necesitan nuevos enfoques basados en la cooperación y las redes de colaboración.

Introduction: Global Governance of Water

Water is a key element of the earth system with all its geophysical, biological, and human-social interactions. Freshwater is a prerequisite of human well-being in terms of drinking water and sanitation, food security and health, industrial processes and energy supply, transportation and recreation, and further goods and services delivered by ecosystem integrity and freshwater biodiversity. The sustainable management of water resources in times of global change poses one of the most pressing challenges for public policy in the twenty-first century. Global demand for freshwater has skyrocketed with population expansion, income growth, and technological development. The resulting strains on supply create not only environmental pressures but social tensions as well, given that freshwater resources are unequally distributed among world regions, countries, and social groups. Water scarcity and conflicts over the allocation of water resources are already widespread around the world. One-third of humanity already lives under water stress today, and one-fifth of the world's people do not have access to safe drinking water. Freshwater ecosystems are the most degraded and endangered of the planet's habitats. Under contemporary global change, the inequality of water distribution is increasing, and threats from water extremes like droughts and floods are growing. The importance of securing world water resources is increasingly recognized not only by researchers across the academic disciplines, but also by policymakers and the general public. Yet although a global discourse about water issues has evolved over the last five decades, a clear global governance framework has still not emerged. This omission is the more remarkable when one considers that, unlike governance of many other environmental and resource issues, water management has a very long history. It can be traced back 5,000 years to the ancient civilizations of the Nile, the Indus, the Euphrates, and the Tigris. Nevertheless, global regimes for water have been much slower to emerge than global governance of, for example, climate change and ozone depletion. As ecological, social, and economic interdependence on a planetary scale grows, the need to govern water in global terms becomes all the more urgent. Yet how can global public policy on this issue be promoted when local and national arrangements have become entrenched over a very long period of time? How can new global elements of water management be intertwined with local, national, and regional aspects to create multilevel arrangements that provide effective and legitimate governance of this vital resource? In spite of the clearly evident scientific and political challenges, global water governance has not yet received the research attention it needs. To improve this situation, the Global Water System Project (GWSP) was created in 2005 to, among other things, build capacity and networks among global water governance scholars. The GWSP organized a workshop in June 2006 to bring together researchers from multiple disciplines working on global aspects of water policy. This special issue of Global Governance includes a collection of major articles presented at that workshop. The five articles published here highlight the need for adopting a global perspective on water governance. With regard to theory, the articles consider how to conceive of global water governance. In terms of empirical analysis, the articles provide in-depth analysis of specific global water issues, with particular emphasis on delineating the links between the river basin level and the global level. The case studies span different continents and cover a variety of institutional, cultural, economic, and environmental conditions. Taking the five articles in order, the opening piece by Claudia Pahl-Wostl, Joyeeta Gupta, and Daniel Petry analyzes global governance of water with emphasis on the role of network governance and on the use of governance typologies--in particular, the mobius-web concept developed by James Rosenau. …

Democracy in Area-Based Policy Networks

This article discusses the issue of democratic quality of area-based policy networks, with particular attention to the complex settings of network relations and to the changes in local regimes. It is argued that present associative and deliberative frameworks of democratic theory are useful but inadequate to enable proper assessments of multilevel and multiactor policy arrangements. The article therefore combines both frameworks with a contextualized and dynamic perspective and supports this position with a case analysis of a spatial planning network in Ghent, Belgium. It finds that in Flanders, local representative democracywas dominated by corporatism and party political arrangements, and emergent networks for spatial planning are replacing old corporatist arrangements in a new institutional framework for local representative democracy. The article concludes that analyzing area-based networks without analyzing changes in representative democracy in the same area can easily lead to biased conclusions.