Многоуровневое управление: теория и практика

Multi level (or multilevel) governance is a term used to describe the way power is spread vertically between levels of government and horizontally across multiple quasi government and non governmental organizations and actors. This situation develops because countries have multiple levels of government including local, regional, state, national or federal, and many other organisations with interests in policy decisions and outcomes. International governance operates based on multi level governance principles. Multi level governance can be distinguished from multi level government which is when different levels of government share or transfer responsibility amongst each other. Whereas multi level governance analyses the relationship of different state levels and interaction with different types of actors.'

Multi level governance is an approach in political science and public administration theory that originated from studies on European integration. Political scientists Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks developed the concept of multi level governance in the early 1990s and have continuously been contributing to the research program in a series of articles (see Bibliography). Their theory resulted from the study of the new structures that were put in place by the EU (Maastricht Treaty) in 1992. Multi level governance gives expression to the idea that there are many interacting authority structures at work in the emergent global political economy. It "illuminates the intimate entanglement between the domestic and international levels of authority". Multi level governance' is a recent concept, having first entered the lexicon of political science around fifteen years ago as comparativists became re acquainted with European integration and discovered that authority was shifting not only from central states up to Europe, but also down to subnational authorities. The first efforts to understand this were descriptive, spawning concepts that have generated an extensive literature. Multi level, polycentric, and multi layered governance emphasize the dispersion of decision making from the local to the global level. In recent years these concepts have cross pollinated subfields of political science including European studies and decentralization, federalism and international organization, public policy (e. g. environmental policy, health policy) and public private governance, local governance and transnational governance. The authors of a recent survey of the literature on the structure of government conclude that 'We attribute many of the recent "cutting edge" theoretical contributions in political science to studies of "multi level governance"’ and they note that although students of federalism 'considered the current subject matter of their field to be based on well defined, well rooted and broadly accepted ideas, they were nevertheless open to a new flowering of federal theory as a result of fertilization by these new MLG theoretical developments'. However, there is nothing entirely new under the sun. Though scarcely recognized at the time, this research revives a rich tradition in political science represented by Karl Deutsch (1966) on the effect of societal transactions on government structure, Robert Dahl (1973) on the virtues and vices of multilevel democracy, and Stein Rokkan (1983) on identity and territorial politics.

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. 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. The number of governmental and non governmental international organizations has increased markedly over the past two decades, as has their scope, range and intrusiveness. Crossborder interdependence – from migration to climate change to terrorism – has stimulated regional organization in many parts of the world.

The "vertical" dimension refers to the linkages between higher and lower levels of government, including their institutional, financial, and informational aspects. Here, local capacity building and incentives for effectiveness of sub national levels of government are crucial issues for improving the quality and coherence of public policy. The "horizontal" dimension refers to co operation arrangements between regions or between municipalities. These agreements are increasingly common as a means by which to improve the effectiveness of local public service delivery and implementation of development strategies.

There has been an intensification of research on the consequences as well as the character of multi level governance. The concept was developed as a tool of pure research, but it now motivates policy makers. From the late 1990s the European Commission began to refer to its own mission as one of achieving multilevel governance, especially in cohesion policy. In 2001, the Commission set up a committee on multilevel governance to contribute to its White Paper on governance. José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, claims that 'the multilevel system of governance on which our European regional policy is based provides a key boost to the Union's competitive edge' and that, in the current economic crisis, 'multilevel governance must be a priority'. In an October 2008 resolution, the European Parliament called on the member states 'to develop as quickly as possible the practical measures set out in the First Action Programme . with a view to strengthening multilevel governance'. In 2009, 344 representatives of elected regional and local authorities across the EU approved a resolution on a 'European Union Charter for Multilevel Governance', which would bring localities and regions into European democratic decision making. Several political parties including the European Peoples Party have taken up this theme. The European Peoples Party which represents Christian democratic parties in the European Parliament recently stated that, 'multilevel governance should be one of the guiding principles of the EU, an integral part of any European strategy or policy where local and regional authorities are widely implicated, and monitored closely to ensure that it is indeed being put into practice on the ground'. International organizations have also taken positions on the issue. In 2009, the United Nations Development Programme released a report, 'Delivering Human Security through Multilevel Governance', which argued that 'the two level approach to international relations . is being replaced by a much more complex multilevel system of governance that also involves local, sub national providers of public goods as well as regional governance actors acting at a supranational but not a global level'. The World Bank has commissioned a series of studies examining multilevel governance; the United Nations has a research and training institute on comparative regional integration that studies 'multilevel regulatory processes and the relations between sub and supra national regional governance', and the OECD has created a directorate on multilevel governance. However, the consequences of multilevel governance are debated. In the eyes of its detractors, multilevel governance exacerbates corruption (Treisman 2000), leads to gridlock (Scharpf 2007), engenders moral hazard (Rodden 2006), constrains redistribution (Obinger, Castles, Leibfried 2005), obfuscates accountability (Peters & Pierre 2004), and wastes money (Berry 2009). Research on both causes and consequences of multi level governance is ongoing and more and more information about the subnational as well as the international dimension of multi level governance is available in the context of larger data sets.

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. 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. 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. 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. 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, 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 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, 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. 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. Lastly, another form of vertical collaboration, is governing through regulation. Such regulation characterises traditional forms of authoritative governance, exemplifying local to nation state relations, almost covering the entirety of the multi level governance scale.

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. 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.

Many of the problems associated with multi level governance revolve around the notion of levels. The very idea of levels and levels of analysis is imbued with hierarchical implications. However, different levels or social spaces often interact or cut across with one another in complex ways that are not strictly hierarchical. To what extent can 'levels' be identified at all? The notion that international bodies constitute a discrete level of authority and governance is contestable. International regulatory networks may not be separate sources of authority but instead represent the reconstitution of state authority and the pursuit of state level governance by other means. While territorial levels make sense when we are referring to public forms of authority, they seem less compatible with private and market forms of authority. Another criticism on the theory of multi level governance is that it's not really a proper theory, rather that it is an approach. The main difference between multi level governance and other theories of integration is that it gets rid of the continuum or grey area between intergovernmentalism and supranationalism and leaves in its place a descriptive structure. This theory does not address the sovereignty of states directly, but instead simply says that a multi level structure is being created by subnational and supranational actors. One of the main questions of integration theory, namely, the transfer of loyalty and sovereignty between national and supranational entities and the future of this relationship in the EU is not specifically addressed in this theory. The identification of partial political measures and general macroeconomics is divided on diverse decisional levels. National governments maintain an important decisional role but the control unlocalizes at supranational level. Individual national sovereignty is dilated in this decisional process and the supranational institutions have an autonomic role. While there is a growing body of work on multi level government and on local government of immigration integration, we still lack a systematic discussion of the role and position of non state actors in the negotiation of responses to immigrant integration between different governmental levels and on the local level. The gap in multi level governance research is that there is no systematic study of the role of non state actors in multi level governance.

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. 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.

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. 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. 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.

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. 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.