Explores ways to make democracy work better, with particular focus on the integral role of local institutions.

All federal systems face an internal tension between divisive and integrative political forces, striking a balance between providing local autonomy and sub-national representation on one hand, and maintaining an integrated political community and sufficient integration to maintain stability on the other hand. This book argues that parties and voters strategically respond to the incentives of federal institutional design to shape the development of arenas of political competition that are either predominantly independent or integrated across levels of the federation. Drawing on a rich collection of original data, including a dataset of aggregate level electoral data from over 2200 federal and state-level elections in seven federations, as well as the author's original dataset on party organizational linkage from a survey of sub-national party elites, this book demonstrates how two aspects of institutional design — the degree of decentralization and the method of power allocation, affect the development of integrated or independent politics as observed through voter behaviour, party systems and party organization. Using a mixed method research design, it demonstrates how voters and parties react to federal institutional design. It also provides nuance in the causal processes at play, demonstrating how party organization, party system structure and voter behaviour interact, to produce a federalism that is predominantly integrating and stability-enhancing or one that is predominantly autonomy- and accountability-enhancing. Comparative Politics is a series for researchers, teachers, and students of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu. The series is edited by Susan Scarrow, Chair of the Department of Political Science, University of Houston, and Jonathan Slapin, Professor of Political Institutions and European Politics, Department of Political Science, University of Zurich.

Citizen Participation in Multi-level Democracies offers an overview of new forms of participatory democracy in federally and regionally organised multi-level states. Its four sections focus on the conceptual foundations of participation, the implementation and instruments of democracy, examples from federal and regional States, and the emergence of participation on the European level. There is today a growing disaffection amongst the citizens of many states towards the traditional models of representative democracy. This book highlights the various functional and structural problems with which contemporary democracies are confronted and which lie at the root of their peoples’ discontent. Within multi-level systems in particular, the fragmentation of state authority generates feelings of powerlessness among citizens. In this context, citizens’ participation can in many cases be a useful complement to the representative and direct forms of democracy.

Focusing on the EU, this volume, with a combination of theoretical perspectives and empirical research, examines the problems multilevel governance causes for democratic legitimacy by placing it in a comparative and theoretical context, and explore how challenges faced by the EU compare with those faced by traditional federal systems worldwide.

This book explores the theoretical issues, empirical evidence, and normative debates elicited by the concept of multi-level governance (MLG). The concept is a useful descriptor of decision-making processes that involve the simultaneous mobilization of public authorities at different jurisdictional levels as well as that of non-governmental organizations and social movements. It has become increasingly relevant with the weakening of territorial state power and effectiveness and the increase in international interdependencies which serve to undermine conventional governmental processes. This book moves towards the construction of a theory of multi-level governance by defining the analytical contours of this concept, identifying the processes that can uniquely be denoted by it, and discussing the normative issues that are raised by its diffusion, particularly in the European Union. It is divided into three parts, each meeting a specific challenge - theoretical, empirical, normative. It focuses on three analytical dimensions: multi-level governance as political mobilization (politics), as authoritative decision-making (policy), and as state restructuring (polity). Three policy areas are investigated in vindicating the usefulness of MLG as a theoretical and empirical concept - cohesion, environment, higher education - with particular reference to two member-states: the UK and Germany. Finally, both the input and output legitimacy of multi-level governance decisions and arrangements and its contribution to EU democracy are discussed. As a loosely-coupled policy-making arrangement, MLG is sufficiently structured to secure coordination among public and private actors at different jurisdictional levels, yet sufficiently flexible to avoid "joint decision traps". This balance is obtained at the cost of increasingly blurred boundaries between public and private actors and a change in the established hierarchies between territorial jurisdictions.

Effective governance is vital for all nations and can be made easier with advanced technology and communication. Through various collaborative efforts and processes, developing nations can enhance their economies with multi-level governance. Multi-Level Governance in Developing Economies is a collection of innovative research on the applications and theories of multi-level governance in the developing world. It illustrates the practical side of multi-level governance by emphasizing special policies such as immigration, innovation, climate, local government, and construction. While highlighting topics including Europeanization, politics of the developing world, and immigration policies, this book is ideally designed for academicians, policymakers, government officials, and individuals seeking current research on the usage and impact of multi-level governance in emerging economies.

A study of territorial dynamics within party organizations in multi-layered systems. This book contributes to a new approach in party research which acknowledges the importance of multi-layered institutional framing. It includes an analysis of vertical linkages and sub-state autonomy in Austrian, Belgian, British, German and Spanish parties.