Multi-level governance – legitimate theory or merely a convenient construct?

Abstract

Multi-level governance as a theory of European integration was started in the early 1990s, by Liesbeth Hooge and Gary Marks as a result of the study of post-Maastricht European Union. It analyses the changing and intertwined relationships between actors, who belong to different territorial levels – supranational, national and subnational. This theory highlights the increasingly fading distinction between the domains of domestic and international politics and describes a system of continuous negotiation among nested governments at several territorial tiers. But multi – level governance is criticised not only for its failure to predict further integration of the EU – it is said to give too much attention to the lower levels, compared to non-governmental actors, its lack of predictive powers, its weak explanations of causality. Whatever the weaknesses of MLG, no-one can deny its convenience for the EU institutions – it awards them, as actors of the supranational level, great power in the political playing field, and even promotes transference of more and more state functions – and the power that comes from enacting them – from the national level upwards. So it is no surprise that the development of MLG as a theory was and still is supported from Brussels. The concepts of MLG quickly entered into the vocabulary of policy–makers who played a part in driving it forward.[...]