The search for a robust balance of power is a continuous challenge for multilevel political system. Institutions like parliaments or courts can protect the existing order. However, necessary adjustments to economic, social, or international challenges or policies determined to improve ineffective structures or to prevent disintegration require constitutional amendments. Whereas constitutional policy appears as essential to maintain balance, changing a constitution is rather difficult in multilevel governments. Due to the veto power of many actors pursuing divergent interests, policies aiming to redistribute power or fiscal resources risk to end in the joint decision trap. Hence, multilevel government is confronted by a fundamental dilemma. Constitutional Policy in Multilevel Government compares processes of constitutional reform in federal and regionalized states. Based on a theoretical framework emphasizing the relevance of negotiations in parliamentary, intergovernmental, and societal arenas, it identifies conditions for successful reforms and explains the consequences of failed reforms. Moreover, it highlights the interplay of reform processes and constitutional evolution as essential to maintaining a robust balance of power. The book demonstrates that an appropriate arrangement of multiple arenas of negotiation including executives, members of parliament and civil society organizations, and sequential order of reform processes proves fundamental to prevent federal or regionalized governments from becoming either instable or ending with rigid constitutions. Transformations in Governance is a major new academic book series from Oxford University Press. It is designed to accommodate the impressive growth of research in comparative politics, international relations, public policy, federalism, environmental and urban studies concerned with the dispersion of authority from central states up to supranational institutions, down to subnational governments, and side-ways to public-private networks. It brings together work that significantly advances our understanding of the organization, causes, and consequences of multilevel and complex governance. The series is selective, containing annually a small number of books of exceptionally high quality by leading and emerging scholars. The series targets mainly single-authored or co-authored work, but it is pluralistic in terms of disciplinary specialization, research design, method, and geographical scope. Case studies as well as comparative studies, historical as well as contemporary studies, and studies with a national, regional, or international focus are all central to its aims. Authors use qualitative, quantitative, formal modeling, or mixed methods. A trade mark of the books is that they combine scholarly rigour with readable prose and an attractive production style. The series is edited by Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the VU Amsterdam, and Walter Mattli of the University of Oxford.

Constitutional Policy in Multilevel Government: The Art of Keeping the Balance (Transformations in Governance)

Benz, Arthur

Legal Theory & Systems

Oxford University Press

Federal systems are praised for creating political stability, but they are also blamed for causing rigidity. They are said to balance powers, but apparently they are also threatened by instability due to drifts in power. Federalism should support democratization, but it can also constrain the power of the demos and strengthen the executive. In short, there is widespread agreement that federal systems are dynamic. The forces, mechanisms and consequences of federal dynamics, however, are not sufficiently understood so far. This book brings together leading experts in the field of comparative federalism to highlight how the interplay of continuity and change systematically generates and reinforces varieties of federalism and varieties of federal dynamics. Federal Dynamics: Continuity, Change and Varieties of Federalism investigates mechanisms and resulting patterns of federal development. It offers new analytical concepts and discusses different theoretical propositions to systematically compare convergent and divergent trends in federal systems. Acknowledging the theoretical pluralism that dominates the field, the book is organized around four sections: Models, Varieties and Dimensions of Federalism; Timing, Sequencing and Historical Evolution; Social Change and Political Structuring; and Actors, Institutions and Internal Dynamics.The contributions to this volume are variously concerned with three guiding questions: What changes within federal systems, how and why? The focus provided by these three guiding questions allows for a dialogue between strands of the literature that have not talked to each other in a sufficient manner. In this way, the book makes a significant contribution to the growing literature on continuity and change in federal systems. Ultimately, it represents a substantive effort in advancing research on comparative federalism.

Federal Dynamics: Continuity, Change, and the Varieties of Federalism

Broschek, Jorg Broschek

In this insightful book, Arthur Benz introduces a novel analytical approach to comparative research on multilevel governance. Confronting the intricate problems of coordinating local, regional, national and international policies in the face of political polarisation, he makes the case for pragmatic, sustainable and resilient multilevel governance. Rethinking Multilevel Governanceencompasses a range of theoretical perspectives on multilevel governance to analyze the dispersion of authorities and inter-jurisdictional coordination of policies across levels. The book proposes a revised conceptualization that is more adaptable in the light of institutional variety, recent crises and political changes. Chapters explore the consequences of economic disparities and societal diversity on organising this complex system of governance. Ultimately, Benz reconsiders power dynamics in multilevel policymaking and discusses how policies can be legitimized in multilevel governance. Significantly advancing the discussion on power and legitimacy in multilevel politics, the book is a crucial read for students and scholars of public policy, politics, regulation and governance. It is also beneficial to civil servants working on issues such as climate change, international conflict and digitalization.

Rethinking Multilevel Governance (Rethinking Political Science and International Studies series)

Politics & Social Sciences

Politics & Government

Edward Elgar Publishing

Policy Change and Innovation in Multilevel Governance (Policy, Administrative and Institutional Change series)

This book provides an authoritative in-depth assessment of the development of the German public sector over the last decade. The authors examine the impact of international administrative trends - including privatization, the New Public Management, decentralization and Europeanization - and discuss the administrative consequences of unification. In addition to a lengthy introductory essay by the editors, the book includes analyses of postwar administrative development; the reform of the postal and telecommunications services; the privatization of the public railways; the Treuhandanstalt; the changing role of regional districts in West and East; local government transformation in the new LÃ¤nder; and new forms of co-operative policy-making. This is the first English-language volume on the German public sector to appear for more than a decade. All articles are written by internationally recognized experts, representing a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and approaches. All are written in an accessible, non-legalistic style and are of relevance to professionals, academics and students.

A New German Public Sector?: Reform, Adaptation and Stability (Association for the Study of German Politics)

Business & Money

Economics

Routledge

Der moderne Staat. Grundlagen der politologischen Analyse.

Oldenbourg

Die Relevanz des Regionalisierungskonzepts wird in verschiedenen sozialwissenschaftlichen Diskursen thematisiert, so im Zusammenhang mit der Globalisierung der Wirtschaft und der Herausbildung regionaler Netzwerke oder der Internationalisierung und Europäisierung der Politik.  Die Publikation beschäftigt sich mit Fragen, die im Zusammenhang mit dem steuerungstheoretischen Diskurs gestellt sind. Aus den Veränderungen der Staatstätigkeit werden Merkmale und Funktionen regionaler Politikabgeleitet. Gefragt wird nach den Spannungsfeldern, aber auch Grenzen von Regionalisierung.

Regionalisierung: Theorie ― Praxis ― Perspektiven (German Edition)

Science & Math

Fürst, Dietrich

Kilper, Heiderose

Rehfeld, Dieter

Earth Sciences

VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften

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