Policy Change and Innovation in Multilevel Governance

Policy, Administrative and Institutional Change series

Arthur Benz, Professor Emeritus of Comparative Politics and German Government, Institute for Political Science, Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License. It is free to read, download and share on Elgaronline.com.

Multilevel governance divides powers, includes many veto players and requires extensive policy coordination among different jurisdictions. Under these conditions, innovative policies or institutional reforms seem difficult to achieve. However, while multilevel systems establish obstructive barriers to change, they also provide spaces for creative and experimental policies, incentives for learning, and ways to circumvent resistance against change. As the book explains, appropriate patterns of multilevel governance linking diverse policy arenas to a loosely coupled structure are conducive to policy innovation.

‘This book builds on a decades-long study of policymaking and multilevel governance. It engages with fundamental issues of institutional change and policy innovation that we know far too little about. Arthur Benz gathers an impressive range of evidence and thinking that allow us to better tackle these thorny issues.’
——大学的Gary标志North Carolina, Chapel Hill, US and European University Institute, Italy

‘Summarizing a decade of research on multilevel governance, this book is an essential guide for political scientists, politicians and public administrators. I warmly recommend it, in particular, to those interested in theories of policy change or institutional change, and those focusing on linkages between multiple arenas, such as my fellow experts in European integration. Let's all keep in mind Arthur Benz’s reminder that “complexity of governance should be regarded not only as a necessary evil but also a precondition to solve complex policy problems in a democratic way”.’
– Gerda Falkner, University of Vienna, Austria

‘Arthur Benz is an eminence in the study of multilevel governance. This book draws together different strands of his work and provides an encompassing analysis of multilevel governance in federal, European and international contexts. If you want to know why it can deliver, this is the book to read.’
– Michael Zürn, WZB Berlin Social Science Center, Germany