Unraveling the Central State, But How? Types of Multi-Level Governance. IHS Political Science Series: 2003, No. 87

The reallocation of authority upwards, downwards, and sideways from central states has drawn attention from a growing number of scholars in political science. Yet beyond agreement that governance has become (and should be) multi-level, there is no consensus about how it should be organized. This article draws on several literatures to distinguish two types of multi-level governance. One type conceives of dispersion of authority to general-purpose, non-intersecting, and durable jurisdictions. A second type of governance conceives of task-specific, intersecting, and flexible jurisdictions. We conclude by specifying the virtues of each type of governance