Multi-Level (Territorial) Governance: Three Criticisms

1. A previous version was presented at a workshop convened by Marcin Dabrowski, John Bachtler and François Bafoil in cooperation with the Regional Studies Association at the Institute for European Integration Research, Austrian Academy for Sciences, in December 2011. The author wishes to thank Dominic Stead of Delft University of Technology, OTB Research Institute for the Built Environment and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Abstract

Multi-level territorial governance has entered European planning discourse, but is the term “territorial” actually redundant? After all, multi-level governance is already thought to refer to the interaction between nested territorial administrations. So could multi-level governance be criticised for giving more attention to the roles and positions of lower-levels in a multi-level polity rather than invoking a comprehensive concept of governance implicating non-governmental actors in policy making? And does the multi-level governance literature ignore the underlying metageography? Whether territories are accordingly fixed jurisdictions or malleable social constructs has implications for planning and beyond.

Keywords:

• Multi-level governance
• territory
• territorialism

Notes

1. A previous version was presented at a workshop convened by Marcin Dabrowski, John Bachtler and François Bafoil in cooperation with the Regional Studies Association at the Institute for European Integration Research, Austrian Academy for Sciences, in December 2011. The author wishes to thank Dominic Stead of Delft University of Technology, OTB Research Institute for the Built Environment and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.