Today multi-governance is still an evolving and mobile and complex system which is examined by the dynamics and unique characteristics of the European integration.
By Jing Xu and Shiyong Shen
Shanghai University of Engineering Science, Shanghai, China
Image Attribute: European Union 2013 – European Parliament.
Source: Flickr Creative Commons license.
Governance Concept
When refer to
EU multi-level governance, there is still confusion about the conceptualization
of the term: what’s the concept of governance? Pierre (2000) distinguishes
between two broad meanings of the concept. The first meaning refers to “the
empirical manifestation of state adaptation to its external environment as it
emerges in late twentieth century”. From this perspective, governance can be
considered both a process and a state whereby public and private actors engage
in the intentional regulation of societal relationships and conflicts.
Governance is thus different from government, the latter stressing hierarchical
decision-making structures and the centrality of public actors, while the
former denotes the participation of public and private actors as well as
non-hierarchical forms of decision-making. The second meaning refers to
governance as the “conceptual or theoretical representation of co-ordination of
social systems”. Another concept about governance is about “good governance”
from World Bank (1997) and OECD which means that good governance have been
leading advocates of propagating sound fiscal management and administrative
efficiency as a precondition to sustainable growth and development.
Governance and International Relations
With the
development of economic glottalization and societal denationalization, the roles
of nation-state are declining in international system and structure. The
hitherto dominant strand in the IR-literature, which engaged in the inquiry of
the conditions under which cooperation in an anarchic system would be possible,
was complemented by a new strand of research, emphasizing questions of
effectiveness and problem-solving capacity of different forms of international
(institutionalized) cooperation underlining the central role of the state in
producing and sustaining international order or “governance”. This literature
has been complemented by an emerging discussion of the role of private actors,
such as transnational business corporations and NGOs, in fulfilling a large
variety of governance functions, from international economic regulation to
providing security through private military forces.
EU
Integration and Governance
The initiative
of the White Paper on European Governance was geared to promote “good
governance” by the wider involvement of civil society therefore the EU
governance has become a popular research focus in EU studies and political
issues. During the process of the EU integration, the transformation of states
has come into being different levels such as supranational level, sub-national
level and individual networking. American scholar Marks, Gary (1993: 392)
firstly used the concept of EU multi-level governance based on the structural
policy of EC in 1993. Therefore, the concept constantly was developed and
applied by many scholars. In the course of the past decade, a plethora of analyses
have come to have come to see the EU as a system of governance characterized by
“a unique set of multi-level, non-hierarchical and regulatory institutions, and
a hybrid mix of state and non-state actors” (Hix, 1998: 39). Concepts that
sought to grasp the alleged sui generis—nature of the EU polity mushroomed
during this period: “multi level governance” (Marks, Hooghe, & Blank,
1996), the “regulatory state” (Majone, 1994), and “network governance”
(Kohler-Koch & Eising, 1999; Kohler-Koch, 1999). Aiming at a general theory
of multi-level governance, Hooghe and Marks (2001: 4) emphasized that
governance is interconnected.
EU
Multi-Level Governance
According to
the EU multi-level governance model, supranational, national, sub-national as
well as transnational actors and institutions all play a key role for European
integration and the interaction of actor during the process of integration.
Some dimension will be examined through this mode: firstly decision making
competence is shared-centric power to the EU policies remains important but
meets its limits. Secondly, policy-making at EU level involves in the loss of
control for individual governments. Member states’ competence has been
transformed to the sub-national level—regional and local authority. Actors at the
sub-national as well as transnational level can by pass the national level on
crucial issues. Thirdly, multi-level governance helps coordination among
different private interests and construct the civil society and the civic
participation in EU. The operation of structural funds can completely reflects
the mode of multi-level governance and the interaction of different actors
level.
The theory had four key points:
1) The model of networks structure and
non-single in the policy decision;
2) The
transformation of the member states;
3) The
Europeanize of the member states;
4) Multi-political identity.
Conclusion:
Essentially
the same academic debate about the process of European integration has been
going on for over four decades. In intergovernmental perspectives, European
integration is a process whereby the governments of states voluntarily enter
into agreements to work together to solve common problems. Neo-functionalist
ideas were eagerly embraced by members of the Commission as a blueprint for
constructing a united Europe. Opponents of further integration implicitly
invoke the neo-functionalist idea that the process is no longer under control
and threatens national identity.
Today multi-governance is still an evolving
and mobile and complex system which is examined by the dynamics and unique
characteristics of the European integration. Facing the challenge of
globalization and deficit of democracy, probably multi-level governance is
useful exploration to the legitimacy in EU and also a useful analytical concept
for the post-sovereign modernity of international politics in the twenty-first
century.
Publication Details:
This article is an excerpt from a technical paper, titled - "IR Theories Debate of European Integration" published at Open Journal
of Political Science, 2014, 4, 216-220 Published Online October 2014 in SciRes.
http://www.scirp.org/journal/ojps http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojps.2014.44022
Cite this paper:
Xu, J., & Shen, S. Y. (2014). IR Theories Debate of
European Integration. Open Journal of Political Science, 4, 216-220.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ojps.2014.44022 IR Theories Debate of European
Integration
Copyright © 2014
by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc.
This work is licensed under
the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY).
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
