Multilevel governance

The chapter elaborates the concept of multilevel governance (MLG) as describing simultaneously processes of policy-making, polity-building and of political mobilization. In particlaur, it dwells on the latter as a crucial aspect of territorial politics. Political mobilization may involve members of the political class, of the public administration or of civil society around policy-making processes which may lead to institutional transformations in the division of powers between different levels of government. It is therefore the most dynamic aspect of MLG, which makes this concept analytically and theoretically fruitful vis-à-vis competing concepts such as simply "governance" or "federalism". For its open-ended nature and institutionally upsetting character, MLG is often treated as democratically faulty while it instead simply challenges our conventional notion of democracy.