Organized by: Tanja Börzel (Max Planck-Bonn), Liesbet Hooghe (UNC), Gary Marks (UNC) and Thomas Risse (Freie Univ. Berlin)

This workshop seeks to spawn a dialogue between exponents of federalism and multi-level governance in analyzing the character and development of governance in Europe.

New forms of governance in Europe have gained the attention of scholars in economics, political science, sociology, international relations, and public policy and administration. These scholars have identified common features, such as the growth of public/private networks at every level, and the dispersion of authority from central states up to supranational institutions and down to subnational governments. Many have singled out the Europe/ European Union as a particularly fertile ground for studying these developments. But how "new" are these forms of governance? Do public/private partnerships replace or complement public authoritative decision making? To what extent does dispersion of authority above and below the central state transform authority in Europe? And how can one understand variation in governance? This workshop focuses on two issues in this governance agenda:

1. What is the role of private/ functional vs. territorial actors? How can we account for changing patterns of authority dispersion across territorial and functional lines?
2. What is the role of hierarchy vs. networking? What role does hierarchy play compared to alternative modes of governance such as self-organization, networking, and market (competition)?

The scholars at this workshop have approached these developments from different angles. Some have tried to extend existing theories of jurisdictional change, most prominently federalism, to understand dispersion of authority beyond traditional interstate relations. Others have suggested new terms, such as multi-tiered governance, polycentric governance, multi-perspectival governance, FOCJ, and multi-level governance, to emphasize the qualitative difference between traditional government and alternative forms of governance. Yet others have sought to make sense of variation in governance by combining insights from either tradition. Our goal in this workshop is to spark a debate between exponents of these strands, and identify future lines of analysis.