Types of Multi-Level Governance

The reallocation of authority upwards, downwards, and sideways from central states hasdrawn attention from a growing number of scholars in the social sciences. Yet beyondagreement that governance has become (and should be) multi-level, there is no consensusabout how it should be organized. This paper draws on several literatures to distinguish twotypes of multi-level governance. One type conceives of dispersion of authority to a limitednumber of levels. A second type of governance conceives of a large number of functionallyspecialized, intersecting, and flexible jurisdictions. We conclude by specifying the virtues ofeach type of governance.