1

2 - Comprehension of Yannis’s Article” Accountability and Multi-level Governance:

More Accountability, Less Democracy

Sheikh Shoaib Tariq

Department of Governance & Public Policy, National University of Modern Languages,

Islamabad

GPP 509: Multi-Level Governance

Sir Mohsin Khan
Words: 868
April 03, 2020
 2

Question No. 1: Identify what are properties of multi-level governance, the author described?
Answer:
Below are the properties of multi-level governance, pinpointed by author in his article:
- Lack of visibility
Many factors of policy networks are not visible to the actors that are not part of it. Since multi-
level governance is consisted of network, therefore roles and discretions of policy makers, holding
different levels, are not clear and indistinct. Also, pluralism in political activities, if, possessed by
multiple networks are informal and blur, consequently give birth to difficulty in identification of
authoritarian.
- Uncoupling from representative institutions
Another property of Multi-level governance, author prescribed, is its behavior of uncoupling
the public electoral institution from decisions taken for public. Although parliamentarians
(representatives of citizens) are legitimately authorized for policy making and its implementations, but
due to multi-level governance and propagation of networks i.e. public-private partnerships now owns
more influence on policies.
- Composition of networks
One of the man property of multi-level governance is its inclusion of public and private
networks in public policy formulation to ensure participation and inclusiveness of all the stakeholders
and marginalized communities.
- Multi-levelness itself
Multi-levelness itself is a property of multi-level governance as it included horizontal and
vertical hierarchies. Both the hierarchies have common fate for policy decisions. Vertical hierarchies
may include intergovernmental or intergovernmental levels while horizontal peers include public firms
and NGOs such that private actors.
More
Other attributes of multilevel governance that are intermittently discussed by author in this
paper are: Open method of Coordination, Consensus oriented, Transparency, Comitology, Negotiations
or compromise seeking, Cooperation, Mutual trust, Diversified and pluralistic accountability and Peer
accountability.
Question No. 2: How these properties lead to a deficit in democratic accountability?
Answer:
Due to lack of visibility of governance network, author unveiled that public and private actors,
in multi-network governance, blames each other on poor performances, which hide accountable one.
Without having empirical data or information, it is not possible to apply sanctions on victims of
miserable performances. Policy decisions are taken by those who are not authorized by public, and also
are not formally accountable in front of them. These interventions in policies leads to failure of elected
body and consequently they could not practice their pledges which they declared before elections.
Public institutions most probably add private or non-public actors in policy formulation as an
instrument. Following are the actors included in policy networks:
Policy Networks
Public Sector Private Sector
Bureaucrats Interest Representatives
Technocrats NGOs
Other Policy Experts Other Pure Private Actors
The table above depicts that Elected politicians are not the part of Networks and hence, they
remains absent in Public-Private partnerships. Bureaucrats and elected politicians, both are accountable
in front of administrations and public in face of electoral sanctions, respectively. Other experts are
independent and are not accountable in their constituencies because they have to think credibly. Civil
society organizations are charismatic authorities, they claims as a self-proclaimed representatives of
 3

those constituencies where there is no government and there is no accountability mechanism of those
NGOs. Market accountability is different from public actors because they own their firms and have
their interests, they are only accountable by public, if public boycotts their productions. In Multi-level
governance, there is overlapping in several constituencies. National and regional level governments, on
their policy decisions and positions, are not accountable to outsiders due to having lack of information.
In peers, network actors are accountable to each other horizontally in soft relations based on common
interests. Fear of blame game and annihilation of reputation, causes blacklisting of unprofessional actors
in policy network.

Lack of visibility of Governance Public-private Partnerships

Networks Undefined or overlapping of roles
Blame game

The Uncoupling of Governance Decisions by non-representative actors

Networks form Democratic Reduction in power of elected bodies
Properties Circuit Unclear hierarchies
lead to deficit
The Composition of Networks Public-Private networks in decisions
in democratic
accountability Absence of democrats from networks
Usurpation of Private actors

Multi-levelness as an Horizontal & vertical heirarchies

Aggravating Factor Lack of information to outsiders
Negotiations

Question No. 3: Summarize the general conclusions on the characteristics and limits of
accountability mechanisms in multi-level governance and on their consequences for democracy.

Answer:
Author concluded the article with the sense that democratic government is different from the
accountable governance. Participation and inclusiveness of multi-level governance leads toward
pluralism which uncouple the governance networks from elected bodies. Accountability by the public
becomes feeble and exercise by other functional groups of policy makers, as there are many actors other
than elected body in formulation of policy decisions. Due to increase in policy advocacy of CSOs,
power of vote is reduced. Since, democratic politicians are not only the actors, accountability through
mandate of vote by public is declined. Stake holders are the part of decision making just for construction
of society, otherwise they are not necessary. Also, stake holders can only force their preferences to
policy makers if they own resources. In multi-level governance, value of votes declined while worth of
resources incremented due to coercion of stake holders.
Delegation of powers to other agencies empowered the non-representative actors rather than
democratically accountable elected representative in decision making. Although, pluralistic decision
making increase governance but other mechanisms of accountability can never takes place of
democratic accountability. Author characterized this by more accountability, but less democracy.
Usually citizens change their leaderships, by using their capacities, if a leader failed to fulfill their
interests. Office holders are not always independent in selection of diverse policy alternatives,
especially in the presence of those institutions which focus only on nationalization. Unfortunately, in
the presence of media, display of political competition increased instead of serious content in policy
making.
 4

References
PAPADOPOULOS, Y. (2010). Accountability and Multi-level Governance: More
Accountability, Less Democracy? West European Politics, 33(5), 1030-1049.
Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233163785_Accountability_and_Multi-
Level_Governance_More_Accountability_Less_Democracy