Coping with Power Dispersion: Autonomy, Co-ordination and Control in Multi-Level Systems

The last decades have witnessed a significant shift in policy competencies away from central governments in Europe. The reallocation of competencies spans over three dimensions: upwards, sideways, and downwards. This collection takes the dispersion of powers as a starting point and seeks to assess how the actors involved cope with the new configurations. Chapters discuss the conceptualization of power dispersion and highlight the ways in which we add to this research agenda. Some general conclusions are also outlined, indicating future avenues of research. Taken together, the collection contributes answers to the challenge of defining and measuring – in a comparative way – the control and co-ordination mechanisms which power dispersion generates. In sum, the collection explores the tension between political actors' quest for autonomy and the acknowledgement of their interdependence whilst revealing how, as power dispersion deepens, central governments have sought to both manage and limit it. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy.