1. Levels of government
   1. Government is divided into different levels/geographical units
      1. Within countries:
         1. National/canal/fedal
         2. State/provincial/regional/country
         3. Local
      2. But also supranational and international organisations
      3. Raises questions:
         1. What should each level do?
         2. What should be internationalised, centralised or decentrialised
         3. How do we ensure efficiency and accountability?.B
      4. Aftermath of WWII and impact of globalisation led to new bodies above nation state
         1. State has become too big for small problems but too big for small problems
            1. E.g. Global environmental problems
            2. E.g. Local issues
         2. State is a model in which the state is not proactively
2. Supranational
   1. Yearbook of international organisations says there are:
      1. 250 formal intergovernmental bodies
         1. Broadly split into
            1. Confederations
            2. Which are organisations formed by groups who want to cooperate with one another but retain their independence and pierce their individual sovereignty.
            3. E.g. UN, IMF, WTO
            4. Federations
            5. Pooling of sovereignty
            6. Eg EU is most advanced example of this.
            7. Though EU has both federal (Commission, ECJ, and some pooling of sovereignty) and confederal features (no central taxation, weak coordination)
            8. EU not replacing states but overlapping with them.
            9. Moves within EU toward 'subsidiarity'
      2. Up to 50000 international organisations including INGOs etc.
         1. Many as social, intact or academic groups but others do deliver services such as Red Cross
      3. Multilevel governance example
         1. Environmental policy
            1. Role of G8, United Nations, EU protocols
            2. Central government - policies
            3. Regional/State government - policies and initiatives. E.g. california
            4. Local government - initiatives and implementation.
      4. Asymmetric multi-level governance
         1. MLG describes/theorises a change in the nature of government - ESP the spatial organisation
         2. It the process an even/uniform one
            1. EU centric literature? What about NAFTA/AU? The literature focuses on EU as its the best example, but are other countries so embedded in multi-level governance.
         3. What of power relations
            1. Example1.. EU asylum & border control
            2. I late 90s EU countries perceived a problem with number of asylum seekers. A difficult issue for a single country to control
            3. EU. Agreed a common framework on Asylum policy (Schengen)
            4. Only one application in EU should be possible
            5. Application had to be made in the first country the migrant landed in
            6. Accession states eg at the time Hungary or Czech republic were included in this. Geographically these states intended to become the buffer states.
            7. An example of how international cooperation can be used to achieve one country's aim over another's
            8. Example 2:
            9. IMF/WB/WTO forced Haiti to shlash tariff on imported rice
            10. Resulted in dumping US subsidised rice
            11. Haiti's rice production crashed under cheap input.
            12. US and EU "get away" with breaching "free trade" whilst imposing it on others?
            13. It might sound obvious, but the relationships between states and supranational bodies can be asymmetric.
3. Subnational
   1. Federal
      1. Lower tiers of government have an existence of their own, constitutionally
         1. Strengths
            1. Encourages compromise between federal and state level
            2. Well suited to large states
            3. Or state with different regions
            4. Can protect minority interests and diffuse ina country tensions (eg Belgium)
            5. Can respond to diffent needs
         2. Weaknesses
            1. Decision making blockages
            2. Eg Jim Crow laws
            3. Inefficiencies as policy need approval on different levels
            4. Passing the buck politics
            5. Could encourage disunity and disintegration
            6. Could deflect attention from national issue/problems
   2. Unitary
      1. Lower tiers of government derive their powers from national government and could be reorganised or even abolished at any time
         1. Fused
            1. Eg france
         2. Dual
            1. Eg uk
         3. Local self government
            1. Eg scandinavia
         4. Topic
      2. Strengths
         1. Effective decision making - you can simply override local government
         2. Central govt is accountable
         3. Can equalise sources
         4. Equal rights/duties for citizens
         5. Helps national integration
      3. Weaknesses
         1. Centre dominates periphery
            1. Eg poll tax applied to scotland whether or not they wanted it.
         2. Lack of local solutions to local problems
         3. National majorities ca xploit or repress national minorities.
   3. Issues for us national government
      1. Central to local political conflict
      2. Democracy versus efficiency
      3. In authoritarian or illiberal democracies central to local relations are different often
         1. Personal and party factors a significant in local government - so family members become regional governors ec
         2. Popularism of central authoritarian regime may encourage centrism.
   4. Trends
      1. I some countries local is consolidating into national government
      2. Growth of meso government - regional bodies
      3. Decentralisation in unitary states
      4. Centralisation in federal states
      5. Rise of identity politics rather than geographical
      6. Postmodern emphasis on diversity
4. Study skills - analysis
   1. Analysis versus description
   2. Exploring, critically, ideas, events, theories & concepts in such a way that you are evaluating their utility, strength and veracity.
   3. Don't have to do all this on your own - look for other positions, other authors
   4. Your opinion matters - but your opinion of academic texts, ideas and authors. You should be familiarising yourself and critically critically analysing academic literature.