Global Politics Project

    NATIONAL GOVERNMENT & MULTILEVEL GOVERNANCE        

The terms government and governance can seem the same, but there’s a big difference between them. Government is a term which refers to the formal and institutional processes which operate at the national level to maintain order and facilitate collective action. Government is based on the system of hierarchies.  Whereas, governance is a much more complex term and despite it doesn’t have a settled meaning, it is considered the various ways through which social life is coordinated. The term governance became popular in the end of 20th century, when the globalization and capitalism became stronger. It led to decrease of the government’s portion in the governance. The growth of the neo-liberalism changed the policy making process. Instead of only the government making the policies, certain groups and organizations got involved in the policy making process and this is called a policy network.

The transition from government to governance reflected not only in the complex ways through which social life is coordinated, but it also caused the government to stretch across the different levels. In other words, government is no longer considered as a set of institutions that take place on the national level. This phenomenon is called multi-level governance, which can be local, regional, global and a combination of several of them. The phenomenon Multi-level governance includes decentralization which is growth of the local autonomy by shifting power from national to regional authority, localization that is trend to favor the local authorities, devolution which is giving power to the regional authorities from the central body but the power is strongly controlled by the center.