CEP Intro Special Issue Bolleyer Swenden McEwen June 21 For Submission

A Theoretical Perspective on Multi-level Systems in Europe: Constitutional Power and Partisan Conflict Nicole Bolleyer (University of Exeter), Wilfried Swenden and Nicola McEwen (University of Edinburgh) Forthcoming: Comparative European Politics In recent years the study of multi-level systems has moved to the forefront of comparative research (e.g Keating, 2000; McKay 2001; Nicolaidis and Howse, 2001; Hooghe and Marks, 2003; Keleman 2004; Menon and Schain, 2007; Hooghe et al, 2008) Yet while multi-level dynamics and intergovernmental relations (IGR) have long been the prior focus of federalism research and, more recently, of Europeanization studies, research remains case-oriented or focused on ‘most similar cases’ We rarely examine multi-level systems across the federalunitary divide as well as within and beyond the boundaries of so-called nation states Yet, there is a strong need to develop such wider perspectives on multi-level systems Not only have lower-level governmentsi become more powerful in formally non-federal states such as Italy or the UK (Agranoff, 1999; Swenden, 2006; Keating, 2009; Marks et al, 2008) The EU itself is increasingly understood as a system of multi-level governance that has successively moved away from an initially predominantly intergovernmental structure (Scharpf, 2001; Kelemen, 2004) While trying to cope with this growing diversity, we need to deepen our understanding of how governments within multi-level systems coordinate on issues of mutual concern and the extent to which such processes of intergovernmental coordination have been shaped by party-political dynamics – two issues about which we still have little systematic knowledge The main aim of this special issue is to provide such an analysis, based on a comparative assessment of seven case studies Each represents a multi-level system within Europe, and together they span a confederal-federal-regionalized divide.ii In this introduction, we present a set of hypotheses that are applied to each case study in this special issue and subsequently classify our cases along the constitutional categories on which our hypotheses are based In essence, each case study examines the extent to which their confederal, federal or regionalized nature shapes (i) the dominant mode of day-to-day intergovernmental coordination (ii) the mode of formal competence (re)allocation that shapes the patterns of constitutional change over time and (iii) the relative impact of party (in)congruence across central and lower level governments on these coordination processes respectively Understanding how and why multi-level systems coordinate internally is important for three reasons First, on many issues, policy making requires some form of coordination between levels of government (vertical coordination) and/or between governments at the same level (horizontal coordination) In today’s increasingly complex and interdependent world few policies can be attributed exclusively to one level alone (Marks et al 2008) iii The absence of coordination can lead to inefficiencies and ultimately undermine the productivity of a multilevel system as a whole Second, irrespective of these interdependencies and efficiencies, governments representing levels or units with a strong sense of identity (e.g sub-state nations in plurinational states, or member-states vis-à-vis government at the EU level) may prefer policy ownership or autonomy over policy coordination (Agranoff, 1999; 2004; McEwen, 2005; Keating, 2009) While this has the potential to reinforce centrifugal forces within these multi-level systems, recognising and accommodating distinctiveness and demands for autonomy are often central to maintaining their integrity Third, multi-level systems that require a high degree of coordination are prone to executive dominance inviting legitimacy deficits as well as accountability problems due to blame-shifting (Nicolaidis and Howse, 2001; Benz and Papadopoulos, 2006; Bednar, 2008) Similarly, they are prone to immobilism if the political will to coordinate is lacking The case study literature indicates that each of these challenges is reinforced by party-political incongruence across governments (e.g Lehmbruch, 1978; Scharpf, 1988; 1995; Bolleyer and Bytzek, 2009; Cairney, 2012; Wyn Jones and Royles, 2012) We propose to approach these questions from a constitutional perspective, although with the rising popularity of the ‘multi-level approach’ to analysing the complexities and dynamics of multi-level structures, the study of the constitutional dimensions of multi-level systems has gone ‘out of fashion’ In fact, scholars of multi-level governance have pointed to a wide range of factors such as administrative, fiscal and economic resources, policy communities, and policy networks or political leadership which in various combinations can help governments to undercut constitutional patterns of authority and ‘work around’ a formal ‘shadow of hierarchy’ (e.g Rhodes, 2007; 1996; Bache and Flinders, 2004; Cairney, 2006; Piattoni, 2010) These ‘multi-level governance’ approaches have focused on institutions from a neo-institutionalist perspective, building on very broad conceptions of ‘institutions’ covering not only formal structures but also institutionally embedded norms and perceptions (Peters, 1999) Consequently, the degree to which formal constitutional structures continue to explain or shape the multi-level dynamics we see today has been rarely examined through cross-national comparative research Without doubt, the ‘multi-level’ and ‘neo-institutionalist turn’ in case study and comparative research has generated new insights into territorial politics and governance across a variety of institutional boundaries But there is a danger that we may throw the baby out with the bathwater, and neglect the enduring importance of constitutional design To avoid doing so, this special issue deliberately returns to ‘classical institutionalism’ stressing and examining the importance of formal-legal rules in shaping the dynamics of intergovernmental interaction within multi-level systems The federalism literature has traditionally stressed the importance of constitutional categories for intergovernmental dynamics as well as the role of partisan conflict or cooperation for the functioning of multi-level structures, two lines of argument which we will bring together in our hypotheses presented below These hypotheses, derived from what we refer to as the ‘comparative federalism scenario’ provide the ‘baseline’ along which the complexities of the systems included in the special issue will be assessed Doing so will allow us – when finally looking at the full range of case studies – not only to evaluate the validity of the hypotheses but also to systematically pin down the core factors that need to be integrated into a framework on multi-level dynamics beyond constitutional features and partisan dynamics We believe that pointing to the complex interplay of multiple factors that shape the specific dynamics of individual regimes and using this as our analytical starting point would limit our capacity too much to formulate systematic expectations about how types of regimes are likely to operate and how we can account for differences between regime types This is especially the case as we move beyond ‘most similar cases’ to the broad range of confederal-federalregionalized states examined within this special issue By deriving expectations from abstract analytical distinctions through which we can handle diversity, such as the presence or absence of constitutional hierarchy between central and lower-level governments, we can more easily ‘cut across’ specificities that indeed exist for each case and identify similarities and differences more effectively Hence while we except that specific cases will inevitably only correspond to our theoretical expectations in part, we prefer this to a ‘sui generis’ approach that takes the uniqueness or the idiosyncrasies of a particular case as its starting assumption, but in the process risks undermining our capacity to engage in systematic cross-national comparisons from the outset Reflecting this strategy, we not incorporate alternative societal or historical-institutionalist approaches as part of the framework for the special issue Such attempts would inevitably be incomplete, arbitrarily prioritizing some factors over others Instead, we turn to these broader approaches in the conclusion in light of the factors that are identified by several case studies as having a significant, systematic impact on our dependent variables, independent of, or in association with, the constitutional framework of multi-level systems which is the focus of our approach I The ‘Comparative Federalism Scenario’: Three Constitutional Types of Multi-level Systems and their Implications for Multi-level Dynamics Our core hypotheses are derived from prominent assumptions within the comparative federalism literature, which is why – for the sake of parsimony – our approach will be referred to as the ‘comparative federalism scenario’ throughout this special issue In the federalism literature, constitutional categories of multi-level government are considered to be important factors shaping IGR (e.g Watts, 1999; Thorlakson, 2003; Fillipov et al 2004) Drawing on existing categorizations (Elazar, 1993; Watts, 1998), we can identify three major constitutional categories – confederal, federal and regionalized – defined by the position of the centre in the respective multi-level arrangement as compared to the position of lowerlevel governments Confederations have a weak and, in principle, subordinate centre In federal arrangements, the centre and subunits share sovereignty since both have a constitutionally protected status and cannot be unilaterally disempowered by the other tier of government In regionalized arrangements, the centre – constitutionally speaking - has the final say, notwithstanding the presence of lower tiers of government with legislative powers (that may or may not be constitutionally entrenched) Looking carefully at the criteria on which this categorization is built, we can compare these three regime types along two interlinked yet separate dimensions and derive different expectations with regard to their internal dynamics accordingly First, we can ask whether lower-level governments in a multi-level arrangement enjoy constitutional protection or not (irrespective of the centre’s position) If we assume that this feature affects governments’ coordination behaviour towards each other and towards the centre, we would expect certain similarities between confederations and federal arrangements as compared to regionalized ones Second, we can ask whether one level of government is constitutionally superior to the other, i.e whether or not there is a constitutional hierarchy inherent in the arrangement (irrespective of whether that constitutional superiority lies with the centre or the lower tier) If we consider the presence or the absence of a constitutionally in-built hierarchy as crucial, we would expect similar dynamics in confederal and regionalized arrangements (albeit with different levels playing the dominant part) as compared to federal arrangements In essence, we hypothesise that both the presence of absence of constitutional protection of lower-level governments and the presence or absence of constitutional hierarchy shape multilevel dynamics, in terms of the exercise of authority and the exploitation of spaces of autonomy on behalf of governments making up the system We capture ‘dynamics’ through the process and nature of intergovernmental co-ordination These can be identified in a variety of ways, including: (i) the degree of institutionalization of intergovernmental processes; (ii) the extent of collaboration, conflict and stalemate between governments at different tiers within the system; (iii) the tendency toward multi-lateral co-ordination involving most or all governmental authorities, either vertically or horizontally, or conversely, a prevalence of bilateral arrangements between central government and other governmental units individually; and (iv) the extent, pace and impact of competence reallocation upon the structure and integrity of the multi-level arrangement in the longue durée In line with ‘classical institutionalism’, we focus on basic dynamics as incentivized by the constitutional dispositions inherent in a regime to capture basic developmental trends on the meso and macro level, well aware that there might be variations across space and time within particular cases and constitutional structures Multi-level dynamics can be the intended product of the choices of intergovernmental actors but equally the unintended consequence of their choices in arenas that are separate to, but still affect, processes in the intergovernmental sphere For example, shifting blame to the central level might help a regional government to win votes at the next regional election, but undermine its chances of successful intergovernmental negotiations in the longer run (see Benz and Broschek, 2013 for a fuller discussion) In the framework developed below, we set out the ways in which these constitutional dimensions may have a distinctive effect on intergovernmental dynamics In the first case, we expect the constitutional status of lower-level governments to generate dispositions towards particular modes of intergovernmental coordination (in day-to-day interaction as well as in formal competence (re)allocation across time) In the second case, we expect the presence or absence of a constitutional hierarchy to affect the degree to which party-political differences or similarities feed into intergovernmental coordination I.1 The Impact on Constitutional Differences on Intergovernmental Coordination Starting with the dimension expected to shape the nature of intergovernmental coordination, confederations and federal arrangements are similar in giving the lower level governments (member-states or sub-state units) constitutionally entrenched policy autonomy and a direct say in competence (re)allocation As such, they may be better placed to defend their decisionmaking capacity within their areas of jurisdiction because they can veto changes in the allocation of competencies Lower level units within regionalized arrangements not have the same formal constitutional protection or power, and such arrangements therefore tend to give the central government a greater say on matters of intergovernmental co-ordination and constitutional reform, reflecting ‘a shadow of hierarchy’ built into the system (Héritier and Lehmkuhl, 2008) In regionalized arrangements, where the centre can, in principle, unilaterally withdraw competences from the lower level, it may thus use its dominance to impose top-down intergovernmental coordination.iv The subunits or lower-level governments in confederal and federal multi-level arrangements share the same constitutional status (assuming there is more than one relevant unit v), which we expect to feed into the nature of formal and informal coordination structures which these governments set up to handle day-to-day intergovernmental interactions In these multi-level polities, we hypothesize that lower-level governments are more likely to engage in multilateral structures of coordination both horizontally and vertically than in regionalized regimes, where they remain more directly dependent on the goodwill of the centre (H1) Multilateral coordination structures are not only activated in the day-to-day coordination of policy, but also in debates on the reallocation of competencies, which is why they can be expected to affect the nature of constitutional competence reallocation as well: because subunits in a federal or confederal setting have the same constitutionally guaranteed status, they are keen to be treated equally when competences are reallocated in the system implying symmetry of competence allocation in the long run Thus, our second hypothesis suggests that, in the long run, these dynamics are conducive to perpetuating a symmetrical distribution in the allocation of competencies, since each government is in a constitutionally equally strong position to guard its autonomy (H2) In regionalized arrangements, where lower-level governments have a weaker status, we expect individual lower level governments to be excluded more easily from policy coordination and from debates on the reallocation of competencies Multilateral coordination structures are likely to be weaker and lower level governments will tend to resort to bilateral strategies of coordination with the centre if this opportunity arises To compensate for their weaker constitutional status, each unit will try to use whatever resources it has to get a good deal from the centre, which implies that other non-formal factors should come into play to shape the nature of coordination, such as cultural identity, population size, and relative economic strength of the lower-level unit This does not only imply a greater use of bilateral or less inclusive channels for negotiation but also a greater diversity in the type of intergovernmental agreements struck on a day-to-day basis In the long run this behaviour on behalf of lower-level units will reinforce the asymmetric competence distribution in the system I.2 The Relative Impact of Party-Political Dynamics across Multi-level Systems Traditional federalist approaches have pointed toward the importance of partisan dynamics in shaping multi-level interactions (Lehmbruch 1976; 1998) Parties in regional government, but in federal opposition, are more likely to adopt a confrontational intergovernmental strategy in relation to the central government, because they have opposing vote-seeking, office-seeking and programmatic objectives For the opposite reason, multi-level co-ordination is assumed to be facilitated when engagement is between governments of the same party or ideological family We hypothesize that the extent to which the party composition of interacting governments (whether through congruence or incongruence) feeds into multi-level dynamics will be shaped by the constitutional make-up of the system More specifically, the presence or absence of a constitutional hierarchy can be conceptualized as an intervening variable that mediates the effect of party-political (in)congruence on multi-level co-ordination Regionalized and confederal arrangements are both characterised by a constitutional hierarchy between levels In a regionalized setting, the centre is supreme; whereas in a confederal arrangement the units of the confederation (strictly speaking, the ‘member-states’) retain full sovereignty vi In a formal sense, at least, this distinguishes regional and confederal from federal arrangements, in which the centre and the regions are sovereign within their own spheres of competence In multi-level polities where one level operates under a shadow of hierarchy, subordinate units may feel an implicit threat that conflict could provoke a diminution of their competences or similar negative repercussions beyond their control Constitutionally weaker units may therefore opt for an overall cooperative strategy, downplaying partisan differences By contrast, in federal arrangements, the absence of constitutional hierarchy implies that in periods of political incongruence, partisan differences can have a significant effect because neither level has to fear that a clash might threaten its status in the system (H3) This may accelerate the problem that individual governments interested in expanding their autonomy might so by behaviour which damages the system as a whole since they are immune to heavy sanctions (Riker 1964; Bednar 2009) The temptation to exploit leeway to the detriment of other governments or to insist on autonomous policy solutions is likely to be more pronounced when dealing with a 10 government ruled by a rival party with whom one shares little ideological ground (Swenden 2002; Thorlakson 2007; Bolleyer 2009; McEwen et al, 2012) The extent to which this is so will be influenced by the nature of the multi-level party system, and the extent to which parties compete across institutional and territorial boundaries (Swenden and Maddens, 2009) Still, party-political (in)congruence should matter more in federal than in confederations and regionalized arrangements [INSERT TABLE HERE] Table sums up our three hypotheses The constitutional equality of lower-level units in federal and confederal arrangements is expected to favour the creation and usage of multilateral intergovernmental institutions, in which the participating governments are formally embedded as equal partners This, in turn, is expected to produce a tendency towards multilateral agreements and, in the longer run, to generate the symmetrical (re)allocation of competencies By comparison, the lack of constitutional equality of the subunits in regionalized arrangements is expected to result in less inclusive and more variable forms of coordination and agreements and, with it, more asymmetrical patterns of competence reallocation In multi-level systems in which subunits benefit from equal protection (federal arrangements), we expect partisan differences to feed more forcefully into IGR than in systems with a constitutional hierarchy (confederal or regionalized polities), where the formally inferior governments can be expected to pursue a more cooperative approach and downplay differences in negotiations with the superior partner to maintain the latter’s goodwill 11 II Comparing Multi-level Dynamics So far, we have formulated expectations regarding the impact of two dimensions associated with our constitutionally defined regime types on three separate variables These variables are the dominant mode of coordination that shapes day-to-day intergovernmental interaction, the pattern of formal competence reallocation in the system over time and the relative impact of party (in)congruence on IGR To capture the dominant coordination mode for day-to-day interaction (H1), the case studies will explore the type of intergovernmental institutions and procedures governments utilize to engage in negotiations or collective problem-solving (which can but not need to have a statutory basis); the relative use of these various institutions and procedures; and the nature of intergovernmental agreements Intergovernmental institutions are created and used by governments, whose behaviour we expect to be shaped by the nature of the constitutional setting in which they are embedded They can be read as a direct reflection of the basic authority structure or balance of power between governmental levels as defined by the basic constitutional configuration between central and lower level governments In terms of operationalization of the dominant coordination mode, it is of particular importance whether multilateral institutions covering all or most government units are the central locus of IGR, or whether special deals between a smaller subset or even bilateral agreements are predominant, which not only bypass or substitute multilateral structures but also allow for more diversity in the treatment of different subunits In other words, each case study assesses whether day-today intergovernmental coordination ‘reflects’ the constitutional status of the respective units, as hypothesized above 12 In addition to this detailed assessment of intergovernmental infrastructures and their evolution, the case studies assess whether constitutional dispositions – as they induce particular modes of coordination – also affect the patterns of constitutional reform and competence reallocation in the longer run (H2) More concretely, they examine whether a symmetrical or asymmetrical approach is adopted when the competence allocation in a system is changed In other words, are competences (re)allocated away from, or toward, the subnational level ‘as a whole’ or are special deals made with particular governments that over time increase the differences between lower-level governments and deepen the formal asymmetry within the system (The latter would, in turn, make multilateralism on a day-today basis more difficult due to the growing formal diversity and inequality ‘within’ the subnational level) To examine the role of party (in)congruence in a system (H3) each case study first assesses the level of vertical and horizontal (in)congruence across governments and governmental levels over time – in terms of party organizational linkages and ideological overlap The studies then examine whether periods of incongruence intensify inter-governmental conflict, and whether congruence facilitates coordination across governments Conversely, they assess whether intergovernmental conflict evolves independently of the partisan composition of governments interacting with each other, suggesting that it is more strongly shaped by other factors II.1 Case Selection and Classification of Multi-level Systems In this special issue seven European multi-level systems are analyzed, all of which have directly elected parliaments at the central (or confederal) and lower levels Furthermore, their lower-level governments (regional parliaments in federal and regionalized arrangements and 13 states in confederal arrangements) hold significant legislative competences vii, whose allocation to distinct tiers tends to be a central source of coordination pressure in the system.viii Table classifies the seven systems according to whether lower-level governments have an equal constitutionally protected status and whether the unilateral withdrawal of competences (away from the subunits or the centre) is possible (i.e whether or not we find a constitutional hierarchy) It also indicates whether lower-level governments have a say in central lawmaking Usually - but not always - the constitutionally protected status of subunits is linked to shared rule requirements, i.e the extent to which subunits can participate in central decision making, usually via a second chamber (Swenden 2010) The possibility to protect own spheres of decision making from interference and to block central decision making, however, are separate sources of power for lower-level units, which is why, although this is often argued in the literature, the presence of a powerful second chamber does not determine the weakness or strength of ‘executive federalism’, i.e intergovernmental institutions created by them to handle collective problems linked to the use of their own spaces of autonomy (e.g negative spill-over effects; Bolleyer 2009) As Table shows, we have multi-level systems that are characterized by federal arrangements (i.e the self-rule of lower level units is constitutionally protected) without strong, formally guaranteed shared rule Whether lowerlevel governments in federal arrangements also have a say about national law making naturally affects their overall strength towards the centre and therefore has implications for how clearly our hypotheses play out However, this feature does not qualitatively alter the basic systemic logic captured by our categorization and the way we expect the latter to affect intergovernmental dynamics Furthermore, while we have systems characterised by federal arrangements without strong shared rule arrangements in place (Spain, the Åland Islands), we 14 not have any system in which the autonomy of the subunits is not constitutionally protected, while subunits are granted shared rule Consequently, the basic constitutional recognition of a subunit and its protection seems a necessary pre-condition for granting them a say in central decision-making, which is why a basic analytical classification as ours should be based on the former Since simultaneously formally guaranteed shared rule in the centre cross-cuts this classification, it cannot form part of our theoretical argument [INSERT TABLE HERE] Our distinction between regionalized, federal and confederal arrangements captures the systemic character of a multi-level system as they are formally defined However, it should be noted that our use of the term ‘arrangements’ to identify constitutional design is deliberate, intended to encompass the breadth within these categories and the subtle nuances and qualifications necessary once we look at each case in greater detail in the case studies and the final comparative assessment The ‘federal arrangements’ category, in particular, encompasses two historic federations, Germany and Switzerland, and one case, Spain, where the federal nature of the system is not formally enshrined and often hotly disputed In Finland, the Åland Islands enjoy special status within the Finnish unitary state, with a level of constitutionally protected autonomy not granted to any other Finnish region, a fundamentally asymmetrical arrangement characterized in the literature as ‘federacy’ (Elazar 1988; Stepan, Linz and Yadav, 2011) With regard to the working of the democracy as a whole, such an isolated federal arrangement has different implications than federalism on the level of the ‘polity’, while the provision of guaranteed autonomy to a lower-level government – a core component of our framework - is still present 15 Thus, rather than separate it out as a unique constitutional structure, we treat ‘federacy’ as a special type of a federal arrangement Accepting that the special features of this particular are likely to leave their imprint on multi-level dynamics, we still expect the absence of a constitutional hierarchy to influence the various cases falling in the overall analytical category of federal arrangement It is further noteworthy that the breadth of cases covered in this volume allows us to move beyond the classical ‘fully federalized’ cases This is important because the trend of recent years towards regionalization has generated constitutional make-ups which look less like text-book templates of carefully planned ideal-type federal regimes In ‘holding together’ or ‘plurinational states’ (Stephan and Yadav 2011), for instance, the systemic structure will reflect the compromises that emerged from negotiations between a central government often reluctant to give up competences and various lower-level governments asking for more autonomy Moreover, this dynamic is often a semi-permanent feature of such states, ensuring that debates over competence reallocation frequently colour intergovernmental deliberations Competences are not necessarily symmetrically distributed in systems that evolved from a unitary over a regionalized to a federal arrangement, a process in which some subunits might succeed in negotiating effective constitutional protection of their autonomy, where others either fail to secure or seek such protection For instance, in federal Belgium, the constitutional status of the Brussels Capital Region or the (tiny) German-speaking Community is inferior to that of the Flemish and Walloon Regions and the Flemish and French Communities Similar asymmetries in constitutional status have periodically developed and diminished in Spain, as the historic communities (or ‘nationalities’) assert their special status and advance autonomy claims and other autonomous communities gradually catch up, until the cycle commences once more (Zuber 2011; Hombrado 2011) 16 Democracies that originate as federal tend to consider the constitutionally protected status of separate tiers of government as constitutive (which logically implies equal protection for subunits from the centre) In Germany the ‘federal principle’ is protected by the eternity clause (Art 79, paragraph 3), of the constitution that cannot be changed by the legislator, not even by two 2/3 majorities in the Bundestag and the federal Bundesrat, the usual requirement for constitutional amendments Similarly, ‘coming together federations’ such as Switzerland but also the US naturally start out from the equality of initially sovereign, lower-level units, a starting-point that shapes the position of the lower tier in the regime in the long term (Riker 1964) While the centre in those systems was initially inferior (which is also why lower-level units could assure their strong impact in national decision-making), the formal recognition of the constitutional status of the central government and a successive centralization of competences, alongside the nationalization of politics, strengthened the position of the centre in the long run without however sacrificing the constitutional status of the lower-level units The only case of a confederal configuration in our special issue is the EU and also here we have observed a strengthening of the centre over time Yet while the European level in the form of supranational institutions in the EU is by now stronger than the US federal government under the former Articles of Confederation (1776-1789), which was clearly inferior to the states (Elazar, 2001), EU member states can – subject to securing negotiated agreement - withdraw competences from the European level and re-nationalize them That the hurdle to so in the face of 27 member states is very high does not change the basic classification that unilateral competence withdrawal by the member states would be possible, which allows for the application of the above hypotheses While the classification of the EU as a confederation can be debated (for alternative classifications, see McKay, 2001; Keleman, 17 2004; Fossum and Menéndenz, 2011), the fact that it is the only case of a confederation covered in this study does not mean that this boils down to a – de facto – ‘sui generis approach’, setting the EU apart from other multi-level systems Considering the concept’s implications in the context of the two alternative (federal and regionalized) categories, suggests the opposite The differentiation between three types of constitutional arrangements as the foundation of two generally applicable hypotheses allows us to specify in which respects the EU as a confederation can be expected to resemble regionalized arrangements and in which respects it can be expected to resemble federal arrangements instead Whether our expectations hold empirically will be examined in the articles which follow III Structure of the Special Issue In the special issue contributions, these seven cases are discussed in seven articles along the order provided in Table 2, starting with the confederal EU and concluding with regionalized Italy The multi-level system in which the ‘subunits’ are strongest is the European Union Although the system is evolving from a ‘confederation’ towards a quasi-federal arrangement, the allocation of powers between the levels is still dominated by the member states While sharing the protection of lower-level autonomy, the category of federal arrangements is most heterogeneous as already discussed Cases can be ranked according to the subunits’ relative influence Switzerland, a federal polity, comes in its actual working closest to a balance of power between the levels, while Germany has adopted some ‘unitary’ features with a comparatively stronger centre In both systems, however, the subunits are strengthened by their formal involvement in national decision-making We suggest Spain has developed into a predominantly federal polity, in practice if not in constitutional law, though the access of the lower-level governments to central decision-making is still underdeveloped Finland’s special 18 relationship with the Åland Islands qualifies as a federal arrangement, yet without this isolated, lower-level unit’s formal right (as the Swiss cantons or German Länder) or factual weight (as the Spanish regions) to influence national politics The case studies conclude with two regionalized arrangements, the UK and Italy have undergone decentralizing reforms which by now grant most territorial units some autonomy but the overall dynamics of both systems are still shaped by a relatively dominant centre The final article will contrast the core findings of the case studies and assesses them from a cross-national perspective to evaluate to which extent our constitutional categories and the hypotheses we derived from them contributed to an understanding of intergovernmental dynamics in multi-level systems References: - Agranoff, R (Ed.) 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McEwen, N (2005) The Territorial Politics of Social Policy Development in Multi-level States Regional and Federal Studies 15(4): 537-54 - McEwen, N., Swenden W and Bolleyer N (2012) Introduction:... very broad conceptions of ‘institutions’ covering not only formal structures but also institutionally embedded norms and perceptions (Peters, 1999) Consequently, the degree to which formal constitutional... hold empirically will be examined in the articles which follow III Structure of the Special Issue In the special issue contributions, these seven cases are discussed in seven articles along the