Multilevel Governance - from local communities to a true European community

The third Conference on European Democracy (EuDEM) focused on the concept of multilevel governance and the challenges that come with it. Multilevel governance emphasizes the dispersion of decision-making combining the different structures at local, regional, national and supranational level and characterizes the changing relationships between stakeholders both from the public and the private sectors. Against the background of the persistent crisis of legitimacy of government and democratic deficit within the European Union and its member states, multilevel governance could be an effective and viable solution. This book offers a diverse array of opinion on multilevel governance in Europe by high-level experts (academics as well as practitioners, mainly from the Council of Europe and the European Union) giving their different perspectives on "multilevel governance". Both editors have been dealing with European democracy and related institutional issues for many years, in academic research as well as by organizing public events or as a member or invited expert in institutions on European level.