Book Review: Benz, Arthur. 2024. Rethinking Multilevel Governance. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar

Abstract

Does multilevel governance still have any relevance for understanding our political world today? This question is the starting point that informs Arthur Benz's (2024) latest state-of-the-art monograph. It is an important and remarkable question to ask, considering that multilevel governance as a concept has become a real growth industry in political science since it emerged in the context of European integration in the early 1990s. Today, scholarship spans a broad spectrum of research areas like comparative federalism and regionalism (Benz, 2016; Börzel & Risse, 2016; Hooghe & Marks, 2016), global governance (Zürn, 2010, 2018), municipal and regional governance (Conteh, 2020; Tatham, 2021), Indigenous-settler relations (Alcantara & Nelles, 2014; Breen & Thomas, 2021; Papillon, 2012, 2015) or European Integration (Hooghe & Marks, 2003; Kohler-Koch & Rittberger, 2006; Piattoni, 2009, 2010, for a general overview see Bache & Flinders, 2004; Benz et al., 2021; Enderlein et al., 2010).

Although these developments appear to point towards an erosion of multilevel governance, Benz argues the opposite, empirically and normatively. Despite significantly changing contextual conditions, multilevel governance has not become irrelevant. On the contrary, we have many reasons to critically reflect on how the concept can be applied in the current context, and how multilevel governance can still facilitate legitimate and effective policy-making. In his latest book, Benz offers convincing conceptual and theoretical innovations as to how scholarship needs to “rethink” multilevel governance after more than 30 years of research.