20Received 26.06.2024. Revised 01.07.2024. Accepted 21.08.2024.
Acknowledgments. This article was prepared with the support of a grant from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation for major scientific projects in priority areas of scientific and technological development No. 075-15-2024-551 “Global and Regional Centers of Power in the Emerging World Order”.
Abstract. The article addresses to the concept of multi-level governance (MLG) in the context of its evolution. The author captures the contemporary stage of its development and identifies an increase in the number of vertical levels of distribution of power from three to five. At the same time, it is proposed to describe MLG not in original two dimensions (levels of power and actors/stakeholders) but in three dimensions adding horizontal engagement of entities/regions. As a metaphor to this type of governance, a Rubik’s cube is proposed. It demonstrates the flexibility in (re)constructing networks and sets between all three dimensions. In the part of empirical study, two cases of practical MLG application are analyzed: from the European Union’s common fisheries policy and migration policy. The study is concentrated on institutional problems that are caused and/or exacerbated by MLG. The first case deals with the implementation of landing obligation (LO) in fishing industry, which has become compulsory in the EU but not observed in practice. The low motivation to comply with discard bans is compounded by the lack of assurance that fishing communities in other regions will follow common rules in pursuit of an intangible common good at the expense of their own benefit. It was discovered that decentralization, which is a feature of MLG, affects the level of compliance of actors from the regional and local levels. Furthermore, decentralization not only requires different amounts of effort from different actors, but also blurs the responsibility for implementation making it possible for stakeholders to sabotage decisions that are unfavorable for them. The second case refers to the migration crisis in Slovenia in 2015–2016. It has shown one of the main vulnerabilities of MLG: inconsistent coordination of efforts between levels of government, which, at best, leads to ineffectiveness and malperformance, and at worst, – to institutional fragmentation.
Keywords: multi-level governance, European Union, common fisheries policy, discards, landing obligation, cross-cutting legitimacy, EU migration policy
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