Intergovernmental Relations and Multilevel Governance in the Age of Turbulence 

My blog posts on this site will examine trends towards increasing state-society partnerships and intergovernmental collaboration in the face of global socioeconomic restructuring. The past two decades have witnessed dramatic shifts in public policy, with increasing complexity not only in the relationships between the state, society, and the private sector, but also in the interactions among various orders of government in places such as Canada, the United States, and the European Union. I will examine how these seismic structural changes have impacted the work of public agencies and how these organizations are responding to turbulence in their operating environments.

I will explore mechanisms of decision-making and resource pooling across organizational boundaries, both across levels of government and beyond government. I will shed light on the role of non-state actors from the private and nonprofit sectors in addressing society’s pressing problems, with a focus on the resulting program and service delivery processes. You can expect to see examples from cases of economic reinvention and environmental governance issues in Canadian mid-sized regions to illustrate the concepts, structures and processes.

I will draw insights from the literature in public policy, public administration, urban and regional governance, and political economy to provide analyses of contemporary and emerging understandings of multilevel governance in the context of Canadian federalism with relevant lessons for other multitiered systems. Combining solid theoretical materials with concrete cases and practical lessons, the blog posts will be an invaluable resource for policy analysts, policymakers, practitioners across various tiers of government, and business and nonprofit leaders who regularly engage with governments.