Legitimacy Analysis of Multi‐Level Governance of Biodiversity: Evidence from 11 Case Studies across the EU

Abstract

ABSTRACT Legitimacy is one critical aspect of effective biodiversity governance. However, multi‐level governance contexts can pose several challenges to achieving legitimate governance solutions. This paper reviews some legitimacy challenges in multi‐level governance contexts, and analyzes eleven biodiversity governance case studies from different EU countries in the light of these challenges. Four legitimacy criteria – rule compatibility, accountability, inclusion, and transparency – serve as a framework for the theoretical review and for the empirical analysis. The results indicate that several legitimacy challenges can be observed in the cases: specifically the poor inclusion of relevant concerns in certain phases of decision‐making processes; difficulties in being simultaneously accountable to parties representing different governance levels; or the weak visibility of the decision‐making process either to the general public or to the immediate participants. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.